Canada Heats Up Rhetoric Over Claims to North Pole

Canada means business when it comes to claiming, protecting and using the Arctic. With climate change gradually melting arctic ice, potentially exposing oil and minerals, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has warned other nations to stay away from the region. Canada is investing in a deepwater port to support eight military ships that will patrol Arctic waters. Canada, Denmark, Russia, the US, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and indigenous groups have all placed claims, some overlapping, on arctic territory – while international law establishes that some portions are owned by no nation. Since 2000, commercial ships can travel by way of the Northwest Passage, for a few weeks each summer, reducing trips between Europe and Asia by almost 2500 miles. As ice melts and nations jockey for control, tension mounts. One conservationist questions why nations find it easier to engage in conflict over declining energy resources rather than encouraging citizens to make some simple lifestyle changes. – YaleGlobal