In 2004, Iceland was stating the passage across "the north" was opening up for ships. Now, 14 years later all of a sudden the rest of the world is noticing. I say the same thing today as in 2004, what is the rush to put soot in the Arctic Ocean when it's greatest value is for "albedo?"
Where again, the Wall Street greed makes it's way from the DNA of humans to Earth's invaluable attribute, "a place to live."
China is trying to make it all very sexy. What a joke.
Ottawa, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) -- China emphasizes "respect" in its recently released Arctic policy, seeking to work with the countries concerned to build a "Polar Silk Road," Adam Lajeunesse, a Canadian scholar, said....
Once again, "The Third World" greed merchants from Russia and China win out over sophisticated understanding of what keeps Earth from overheating. Somehow, Russia and China just can't seem to appreciate the idea of peace, prosperity and Earth's real assets.
Earth's Arctic has value beyond that of money and sooner or later, mostly likely sooner, everyone will appreciate that. Money can't buy shelter from the ravages of a hot Earth.
Canada needs to protect it's sovereign borders and the wildlife it treasures even as Russian and China pretends they actually have accomplished something by being in the Arctic Ocean. The only one that ever accomplished anything the "Manhattan" and it's crew. The "Manhattan" actually had risk and danger to face, not simply a boat that floats on water.
By Paul Koring
...In the last few weeks (click here) the increasingly ominous reality that both China and Russia can, and will, operate throughout the Arctic has been clearly demonstrated. Unlike the massive brouhaha of Canadian umbrage that greeted the 1969 voyage of the massive U.S. icebreaker Manhattan that cracked its way through the Northwest Passage to a chorus of ineffectual Canadian dismay, the most recent moves by China and Russia passed almost unnoticed among Canadians now resigned to political tough talk about defending Arctic sovereignty being backed by nothing but hot air.
Last month, in mid-winter — unlike the late summer voyage of the Manhattan — the Eduard Toll, a Russian-owned liquified natural gas (LNG) tanker about the same size as the Manhattan lopped weeks off the usual voyage time by sailing through the Arctic Ocean from South Korea to Sabetta in northern Russia. The mid-winter voyage was both unescorted and the modern, sophisticated, icebreaking tanker steadily crunched through ice nearly two metres thick without difficulty. The Eduard Toll is just one of a fleet of 15 such icebreaking LNG tankers which will create the first near-year-round commercial tanker route in the Arctic.
As the Eduard Toll was quietly making history, the Beijing communist government issued a landmark Arctic Policy asserting that a global power like China intended to play a major role in the Arctic. Beijing summarily dismissed as quaint the notion that the eight circumpolar states — Canada, Russia, the United States and the five Nordic nations — that comprise the Arctic Council, should determine the region’s future among themselves....
