WikiLeaks: A Battle To 'Carve Up' The Arctic - Impending Resource Wars As Global Warming Melts Ice

[Turborama]

Source: Al Jazeera English



Resource wars are possible as global warming melts polar ice - opening new areas to oil exploitation, cables indicate.
Chris Arsenault Last Modified: May 21 2011 15:27

It is considered the final frontier for oil and gas exploitation, and secret US embassy cables published by WikiLeaks confirm that nations are battling to "carve up" the Arctic's vast resources.

"The twenty-first century will see a fight for resources," Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin was quoted as saying in a 2010 cable. "Russia should not be defeated in this fight."

Along with exposing an estimated 22 per cent of the world's oil, ice melting due to global warming will open new shipping lanes, the arteries of global commerce, which nations are competing to control. And Russia certainly is not the only country eyeing the frozen prize.

Per Stig Moller, then Danish foreign minister, mused in a 2009 cable that "new shipping routes and natural resource discoveries would eventually place the region at the centre of world politics".

'Resource wars'...

Much More: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/05/201151713273937174.html

[xfundy]

1. Hmm... is this why they claim global warming is a lie?

The rich get richer. 20% of the world's oil, new shipping lanes, beaches, palm trees, then chain restaurants...

[Taverner]

2. My question is whether settlers will move to ANTarctica

And whether we'll see drilling there in our lifetime

Sure, there's all kinds of treaties preventing colonization, but they're just paper. Don't expect paper to stand in the way of an oil company

[stuntcat]

3. k

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