Currently viewing the tag: "Arctic"
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.
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.
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.”
The Inuit of northern Canada suffer the consequences of global warming first-hand. The sea ice is becoming impassable and traditional hunting areas are getting smaller. “For us, climate change is something that we live with every day.”
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