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Russia Claims Large Chunk of North Pole
kungfoofairy writes "Russia has laid claim to over one million square kilometers of the Artic. This announcement comes on the return of a scientific expedition into the region which found that the Lomonosov Ridge connects to Russia. The area is supposed to have a reserve of 10 billion tons of natural gas and oil. 'A BBC map shows Russia's proposal; this set of maps from The New York Times illustrates the area at stake and different ways it might be divided ... The Russians have tried to advance their claim before, and were turned away by the United Nations in 2001. The new geological data is evidently meant to improve the odds for a second try. '"
Countries that would get most by method one:
We like method 1!
Countries that would get most by method two:
No, method 2 is better!
Repeat every 6 years until the whole thing melts and/or people realise that country borders are arbitrary and their first responsibility should be to the human race.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,211328 9,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
... Canada!!
Yesterday, however, some scientists doubted whether Russia's latest Arctic grab stood up to scrutiny.
To extend a zone, a state has to prove that the structure of the continental shelf is similar to the geological structure within its territory. Under the current UN convention on the laws of the sea, no country's shelf extends to the North Pole. Instead, the International Seabed Authority administers the area around the pole as an international area.
"Frankly I think it's a little bit strange," Sergey Priamikov, the international co-operation director of Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersburg, told the Guardian. "Canada could make exactly the same claim. The Canadians could say that the Lomonosov ridge is part of the Canadian shelf, which means Russia should in fact belong to Canada, together with the whole of Eurasia."
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Pwned! All your base are belong to
Can the US claim Quebec and Nova Scotia since the Appalachian mountains run into them?
And here I thought the North Pole was a single infinitely small point.
You are probably more right than you know. The first step is to convince people that things weren't really that bad.
The bears and seals have had, literally, thousands of years to exploit these resources. If they aren't going to use it they should darn well stand aside for someone who is, period.
They had their chance.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
We're talking about an economic boon that will last decades. Of course people are going to fight over it. Any (fictional) "oil running out, world in panic" scenario would only make it all the more valuable.
Your argument is like saying, "Well, there's a gigantic diamond buried under the fence between me and my neighbor. I'll just let them have it because diamonds are going to run out anyways."
From a more practical standpoint, Russia is grasping at straws. They went from superpower to "not that impressive except for all the nukes." Their GDP is, what, a bit over a trillion dollars per year compared to our 11 trillion? Yet, they still have the pride of a superpower. Just like how if America fell from the top of the world stage, we'd still see ourselves as deserving that status, they too tend to see this as just a setback. Natural resource exploitation seems a good way to bring in money to their economy that could help resurrect their backwards industrial base. It also has geopolitical significance; "take my side or I shut off the taps" makes a nice threat, even when not spoken.
Of course, the resource you're threatening over better *actually* be a big deal. Let's not forget Sudan's threat to devastate the world by stopping sales of acacia gum. I love the terrifying wording:
What's more, the good and peaceful leaders of Sudan were prepared to retaliate massively: They would cut off shipments of the emulsifier gum arabic, thereby depriving the world of cola.
"I want you to know that the gum arabic which runs all the soft drinks all over the world, including the United States, mainly 80 percent is imported from my country," the ambassador said after raising a bottle of Coca-Cola.
A reporter asked if Sudan was threatening to "stop the export of gum arabic and bring down the Western world."
"I can stop that gum arabic and all of us will have lost this," Khartoum Karl warned anew, beckoning to the Coke bottle. "But I don't want to go that way."
As diplomatic threats go, that one gets high points for creativity: Try to stop the killings in Darfur, and we'll take away your Coca-Cola.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
I say we file our claim for the Arctic before they get a chance to correct their misspelling.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
If only you two were serious; squabbles between petty powers can be almost amusing. For example, Tonga vs. the Republic of Minerva. A group of businessmen founded an organization with the goal of creating a libertarian paradise called the "Republic of Minerva". They spent a fortune shipping sand onto a section of the remote, submerge Minerva Reef, raised it above sea level, erected a small stone platform and a flag, and announced their independence. They issued their own currency and started working on everything it is that a country does. Sadly for the libertarian idealists, Tonga rallied every troop they could muster from their 100,000 person nation, including a band of convicts, a brass band, and Tonga's 350-pound king. They invaded and conquered the miniscule sand pile, losing one man in the process of taking the uninhabited island (I kid not; a fight broke out among two of the convicts. The Republic of Minerva had a murder rate higher than its population).
The whole thing would have made a great YouTube video.
Will nothing stop Tonga's unbridled military might? We must stop the Greater Tongan Co-Prosperity Sphere before it is too late!
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Why do people mod things up just because they're anti-US?
Most of the world's major maritime powers agree with the US position that this is an international strait. If anything, it's Canada here that is acting unilaterally.
Although the OP is correct; the Canadians who depend on the US for their defense do not have the means to defend their claim even if they wanted to. That's reality for you I guess.
Oh, give me a break. While this tactic may work in some cases, there's no escaping the fact that oil is a finite resource, and that at some point, your oil field will be empty.
There's nothing sinister about stopping production before you've exhausted an oil field, either. At some point, it simply gets too expensive to recover the remaining oil, because of contaminants leaking into the field, or because the remaining oil is too thick/viscous to be pumped up without heating it first, etc. As the price of oil rises, restarting production may become economically viable again. We're seeing this happen at a local oil field (Schoonebeek), btw. Production stopped in 1996, when about 25% of the known contents of the field were pumped out. They're considering restarting production now, and expect to recover another 15% (150 million barrels).