Russian-scientists place flag on North Pole's sea floor

October 31, 9:36 AMDallas Environmental Policy ExaminerCaroline Calais

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Russian President Dimitry Medvedev abord a cruiser in the Barents
 Sea (AP photo) 

Global warming does not only threaten the existence of Polar bears. With the Arctic icecap rapidly melting, countries are now scrambling to carve out the region, turning climate change into a geopolitical matter.  The U.S Geological Survey and Norwegian Statoil- Hydro estimate, for example, that the Arctic holds more than one-quarter of the world’s remaining oil and gas reserves. 

 The largest deposits are found in the Arctic off the coast of Russia and Russian state-controlled oil company Gazprom has about 113 trillion cubic feet of gas under development in their fields in the Barents Sea. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources claims that the territory could contain as much as 586 billion barrels of oil. That is a lot, as a comparison Saudi Arabia’s current oil reserves amount to about 260 billion barrels.  

But although the Arctic lost 14 percent of its perennial ice between 2004 and 2005, and winter temperatures in Alaska and western Canada have increased seven degrees Fahrenheit in the past 60 years, climate change can be a good thing. Greenland is, for example, experiencing a farming boom growing broccoli, potatoes and hay. And an ice free Northwest Passage makes the voyage between Seattle to Rotterdam 25 percent shorter than the route via the Panama Canal.

Still, a report released by the Center for Strategic and International studies in 2007 suggests that a 1.3 degree temperature increase, will give raise to large-scale migrations, diseases and conflicts sparked by resource scarcity. Maybe we are already there.  In 2001 Russia submitted a claim to the United Nations for 460,000 square miles of arctic water, an area the size of California, Indiana and Texas combined. The claim was denied.  However, Russian scientists planted recently the national flag on the North Pole’s sea floor, and in the first time since the cold war, strategic bombers flights were ordered over the Arctic Ocean.