Countries Plan Land Rush in Warming Arctic

Noel Bourke sent in a pointer to this story about northern nations maneuvering to claim land in the Arctic. Fossil fuels, shipping lanes, and fishing are among the economic interests at stake, in an opportunity opened up by the melting Arctic ice.

I heard the Polish

[Neil Blender]

Have dibs on the ice shelf.

(I'm Polish, so I can make this joke.)

Back off!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Back off, get your own arctic!" - Canada

Just wait until the ice age

[Qzukk]

And the Antartic freezes back up.

6000 years later everyone will be standing around a block of ice that washes ashore gawking at the well preserved specimen of prehistoric man.

To boldly go...yadda..yadda..yadda...

[CygnusXII]

What no one disagrees with is the riches that would come from the thaw creating a north-west passage. The centuries-old bane of Arctic explorers could become a reality thanks to global warming, cutting thousands of miles off the shipping routes between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and delivering a windfall to any country able to tax its users.
Wars, have been started for less. Also it's nice to see Global Warming getting a good rap for something.

Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion

[goates]

I guess all that ice on Greenland and Canada's northern islands doesn't count?

Here's a hint, don't go getting your news from Fox. They're just as bad as the "pinko-commie-we-hate-america network."

Quick!

[xv4n]

Deploy and send the AT-AT's !!!

Save the Polar Bears!

[donutz]

The Arctic report said polar bears were "unlikely to survive as a species" if the ice disappeared and they were left to compete with their better-adapted brown and grizzly cousins.

I vote that we relocate all the polar bears to Antarctica. For too long have we northern-hemispherer's hoarded all those cuddly big white bears to ourselves. Now that we're unable to sustain their population, we should take them to the coldest continent, where there are no brown or grizzly bears, where they can be the dominant species.

Look out Mr Penguin, looks like there'll be a new kid on the block.

Re:Talk about...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, somewhere a single tear drips down the cheek of a noble American Indian.

This is BULLSHIT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Global warming, much like "the moon", is a ridiculous liberal myth!

Stop hurting America.

Come on Kyoto

[DrKyle]

I guess one of the reasons us Canadians support it is this way we can keep those damn Russians and Danes from stealing Santa's mail [members.shaw.ca]. (You all knew Santa is Canadian, right?)

Re:Great!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sherpas.

Re:Thin Ice

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Watch for Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland to form a competing coalition that loses out because they're too nice.

Oh, I suspect the Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes, at least, might do a little, ah, rediscovering their heritage if things get nasty enough. The Scandinavian reputation for politeness is a pretty recent phenomenon.

Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion

[nacturation]

This could increase the risk of oil spills and introduce species such as rats to the ecoregion, which could have drastic consequences for nesting seabirds.

Well there's an easy solution to the rat problem. Just import a bunch of cats into the region and they'll take care of the rats handily. Then the seabirds can nest in peace. Oh, wait...

Re:Allocation...

[FalconZero]

Or..... We take the CO2, fix it (yes this is the correct term), and make giant Carbon fibre pontoons from the Carbon for people to live on. Or perhapse take all the waste and recycled silicon from the electronics industry, Combine that with the O2 left over from the above to get gravel (SO2) and build our own Island, populated by Slashdot readers. We could make CowboyNeal king. I bet I know who he'll pick for queen.....

Re:Just wait until the ice age

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Mostly right, but a few details wrong:
1) It's the antarctic
2) more than 6000 years
3) It's a woman
4) It's not a human, it's an ancient
Don't you pay attention when watching Stargate?

Must attack Antartica!!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is oil down there??? Why hasn't Bush attacked Antartica yet??? We will show those terrorist penguins some shock-n-awe!! There is a link between Al-Qaeda and the penguins.

1) Al-Qaeda flew planes into the World Train Center
2) Birds can fly
3) Penguins are a bird
4) Penguins are terrorists!!

Look there is more of link to Al-Qaeda and penguins than Iraq.

Re:Back off!

[rikkards]

Actually we do. First you have the subs that patrol under the ice flow. Course our newest had a small fire that has put it out of commission for a year as the bureacratic BS of why this happened and who is to blame goes on. Plus we have the Rangers who do patrol. Course they don't have the borders covered quite like the US with Mexico.

It is patrolled just not heavily. Best way for an army to invade? Claim refugee status.

Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion - NOT WRONG

[Saige]

Now, you know, I've never ever seen a Mercator projection on a globe, since I would have thought it was quite unnecessary.

I would be interested in knowing how that's done.

Re:Real reason this was posted?

[Moofie]

Yeah, gosh. If only the Democrats had controlled both houses of Congress for the last 60 years, we'd never have had these pollution problems!

Oh wait.

Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion - WRONG.

[kooshvt]

Think of it like this: take a glass of water and put a rubber duck in it. The duck floats, yes? Now push the duck down so that it's top is even with the top of the water. What happens to the water? Same thing that will happen to our oceans when that freshwater melts.

So you are saying that a glacier weighs the same as a duck and is therefore a witch?

Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion - WRONG.

[dabigpaybackski]

It depends upon whether it's an African or European glacier.

Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion - WRONG.

[alexo]

> (you know, like my rubber duckie in the tub)

You know, Moofie, thaere are some things that you just don't admit to on SlashDot.

Re:Thin Ice

[David Gould]

Actually, the apparent contradiction in reputation for temperament between Scandinavians and Vikings can be explained even more easily than that:

A Viking is a Scandinavian without his coffee.

Re:Too bad Canada doesn't have a military.

[Stregone]

Like noise output has anything to do with how new US subs detect other subs. There's this fancy thing called "sonar" that's been around for 50+ years now, maybe you've heard of it?

Thats fucking hilarious. You should be a comedian.

There goes the neighborhood

[heybo]

Why is it that everytime a new piece of land is found either on this planet or even explored on the Moon or Mars some white guy has to stick a flag on it and call it theirs?

Re:A unique and amazing ecoregion - WRONG.

[tomhudson]

Uh...yeah. I don't work on that timescale. Neither does anybody I know.

How about the guys working on Duke Nukem Forever?