Obama in Alaska: We Have To Save the Ice so We Can Break It.

[Divernan]

The arctic is changing, as we know, and Russia has 40 ice breakers with 11 more on the way. And we only have two, and one is just for science. We have to catch up.

“The growth of human activity in the Arctic region will require highly engaged stewardship to maintain the open seas necessary for global commerce and scientific research, allow for search and rescue activities, and provide for regional peace and stability,” came the statement from the White House.

Read that again. We need “stewardship” to “maintain the open seas necessary for global commerce…” Gotta keep those seas open. Commerce and all that. Ice is the problem.

Remember those word problems you hated in elementary school math? This is like that, only worse.

Question:
If Russia has 40 ice breakers and 11 on the way, and the U.S. has 2, and it takes 8 years and $1 billion to build one, and we only have the facilities to build 2 at a time, and an ice breaker only lasts 25 years, and the arctic is predicted to be ice free by 2030, how long does it take to catch up to Russia?
Extra credit: How much money will we have wasted breaking something that is disappearing anyway, and how many college educations, cancer treatments, roads and bridges could you have bought? (Take your time and show all your work.)

Welcome to the Icy Cold War to nowhere, where everyone loses except the defense contractors that build the icebreakers, and those who will benefit for a couple years from the shipping routes. It reminds me of the famous quote from a US major during the Viet Nam War, “We had to destroy the town to save it.” We have to break the ice to save it. Or save the ice so we can break it…

http://www.themudflats.net/archives/46204

[Divernan]

1. Obama's Arctic policies:wins for Shell Oil/defense contractors;loss for environment.

He approved Shell's Arctic drilling in the Chukchi Sea; promotes $22 billion to build icebreakers, and adds an environmentally meaningless PR gesture of changing Mt. McKinley's name back to "Denali".

$2 billion to build 2 icebreakers? Here's a thought. Other nations pursuing accessing international shipping routes in the Arctic already have ice breakers. Russia has FORTY, with another 11 currently being built. Russia will be keeping those lanes open, and once they are open, nothing prevents ships from other nations using those lanes. That's why they're called international!

Plus there are several other complications.

To start, there’s little infrastructure in place for search and rescue in the Arctic. Then there are issues about whether the Northwest Passage is an international strait, as the U.S. maintains, or falls under Canada’s sovereignty as an internal domestic waterway. "At the moment, the U.S. and Canada have a tacit agree-to-disagree policy on this because it doesn’t matter," Smith said. "But it could. The study suggests this needs to be resolved."

What’s more, the U.S. has yet to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a treaty that establishes international laws to govern the maritime rights of countries. If signed, the U.S. could claim sovereignty over some of the newly opened shipping lanes.

As these issues are sorted out – and Brigham said this study should help apply pressure to do so – increased access to shipping will almost certainly increase natural resource extraction in the Arctic.

"Whether the open access and greater shipping is a benefit to the world is an open book," he said. "We are going to produce even more oil and gas and carry it to the world and just enhance the (greenhouse gas) emissions. But the coastal states, all of us, want to develop our oil and gas."

http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/04/17182162-global-warming-to-open-crazy-shipping-routes-across-arctic?lite