Activists try to block Arctic oil drilling rig from leaving Seattle's port, June 2015. Demotix/Alex Garland. All rights reservedThe Arctic Sea, that Africa-sized expanse of ice that caps the globe with impassible glaciers and lethal temperatures, has for centuries kept its treasures hidden from humanity’s grasp. But a century and a half of collective global industrialization have unlocked what John Cabot, Sir Francis Drake and the American crew of the SS Manhattan could not.
The burning of fossil fuels is melting the Arctic, and quickly at that. Called “the canary in the coal mine,” by the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental group, the dissolution of the Arctic ice is both an indicator and accelerant for the environmental upheaval that awaits the rest of the planet. The world’s wealthiest and most powerful nations will be able to better endure these disruptions, just as they now enjoy the energy consumption that causes it. If civilization is to survive the next 100 years in any recognizably modern form, the fundamentals of this risk/reward dynamic will have to be addressed.In September 2011, the 75,000 ton “Nordic Orion” became the first commercial vessel to successfully travel from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic through the Arctic Sea, saving $80,000 in fuel costs over the standard route through the Panama Canal. The opening of this fabled “Northwest Passage” was the result of longer and warmer glacial melting periods, the disruption of 700,000-year-old seasonal patterns observable since the late 1970s. Maritime analysts are already theorizing that mass shipping through the region could be achieved within a decade.
And as the vanishing ice reflects less sunlight and allows Earth to heat up even further, the summers of 2040 may see no ice in the Arctic at all. But the windfall for global trade is having decidedly more negative consequences elsewhere. The effects of these rising global temperatures are already being felt around the world, with diminished crop yield, mass extinctions, and devastating weather events. Rising sea levels themselves endanger major coastal cities like New York, Shanghai, Miami, Bangkok, and Mumbai. The nation of Maldives, which sits 6 feet below sea level, threatens to vanish beneath the waves.
