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Denmark Makes Claim To North Pole, Based On Undersea Geography
As reported by The Independent, A scientific study has found that Greenland is actually connected to the area beneath the polar ice where the North Pole lies – thanks to a huge stretch of continental crust known as the Lomonosov Ridge.
Since Greenland is a Danish territory, that gives the country the right to put its hat in the ring for ownership of the stretch of land, Denmark’s foreign minister [Martin Lidegaard ] said. ... Of the five Arctic countries – the US, Russia, Norway, Canada and Denmark —only Canada and Russia had indicated an interest in the North Pole territory until now. "This is a historical milestone for Denmark and many others as the area has an impact on the lives of lot of people. After the U.N. panel had taken a decision based on scientific data, comes a political process," Lidegaard told The Associated Press in an interview on Friday. "I expect this to take some time. An answer will come in a few decades. Why such a big deal? As Business Insider notes, The U.S. currently estimates that the Arctic sea bed could contain 15% of the earth's remaining oil, along with 30% of the planet's natural gas and 20% of its liquefied natural gas. Whichever country is able to successfully claim the Arctic would have the right to extract these resources.
Well, denmark, for example, is focused on renewables. Doesn't mean they don't want to be the ones pumping up the oil and selling it. You can do other things with oil besides burning it also. I wouldn't put it past the danes to claim it as theirs and then not pump it in the name of protecting the arctic. They just might be altruistic enough.
Using this logic, wouldn't Greenland be part of Canada?
They are claimed by big ass oil companies. The profit is privatized whilst all the environmental problems are offloaded to the general public (called state). The company can legally offshore its profits and pay virtually no taxes. For the company it doesn't really matter which country claims the territory - the mere fact that one does is sufficient. It will then bribe the responsible politicians of that country to get the rights to extraction.
Interesting fact: "timothy" is actually a Turing Test. As can be seen, machines have still not shown intelligence.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
... honestly think that they can keep Greenland under their thumb for that long? Greenland already doesn't want to be part of Denmark - 75% voted for independence in a nonbinding referrendum in 2008 with a 72% turnout. The wealthier they become and the greater the percentage of the wealth that Denmark siphons away, the more they're going to want it. If Greenland and its EEZ start raking in trillions of dollars annually (which is the sort of mineral wealth up for grabs), how low in the single-digits do you think the popularity of remaining part of Denmark will be? For every trillion of GDP that'd be nearly $17M per capita, at Greenland's current population.
Is Denmark going to force Greenland to stay with them by the gun?
"We consider that six courts and an asylum claim are a rather odd way of returning to Sweden within a month."
Two words: Resource Wars. Or another way of saying it is, for all practical purposes, the only country with the ability to affect the rights to this region is Russia. Only Russia owns a fleet of nuclear icebreakers to get to this frozen floating turd and maintain a shipping lane.
Or more realistically, of the parties listed contesting the north pole, only Russia has a fleet of fourth generation Akula and Severodvinsk tactical submarines capable of listlessly patrolling the sea and torpedoing the first canadian or danish friate that decides to stake a claim.
What we should be doing is moving past this "resource extraction" economy of profiteering through squandered potential. The country that will benefit the most from the north pole is the one that realizes the cost in human and monetary capital in the long term outweighs any financial gain in the short term and decides to pursue renewables instead.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Canadian here. Much of the "ownership" of the north is symbolic. The ownership is in most ways determined by use (of the lack thereof). This is why there are stupid islands that Canadian and Danish forces regularly visit, even if in dispute, as they can claim they still "use" it. Even if like the moon, it is only to set foot on the barren rock and plant a flag for symbolism. The folks sent there I think have about the right attitude about the whole practice as I recall, Canadian forces leaving booze for the Danes to find, and likewise they would leave booze for the Canadians.
This is why I thought Stephen Harper was such an idiot on this topic. When talking about the ownership of the North, he decided that he should do a pork project to build "Ice Hardened" warships in the idea of protecting our claim to the North (As if they are going to fire on anything but perhaps some arctic seals). They are however of a Finnish design, and are basically armored corvettes. Unless however the polar ice gets very very thin and all but vanishes however, they are not going to be very capable. What we should have done was expanded and improved our fleet of real ice breakers.
As I hate to say it, but all the UN and other countries can say what you will, but only one country currently really has claim, the same one with the largest fleet of icebreakers in the world, the only one to actually build nuclear ice breakers, and has a fleet of 12 or so of them. As when it comes down to having the capability of actually using the north for anything, they are the only ones that really can effectively. Even if you say with the weakening of polar ice, that will take time, and the only country that will be able to take advantage of it first (and make a claim) will be Russia.
Canada should be building ice breakers not warships if they really wish to protect their claim on the north.