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Greenland Is Very Mad About the Toxic Waste the US Left Buried Under Its Ice (vice.com)
Kate Lunau, reporting Motherboard:Greenland isn't happy about being treated as a dumping ground for abandoned US military bases established at the height of the Cold War -- and in a newspaper editorial, it's calling on Denmark to deal with the mess left behind by the Americans, since the Danish long ago took responsibility for them. This editorial notes that, after decades, Greenland is "losing its patience." One of the abandoned bases, called Camp Century, is full of nasty chemicals and some radioactive material, as Motherboard previously reported. At Camp Century, which was built in 1959, soldiers called "Iceworms" practiced deployment of missiles against Russia and literally lived inside the ice. When the US decommissioned the base in the 1960s, the military left basically everything behind, thinking that its waste would stay locked up in the Greenland ice sheet forever. Well, climate change has made that unlikely. Melting ice threatens to expose all kinds of toxic debris in decades to come, and Greenland wants it cleaned up, now.
So's Death Valley. Keep your shit in your own bowl.
Americans can be forgiven for being remiss about this, as this was nuclear and defense research in arctic climates related to the US ability to ward off an impending attack over alaska. We learned we could indeed install nuclear reactors and war bases in the tundra, however we unfortunately learned that cooling these reactors and ensuring they stayed in one place was a completely untenable matter.
the most damning part of this research was that it took place without Greenlands consent. these were secret bases established on remote areas of Greenland that existed for only three to six months before disappearing entirely. The cleanup is nontrivial amounts of chemical and nuclear material. As an american i feel we have a duty to clean this up, but as an american I also understand there isnt much impetus to get us to do anything responsible after the fact.
Good people go to bed earlier.
more like glowing-green-land amirite?
"This editorial notes that, after decades, Greenland is "losing its patience." "
Okay, so then what? Like, will they hurl insults at the rest of the world? Will they stop talking to us?
Well, if the military just left everything behind, you probably left Greenland with a few nukes.
Just sayin'.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
American Government: "We're sorry, but you're going to have to wait until we finish melting all the ice off your island. We expect it to take another 35 years or so. We'll see you then!"
Now, you look here, US. If you don't deal with this soon we're going to get really angry...at Denmark. That'll show you!
They will melt their glaciers and inundate New York.
Ezekiel 23:20
Greenland is huge and almost unpopulated. If it weren't covered in ice...
Global warming is changing that, that is what this article is about.
...the most damning part of this research was that it took place without Greenlands consent....
As the article points out, Greenland wasn't independent at the time; it was a possession of Denmark; and the bases were done with Denmark's knowledge and cooperation.
It shows how rigged this whole thing is that they have a place that's covered in ice and call it "Greenland". Completely rigged. The crooked media doesn't want you to know that it's covered in ice. It's a disgrace.
When I'm president, we'll make Greenland green again. There will be the most beautiful golf courses in Greenland, believe me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Give the US 1 month to clean up there shit, if not, put the nuclear waste, paperwork, computers, electronics and anything else of interest on e-bay.
Almost unpopulated. Hmmmm... Yeah, find a place with some big canyons away from people and just fill that with toxic trash. A while back Yosemite would have been perfect.
Companies can be clever with disposal. Years ago, chemical waste from other production was quietly added to the pesticides used on our food in the California Central Valley. It was unnoticed being regarded as an inert ingredient. Now, after multiple decades of such use, drinking the area groundwater causes cancer.
Water testing only looks for a specific set of pollutants. Treated fracking fluids, still smelling of petro-chemicals, are now being used to water some of our food crops. Yummy!
Then there are the fracking fluids being dumped underground. In some cases perfectly good aquifers have been contaminated, not mattering because they weren't needed at the time. Subsidence is a major problem in many places. A water project in California had to be cancelled because the ground was no-longer stable enough. The risk of flooding in many coastal cities has been increased more by them sinking from oil/gas/water extraction than by rising oceans.
At least we have inspiring people striving to become our leaders. Is there such a thing as a "best" time to be hit by an asteroid?
I thought by now with private space we would have garbage asteroids.
The US is also "very mad" that it provided military protection to Greenland and that neither Greenland nor Europe have paid their fair share. Both the US and Greenland will simply have to learn to live with it.
In different words, Greenland: clean it up yourself.
They could talk to Putin if he's interested in setting up a base there, much more near US soil. I guess he likes to repay the way the US is acting in Eastern Europe. And maybe the US left something interesting for the Russians behind.
Greenland is mostly covered with Ice but Iceland is very green.
Maybe do a name switch?
As it was done, it will be done. This is not Soviet Union we are talking about here, after all.
So.. how many countries do you know that keep military bases in other countries?
Ten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
" it's calling on Denmark to deal with the mess left behind by the Americans, since the Danish long ago took responsibility for them"
Trump is Denmark's fault?
The Dept. of Defense has long considered itself above the environmental laws that constrain industry. Anyone with half a brain and access to Google is aware of the damage they have done across this country. Pick almost any DoD installation and you can find the evidence. Pick your poison: Agent Orange, Radioactive waste - there is a smorgasboard of poisons.
Start here: https://www.google.com/#q=military+base+toxic+waste
From Fort Greely in Delta Junction, Alaska to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, The DoD has created a toxic catastrophe at hundreds of sites across the U.S.
Some sites, like the Hanfond Reservation, could cost in the billions to clean-up.
Try this: https://www.google.com/#q=hanford+nuclear+reservation+cleanup
The DoD / DoE funnels the cleanup money through their favorite contractors like Bechtel.
It creates full employment and it's a good way to keep the revolving door greased.
So, bend over America. You asked for it and your children are already inheriting the toxic goodness.
And there is nothing you can do to stop it.
NOTHING!
If Putin wants Greenland he will just take it, he doesn't need to be offered. He is a little busy taking over Europe and the Middle East at the moment though.
I doubt there will be anything interesting there if it was abandoned in 1960.
Philip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
I find it funny that someone raises any excuse for dumping trash outside the country borders, as if there could be any justification for that.
It's like "well, I'm on the wrong, but fortunately there are lots of stupid guys on the world... maybe if I talk BS some will fall for it... let's try, what's there to lose?"
The problem is that some stupid people can be enlightened, but BS does not improve with time.
Oh, so it is not a pressing problem yet, is it?
Given the spectacular failures of other predictions made by contemporary "Climate Science", I say, this too can wait.
Indeed, though the write-up does not mention this, TFA quotes Greenland's official thus:
Must be a really slow news day...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And dump it on the beach near new york.
Problem solved.
You are a moron and uninspiring. If you weren't a complete troll, you'd be beating some wife or another.
If humanity needed an excuse to end centuries of evolution and give the fuck up... you're it.
They may fart in your general direction. Radio active wale blubber farts. You better run.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
We might as well apply the same technique as for Yosemite then, and send in state-backed kill squads to get rid of all the occupants so that we can then claim the canyon is away from people and perfect for dumping.
The glacier were and are moving. That was one of the things that killed Camp Century to begin with.
Dump radioactive waste in the USA's national parks.
After all, no one lives there, so who cares right?
It was done all the time in the past. No one really considered the consequences in those days. Sure nowadays they'd know better but even so the military only cares about two things, war and preparing for war. I feel that we should go back and clean it up though, it's not right to leave it to Greenland.
It's like "well, I'm on the wrong, but fortunately there are lots of stupid guys on the world... maybe if I talk BS some will fall for it... let's try, what's there to lose?"
Mr. Trump, when did you start browsing Slashdot?
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
Starving under the Soviet Book, Comrade? No? Get over it. Small price for you to pay. OH, you want America to do all the heavy lifting and pick up the bill forever? Yeah, everyone else does as well. Rest of the world... your turn.
Come on man. We can't just leave that shit lying around and not go clean it up. Greenland doesn't have the money for that and it's really not right. We built that place for our benefit in the Cold War and they were nice enough to let us use the place. It's not good manors to leave a big mess behind.
But what about manners?
Greenland invited and welcomed the U.S. military with open arms. There is plenty of excuse for the USA to have done things normally and typically at the time they were there.
We built that place for our benefit in the Cold War and they were nice enough to let us use the place.
If we did not force them to let us build there, I would argue that building it was also for their benefit.
I can't explain why about half the population doesnt understand the core ramification of free choices, that when you are free to choose you choose things that you think will benefit you.
This thought should have been the very first thing in your head. Any reasoning on this matter must begin from this point. You however have outright denied the basic reality in your argument, which doesnt make for a good argument at all.
"His name was James Damore."
If we did not force them to let us build there, I would argue that building it was also for their benefit.
Denmark's benefit, perhaps. Nonetheless, "it's for your own good" is the justification of colonists and abusers throughout history.
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And no country is contributing to Global Warming the way the US is. Most of the pollution in the "3rd world countries" is from the production of goods for the US (and allies), often by US companies operating on foreign soil to run around regulations..
Those countries choose to produce that stuff. The people there like the new higher paying jobs. It enables them to develop and raises living standards as has happened in India and China. They aren't innocent victims. And they do make choices as to how they want to allocate resources. China could be more environmentally conscious where it to stop increasing the size of it military and spend the money on green energy instead. And it's important to remember that there are many more environmentally safe technologies in 2016 than there were in the nineteenth century or in the 1950s - if you are building out an industrial infrastructure from scratch now it's much easier to be green than before. Solar electricity was not around 100 years ago.
And what would you have the US do about it? Raise tariffs on third world produced goods? Do you propose a 500% tariff on goods from China? I would remind you that bossing around third world countries is also rejected as neocolonialism.
And you seem to be ignoring the emissions released by burning forests in Indonesia and Brazil. The forest fires in Indonesia last year released 11.3 million tonnes of carbon per day, exceeding the daily rate of 8.9 million tonnes of carbon emissions from the whole of the European Union. Predictions for future deforestation in Central Africa estimate that by 2050 forest clearance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will release a total of up to 34.4 billion tonnes of CO2, roughly equivalent to the UK’s CO2 emissions over the last sixty years.
But that doesn't fit into a convenient narrative of blaming the West, does it?
Yes, I noticed that right after I posted it. I was waiting for someone to point it out.
And billions of parents as well.
It is the same rule as in a public park, you carry out what you carry in or properly dispose of it. I doubt Greenland has trash cans for nuclear and chemical waste, so carry out is the only option. I doubt Greenland benefited from the US being there. If anything, it made Greenland a prime target.
This is the type of arrogance that is going to destroy the world. What level of stupidity or insanity is required to say that remote areas of the earth, where people live, are perfect dumping grounds for toxic waste and radioactivity?
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
From the TFA: "Maybe in a century, theyâ(TM)re going to start to melt out."
Whoa, now there is a real crisis. MAYBE in a CENTURY there will start to be problems! Act now, save no expense!!!!
Isn't 99.99% of Greenland on the coast also?
Indeed.
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We paid Greenland to have the base and vacate it in the means we did. We left shit because that is how things were done then and we didn't know any better, neither did Greenland. Now half a century later both sides know more but the deal/agreement is done. That is the nature of deals, sometimes somebody gets screwed in the long run and they won't realize it for years. Morals change, knowledge expands...just look back and laugh at how stupid we were and then keep moving forward.
You know that project Iceworm, and therefore the actual nature of Camp Century, was kept secret from the Danish government for 30 years after the place closed, right? I was trying to think of an analogy about letting your neighbors use your lawn and them abusing your hospitality, but really, does building a secret nuclear missile base in another countries sovereign territory and lying about it really need an analogy?
If we did not force them to let us build there, I would argue that building it was also for their benefit.
So if we both build a toxic dump in your backyard for a joint benefit and I refuse to help you clean it up later, would you argue that it's entirely your own responsibility to clean it up?
I can't explain why about half the population doesn't understand the core ramification of free choices
Indebted servitude in most circumstances is the ramification of free choices. The circumstances of the choices are a valid criteria in evaluating how responsible the person or group is for that choice. On one end of the extreme is holding people at a gunpoint and forcing them to act (you CAN refuse to comply), on the other extreme is taking brain-damaging drugs because weed just doesn't do it for you anymore.
This thought should have been the very first thing in your head. Any reasoning on this matter must begin from this point. You however have outright denied the basic reality in your argument, which doesnt make for a good argument at all.
Your subjective ideologically driven opinions are not an objective model of reality. Or an accurate one for that matter.
Thank you for confirming my point — the "Climate Science" predictions are worthless.
Greenland, mysteriously warming faster than expected today, may start freezing again ten years from now. We may as well rely on predictions of Astrologers.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
They aren't really "international" — the term would imply multiple nations and some sort of deliberative body, where they meet with their agendas.
Greenland and Norway used to be one nation not long ago, split up peacefully and continue cooperating. They would not need very long to come up with a solution to a real problem. Which this is not. Certainly not today.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This is the type of arrogance that is going to destroy the world. What level of stupidity or insanity is required to say that remote areas of the earth, where people live,
In the particular places under discussion-- underneath the glacers-- nobody lives.
You do know that no missiles were ever installed, and the only thing that was there was the PM-2A reactor which the Danish government DID know about. You have no point
True, no missiles were installed. That's not the point. The point is that the nature and scope of the operation was kept hidden from the government hosting it. It's abuse of hospitality. As for the reactor, it was the 50's. The safety and cleanliness of nuclear power were being hyped in US propaganda at the time. I'm sure the Danes were given all kinds of re-assurances.
Ultimately, that you'll clean up after yourself is generally pretty implicit when you take advantage of someone else's hospitality.
And billions of parents as well.
"Go clean your room" sounds a bit different if you know the parents have dumped radioactive waste in the room in the name of "the child's own good".
That's a small price for vengeance!
Ezekiel 23:20
This assumes we don't give a shit how the people living in Greenland or the rest of the world for that matter, think of us. Of all the stupid shit we spend money for around the world I'd think this would easily fall into the better ideas.
That may be true for now. But if you do have a major melting of the ice-caps, while the rest of the world may largely get flooded, Kalaallit Nunaat would be a very inhabitable place, and not as cold as it is now. (Where do you think the name 'Greenland' came from?)
The Sahara is a better place for this. Or better yet - Antarctica.
yeah, well, climate change is not real
Come on man. We can't just leave that shit lying around and not go clean it up. Greenland doesn't have the money for that and it's really not right. We built that place for our benefit in the Cold War and they were nice enough to let us use the place. It's not good manors to leave a big mess behind.
The 'they' out here refers to Denmark, since Greenland was still a colony/part of Denmark, during the time in question. So it would make sense to split the costs 2-way, maybe 3-way.
If Putin wants to target the US, he just has to heavily load Chukotka, Kamchatka and Sakhalin w/ nukes, and aim them at this US. He hardly needs to play footsie w/ Denmark (not Greenland, whose foreign and defense policies are still run by Copenhagen)
(Where do you think the name 'Greenland' came from?)
I think it came from Eric the Red, who was doing a con job trying to convince people that the place was desirable.
In any case, the places Eric the Red started settlements in, that he called "Greenland", was not the ice sheets in the north, but the southern tip.
The PCBs on those bases are far more of a worry than anything else. Radioactives tend to decay fairly quickly, but chemical toxins last virtually forever.
In many ways this is pretty minor in the overall scheme of things - by the time any waste from these bases reaches the sea it will be well and truly diluted, but the principle of just abandoning waste all over the place is something that needs combatting.
The problem is that I have trouble taking anything from Greenpeace seriously.
Greenpeace pulled a showboating stunt near McMurdo back in the mid 1980s after collecting several tons of garbage which had blown almost 100 miles across the ice thanks to the base's dumps not being secure against the environment. It won them no friends but policies did change - not because of the protests (and garbage didn't reduce) but because the US military base commanders finally started taking advice on securing the dump from people who'd been offering it all along. The "unforseen" side of their showboating was that McMurdo was closed off to ALL non-military visitors for a few years and that badly affected operations for the civilian research site at Scott Base, including transport to and from Antarctica. Of course this didn't affect Greenpeace, because they'd already buggered off to new destinations on their protesting world tour.
They have a nasty tendency to show up and take credit for other people's work or parade around in front of cameras, destroying goodwill that other groups have spent years building up in an effort to combat pollution issues (Another incident I'm aware of put cleanup efforts back by around 15 years and resulted in the local greens being banned from the area despite having nothing to do with Greenpeace)
The thing they're best at is hoovering up money and spending it on their elite.
There's also the matter of the fraud committed in encouraging membership signups by promising a hand in governance after N years of membership, then constantly pushing that requirement out to longer and longer periods before silently cancelling it. This is why a lot of people are disillusioned by them - this is one of those organisations that's mostly show and little action. They may protest and grab camera views but they don't hang around for the long haul to actually effect changes (aka "corporate greenies", etc). In most cases they do more harm than good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... - most of which is spot on.
Tell that to the residents of Greenland.
Hospitality? We saved their sorry asses from becoming another Nazi occupied nation like Denmark. We were their protector.
They were interested in the mobile reactor in tunnels program and so let program happen. And that's all that happened.
If they want the U.S. to clean it up, they better hurry and get it done while there still a U.S. to make the demands to.