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Laurie Garrett: Greenland is the Center of the World
(nb - Laurie is a personal friend of mine)
Foreign Policy
NUUK, Greenland—U.S. President Donald Trump’s open interest in purchasing Greenland was almost universally acknowledged as undiplomatic and “absurd,” to cite Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. But the kerfuffle has brought long overdue attention to the Arctic island that’s roughly half size of Western Europe (more than 836,000 square miles), 80 percent covered in a layer of ice that is up to 2 miles thick, and enveloped in frigid darkness for about six months every year.
Although Greenland is unassuming, it has quietly moved ever closer to the center of geopolitics. Trump probably didn’t know or particularly care about the island’s status as a leading indicator and object of climate change. But the American people should pay close attention. It’s not enough to merely laugh at Trump’s audacity. His advisors were likely aware of China’s and Russia’s growing assertiveness in the region and the way its shipping lanes and mineral deposits are becoming more accessible through global warming. The melting of the Arctic is being treated by many countries as an opportunity—and by the region’s indigenous peoples as an existential risk.
A journey I made this summer across Greenland was a harrowing reminder of the widespread environmental damage, and political danger, already imposed by climate change. Glaciers I visited just five years ago have visibly further retreated, with temperatures rising to California levels and new forms of plant life growing where once only ice and rock had existed. Today, Greenland is melting six times faster than it was in the 1980s. Between 1972 and 2018, scientists estimate, Greenland’s ice sheet lost 11 quadrillion pounds of water.
For the first time, I saw spruce and birch trees—normally found only as far north as Norway— growing near the Russell Glacier and rivers of water flowing across the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet.
NUUK, Greenland—U.S. President Donald Trump’s open interest in purchasing Greenland was almost universally acknowledged as undiplomatic and “absurd,” to cite Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. But the kerfuffle has brought long overdue attention to the Arctic island that’s roughly half size of Western Europe (more than 836,000 square miles), 80 percent covered in a layer of ice that is up to 2 miles thick, and enveloped in frigid darkness for about six months every year.
Although Greenland is unassuming, it has quietly moved ever closer to the center of geopolitics. Trump probably didn’t know or particularly care about the island’s status as a leading indicator and object of climate change. But the American people should pay close attention. It’s not enough to merely laugh at Trump’s audacity. His advisors were likely aware of China’s and Russia’s growing assertiveness in the region and the way its shipping lanes and mineral deposits are becoming more accessible through global warming. The melting of the Arctic is being treated by many countries as an opportunity—and by the region’s indigenous peoples as an existential risk.
A journey I made this summer across Greenland was a harrowing reminder of the widespread environmental damage, and political danger, already imposed by climate change. Glaciers I visited just five years ago have visibly further retreated, with temperatures rising to California levels and new forms of plant life growing where once only ice and rock had existed. Today, Greenland is melting six times faster than it was in the 1980s. Between 1972 and 2018, scientists estimate, Greenland’s ice sheet lost 11 quadrillion pounds of water.
For the first time, I saw spruce and birch trees—normally found only as far north as Norway— growing near the Russell Glacier and rivers of water flowing across the surface of Greenland’s ice sheet.
Link to tweet
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