Canada to strengthen Arctic claim

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Canada has said it will build two military facilities in the far north in a bid to assert its sovereignty over the contested Arctic region.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the announcement during a tour of Canada's northern territories.

It comes as a Danish mission prepares to sail to the North Pole to map the seabed under the ice.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6941426.stm

---

Not quite sure what building bases has to do with sovereignty. The USA has got bases in Iraq - SFW.

[Cooley Hurd]

1. The fabled Northwest Passage will soon be navigatable...

...and every bordering country will want to lay claim to it.

[Dogmudgeon]

3. I think it is already is

The amount of melting and ice pack break-up this summer has broken all records -- and it's still almost five weeks until it reaches the normal maximum melt extent.

We discuss this on the Energy and Environment Forum often in the summer; Hatrack follows the ice services. There are at least three active threads now.

Claiming territory is actually of minor concern. If the Arctic loses its ice cover, the climate will become much stranger than it already is.

--p!

[Deja Q]

2. Canada deserves it more.

[Onlooker]

4. This is so disgusting

The Arctic is melting because of global warming, and every country is rushing in to take advantage of the economic opportunity.

[Eugene]

5. Danes pipe up with their own North Pole claims

Source: CanWest News Service

Danes pipe up with their own North Pole claims

Danish announcement joins already crowded field

Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, August 10, 2007

Just a week after Russia's controversial flag-planting
expedition to the North Pole drew fire from Canada, and
with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on his own Arctic
sovereignty tour in the North, Denmark's science minister
has claimed that findings by his country's researchers
indicate "Denmark could be given the North Pole."

The claim by Helge Sander, Denmark's minister of science,
technology and innovation, comes on the eve of a new
Danish-led expedition to the Arctic and amid intensifying
interest among northern nations in securing shipping and
seabed rights in the oil-rich region around the North
Pole.

-snip-

Mr. Sander said "preliminary investigations done so far
are very promising" and suggest the disputed Lomonosov
Ridge -- a 1,500-kilometre undersea mountain range that
runs past the pole between Siberia and North America -
is a geological extension of the northern coast of
Greenland.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=9426400f-de86-497d-92df-f7bbcaab602d

[Benhurst]

6. Thank God! Everyone knows Santa is a Canadian, not a Dane or

a Russian. Go, Canada!

[DavidDvorkin]

7. The Great White Game

is on.

[Eugene]

8. U.S. icebreaker to map Arctic sea floor

Source: Associated Press

U.S. icebreaker to map Arctic sea floor

By DOUG ESSER, Associated Press Writer
Fri Aug 10, 9:53 PM ET

SEATTLE - A U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker is headed
to the Arctic to map the sea floor off Alaska, as
Russia, Denmark and Canada assert their claims in the
polar region, which has potential oil and gas reserves.

The lead scientist on the expedition scoffs at the
political implications.

"We're basically just doing science," said Larry Mayer,
director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping
at the University of New Hampshire. "There's no flag-
dropping on this trip," he said in an interview from
Durham, N.H.

-snip-

The purpose of the mapping work aboard the Healy is
to determine the extent of the continental shelf north
of Alaska, Mayer said. It's not a claim, he said, but a
process of registering boundary information with the
U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf.

-snip-

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070811/ap_on_sc/arctic_claims

[poverlay]

9. Wouldn't you just laugh your ass off if Canada started sabre rattling over this? I'd love to see

Canada's mighty war machine mobilize in order to defend their claim.

[Darth_Kitten]

10. What would be so funny?

Canada's always had a reputation for fighting for things it finds worthwhile? :shrug:

[poverlay]

16. Don't get me wrong. I was in no way attempting to denigrate Canada's military prowess. I don't

think, however, that they would be threatening and belligerent. At least I've never seen them act so.

[kitty1]

11. Canada announces location of Army base/port in Arctic

Source: BBC

PM Stephen Harper has announced the location of the military training center in the far north. It will be located at Resolute Bay.
The Deep Water Port will be located at a former mine in Nanisvik on Baffin Island. It would be used to supply arctic patrol vessels.
This training facility will be located in the contested Northwest Passage area.
The Danes are beefing up their claim by sending an ice breaker on a month long expedition to map out the same ridge that the Russians are claiming belongs to them. The Danes feel they have a strong case.
The U.S. has also recently sent out an ice breaker to do some mapping of the arctic floor too.
It should prove interesting how this all works out in the wash.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6941426.stm

[msongs]

12. but bush looked putin in the eye and read putin's soul..then aimed missles at him nt

[Auggie]

13. Global warming is making it easier to explore the arctic for petroleum reserves

Oil, that is... black gold... Texas Tea.

Everyone wants a piece of that pie, of course. Darth must be drooling.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/27/news/economy/arctic_drilling/index.htm

[Jim Warren]

14. The new "cold war" nt

[Lisa]

15. as a Canadian, I'd be in favour of an Antarctic-type management model

Or at least one that gives more autonomy to those who actually live up there. It seems that whenever resources are exploited up north (in all the circumpolar nations), the native Inuit end up getting the worst of the deal -- shunted off their land, hit by all the social problems of a boom-bust economy, and very little of the resulting jobs or profits. The cultures and environments of the Arctic are getting damaged badly enough by consumer or political decisions made far away (an example is the stream of toxic chemicals, like DDT, that end up there even though the people there didn't make or use it). And now they are in the bullseye for global warming impacts (which have already started up there).