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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.
Very ironic that what makes oil available in the Arctic is global warming...
Since the first anchored text in the summary isn't actually linked to anything, here's The Independent's article. I'm guessing this is the one timothy intended to link to.
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
You're officially on the naughty list, you Danish bastards!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
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.
If being connected to land by underwater ridges gave right of ownership the map would look very different. Besides which it looks as though the other end of the ridge connects to the Siberian Shelf. Push this argument too far and you could find out that Russia owns Greenland!
RTFA
... 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."
...could easily lead to a doubling in size of Denmark's Lego stockpiles...
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Energy diversity.
Renewables are great sources of energy... But they are not perfect.
Fossil fuels have their problems, but they do complement the gaps that renewables have.
Renewables have the problem of portability. Some like wind and hydro electric needs to be located in the proper areas where they can get a reliable energy from. Others like solar do not offer 24/7 support. Batteries do not have the energy density that we get out of fossil fuel, and takes much longer to recharge.
Right now with our current technology I can see Renewables replacing many of the power plants out there. Which will do a big cut in greenhouse gas emissions. However cars will still need to be hybrid gas/electric either the Toyota Prius style or the Chevy Volt style.
The idea of moving the population to local cities where they can use public transportation especially in less dense areas like the United States, just won't happen. If you tell the population that they need to move from their houses which they have put a lot of money in, and live in an area the matches how they want to live and go to a crowed loud crime ridden city, will cause a lot of people to put a gun to your face, whether or not it is legal to have guns.
So really energy diversity is the key, the goal is to reduce emissions, not just cut them off until we can get better alternatives to a point where we will not need fossil fuel.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Obligatory.
"We consider that six courts and an asylum claim are a rather odd way of returning to Sweden within a month."
That's not how international law about exclusive economic zones works, because there's not a convenient pole between every disputed area in the world (and why the pole anyway, what not say the center of the arctic ocean?). One doesn't carve out a brand new approach just for this one dispute. As much as I'm sure Russia would want them too, since they'd get half of the arctic ocean.
"We consider that six courts and an asylum claim are a rather odd way of returning to Sweden within a month."
Yes, it does. If you were to simply divide up the Arctic Ocean as you describe then you'd have no international waters for shipping routes should the Arctic ever become a viable route between the Atlantic and the Pacific. If one nation's waters extended all the way to the polar cap then they would have a huge amount of control over shipping passing through it that wouldn't otherwise exist if at least part of that open water was free for anyone to access. While the resources will no doubt factor into the discussions, the primary purpose of the UN review mentioned is more about ensuring minimal disruption to potential maritime trade.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
No, they'll just put a wind turbine on top of the oil derrick and proclaim it to be green. My understanding is that, in spite of all the green talk, Denmark has a pretty high per capita CO2 emission rate.
Define "pretty high"
CO2 emissions per country
Speaking of which, never underestimate the tensions those Danish have, eh? They sent a war ship when Canada "investigated" an island besides Greenland. The Russians have already put their metaphorical flag on the sea bridge, so the war will be fought between the Royal Danish Marines and Imperial Russian Fleet. Canada can only ask forgiveness and stay clear until an opening is discovered in the defensive posture of either countries as the war consumes both sides, eh? Or perhaps Norway can broker a deal separating mineral rights from territorial claims and the UN arrange the sharing of the territorial area equally. That would be good, eh?
"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." -- Asimov
I'm sure the large and powerful Danish Navy will have no trouble enforcing that claim...
Proverbs 21:19
Over 100 years old is a bit of a stretch, the foundation of modern quantum physics was laid mostly in the 1920s...so "nearly 100 years old" might be better.
Realistically though, the reason classical physics is the basic physical foundation laid for most students is simply that it is tremendously easier to understand and calculate and is basically "correct" for 99.999% of things people encounter in their real lives. Schools already teach far too many things which are somewhat useless later in life, why should most high school students be subjected to quantum mechanics when they don't even have the mathematical underpinnings to even come close to really understanding it.
In 100 years or so when we have the math and processing power to solve a five or six body gravity equation then maybe it can actually be taught to those who don't specialize in it, until then the classic approximation is pretty good for high school work.
I'd guess a combination of a small population and a large petrochemical industry pushes them up in the rankings (note that the rankings in question are per-capita).
Being a small island probablly doesn't help, in particular small islands are often short on fresh water which pushed them to energy intensive desalination. It can also make it difficult to achive economies of scale in power generation.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
But the US can't even drill oil in ANWR, despite Alaska being all for it, due to the huge opposition from environmental groups in the other 49 states. If US were to get the North Pole - contiguous sector to AK, how would they then allow drilling for oil there, given that environmental wackos can then campaign on behalf of the seals and walruses, instead of the caribou.
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.
Chemical industry in general. Emissions generated on export production should count partly against the importing nation.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You're regurgitating complete [time.com] nonsense [archive.is].
No, I was not. Once again, you misrepresent my words.
Nowhere above did I write that "a majority of papers" supported global cooling. I merely pointed out the established truth that it was taken seriously. And again: the cited announcement by National Academy of Sciences is not "nonsense". It, too, is real.
Stop misrepresenting my words, then making straw-man arguments against me. That is dishonest. I have mentioned this to you many times before. Learn how to make an honest argument, or go the hell away.