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"The North"
Activists from Seattle hoped to block the departure of an oil rig Shell wants to use for oil drilling in the Arctic. But a small fleet of kayaks proved no match for the giant platform as it set sail for Alaska. “We have made our point well,” a kayaktivist said.
Shell sees the deep sea port of Seattle as an ideal base for its fleet to explore for oil the Arctic. But many people in the city on the West Coast are opposed to the company’s plans. ‘Kayaktivists’ want to stop the impending departure of Shell’s oil rig for Alaska.
Canada is planning to make a claim to the geographic North Pole. Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants Canadian scientists to change a submission to the UN to that effect. Rightly so, say some. But according to others, a Canadian claim to the North Pole is doomed to fail.
Ever since the sinking of the Titanic, the International Ice Patrol has been mapping icebergs for ships crossing the North Atlantic. Despite modern technologies such as satellites and radar, tracking dangerous ice in the shipping lanes is still a human task. The smaller chunks are especially treacherous.
Shell sees great potential in oil drilling off the north coast of Alaska. The energy company has invested billions of dollars in plans to search for oil in the region. But the permit process is taking years. Opponents fearing an oil spill in the ecologically fragile Arctic fight each permit.
Dutch geophysicist Jacob Verhoef leads a Canadian multi-million dollar project to map the sea floor of the Arctic Ocean for the purpose of making territorial claims. From Halifax, he coordinates harsh Arctic expeditions involving seismic research from ice camps and icebreakers. For Canada, there is a lot at stake.
The drastic melt of the Arctic sea ice is a serious threat to the survival of polar bears, scientists say. The polar bear population is also under pressure because of the hunt by the Inuit. Still, efforts to list the symbol of the Arctic as a threatened species are met with resistance.
In the town of Churchill, on the shore of Canada’s Hudson Bay, people and polar bears live closely together. Because of climate change, the polar bear population is under pressure. Bears that wander into the village are not killed, but captured and moved away. That’s good for polar bears and for tourism.
The Inuit of northern Canada experience the effects of global warming on a daily basis. Environmental activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee along with former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, warns climate change poses a threat to the cultural survival of her people. “We are the early warning for the rest of the world.”
One of the most noticeable effects of global warming is the large-scale melt of sea ice in the Arctic. Simon Nattaq, an Inuit hunter, experienced the effects of climate change in a tragic way. The ice is no longer the same, he says in Nunavut’s capital Iqaluit.
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