Canada’s dismissive reaction of Russia’s attempt to plant a flag at the North Pole – or, rather on the bed of the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole – is in danger of becoming a classic quote.
“This isn’t the 15th century. You can’t go around the world and just plant flags and say ‘We’re claiming this territory’,” said Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay.
Unfortunately Canada’s Foreign Minister sems to have forgotten that two years ago Canadian Defence Minister Bill Graham landed on Hans Island, ownership of which is disputed by Canada and Denmark.
And guess what Graham did on Hans Island? Yep – he planted a Canadian flag.
“Our view is that it’s part of Canada and we continue to be there, to go there, the Danes go there as well and we are making sure that the Danes know that this part of the Canadian territory,” he said.
Those Canadians, eh? So 15th Century.
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Hans was claimed by Canada based on a survey of the area by Danish and Canadian personnel working together. Only in the last month – when updated satellite imagery became available – did we find out that the border went *through* the island.
That’s a lot different than Russia claiming territory with NO land, based on a ridge running from Greenland to Russia, that could just as easily make it Danish/Canadian territory, except that the geologic survey hasn’t been done yet.
That survey is being done this last summer and this summer by Canadian and Danish scientists. They plan to publish their results in a scientific paper in September.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2007/04/16/north-ridge.html
Nice catch Andy.
Roger, isn’t there more to the Russian claim than what you’re saying?
Does anyone see this becoming a UN Security Council debate?
On a related front, the early evening Aug. 2, BBC aired in NY feed had some commentary about this matter from Ariel Cohen. He IMO somewhat unsympathetically said that the move was done to satisfy his description of Russia seeking to regain national pride. As per some of his other commentary, Ariel doesn’t impress as being particularly sympathetic to Russian national identity. Reason enough to criticize RTTV for not taking him to task during Al Gurnov’s recent feature with him. That’s the kind of criticism of RTTV missing in Ira Straus’ recent critique of it in The Moscow Times.
Ariel’s comments about the Russian move in the Arctic being nationalist motivated is IMO off the mark. It’s overwhelmingly, if not exclusively a natural resources issue.
>> Roger, isn’t there more to the Russian claim
>> than what you’re saying?
Not that I’ve seen. The ridge is part of one continental shelf, or the other, or neither. Do an image search on it an check it out for youself: It’s equally connected (or not connected) to both sides.
Now both sides are surveying it, but Russia is using the “15th century” stunt to get publicity for it’s efforts. They’re is trying to win in the “court of public opinion” rather than proper surveys and established treaties.
Roger & Co.
See this article on Russia’s claim:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/6925853.stm
It’s not as if the Russians don’t have considerable experience in capturing Poles…
(Credit)
“The Arctic Claim…
An area twice the size of France, loaded with an estimated quarter of the world’s oil and gas deposits (which are becoming increasingly feasible to access as global warming causes the ice caps to melt) as well as other minerals……”
***
Which brings me back to Ariel Cohen’s seemingly not so relevant point about this claim relating to some (as he described it) Russian drive to restore national honor. I don’t see that playing much if any factor in this particular instance.
Some other comments on the matter:
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3904155733798241319&postID=3335734961756607159&isPopup=true
That “estimated quarter of the world’s gas and oil deposits” is from a 2000 USGS study that characterized the entire arctic region – not just the North Pole and Lomonosov Ridge. It has been heavily relied upon to recommend drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska.
A subsequent study (November 2006) by Wood Mackenzie and Fugro Robertson suggests far less oil and gas are available in the region (particularly less oil). From that study:
“The U.S. can no longer consider the Arctic as a long-term strategic energy supply source, according to a new joint study by Wood Mackenzie and Fugro Robertson, “Future of the Arctic.” The study found the Arctic potential is significantly less than previous estimations had suggested, and the mix of resources have been found to contain much less oil and more gas.
“These findings are disappointing from a world oil resource base perspective,” said lead study author, Andrew Latham, Vice President, Energy Consulting at Wood Mackenzie.”
No matter how the geology of the Lomonosov Ridge is interpreted, any division of the as yet undivided portion of the Arctic Ocean is going to result in Russia owning the vast majority of the region. The sector method and median line methods that have been discussed would both give Russia control over large portions of the Arctic. The difference between those division methods and the claim based on the geography of the Lomonosov Ridge is relatively small.
Kudos to the very informative discussion here.
I do have one very simple question regarding all this (that I have not seen addressed in the Media): IF the russians (or whoever) get their claim recognized, how many years would it be before such reserves were actually exploitable and even more so to a level where a decent profit cold be made?
If it is in 50 years or so, you never know, there might be nuclear fusion or some other sort of power. What about future carbon taxes being so heavy that even using oil will be uneconomic (unless of course it is of strategic concern/national ‘security’). I may also be wrong here, but isn’t drilling for oil and gas at a depth of 4km a bit daunting? anybody done this commercially before?
Storm in a teacup me thinks.
IF the russians (or whoever) get their claim recognized, how many years would it be before such reserves were actually exploitable and even more so to a level where a decent profit cold be made?
Never. The cost of extracting hyrdocarbons from beneath the Pole is unlikely ever to make such an activity economically feasible.
That said, the economics becoming feasible is more likely to happen than a Russian government finding itself competent enough to carry out the extraction. A good test case will be how it handles the Barents Sea project, which will be one of the most technologically demaning projects in history. Based on the ability of the Russian companies to carry out their current operations safely and efficiently, or even the ability of the Russian government to extract and distribute water to its population, most people with experience on the oil and gas projects think the Barents Sea project will be a train-wreck if the Russian try to go it alone.
but isn’t drilling for oil and gas at a depth of 4km a bit daunting? anybody done this commercially before?
The ultradeep wells in the Gulf of Mexico go a lot further down than this, albeit they don’t have to contend with pack-ice.
Did anyone else notice LR giving Andy hell over this article and the google ads? It was filed under the tag “hypocrisy” because either he allows google ads or Mike to post comments.
By the way, I attempted to prevent mail order bride ads from appearing on my site. (You can ban any particular site using the options at google.) However, mail order bride sites seem to sprout up constantly and I have not filtered them for a while. I wish google gave the option to filter categories because I am not a fan of those ads either, but I personally never see them anyway because I surf with FF and adblock plus.
I saw it Russophile.
Total garbage. All can see that this is a pretty good discussion.
I found out about that garbage via someone sending me the link to it. That someone reads that garbage because he has a self confessed interest for reading the bizarre. It doesn’t phase me in the least bit. How many misrepresentations has that entity made of others?
The last time LR posted at SL, I academically addressed its bogus points. LR left without followup. The Reluctant Muscovite chided Andy for entertaining LR. I took the free speech mode in support of Andy.
For the record, Intelligent.ru was a web magazine. My articles were very well received at that venue. I also referred a number of other contributors to Intelligent.ru. At that site, its editor lauded my work and suggested me for a position with a newly created Eng. lang. news organization. As for the two referenced blogs, I enhanced them with an increase in new viewers right after my articles appeared at each of them. This was communicated to me by both of the involved principles.
Geting back to the subject of this thread, does anyone feel confident in predicting the future technonolgy upgrades involved with acquiring the natural resources in the discussed Arctic area?
Some further substantiation on a matter recently raised:
http://www.siberianlight.net/2007/07/13/britain-to-expel-russian-diplomats/
http://www.siberianlight.net/2007/07/13/cnn-takes-fake-100-bill-story-and-runs-with-it/
After not substantiating a given set of views, it’s much easier for some to lob fallacies from a greater distance.
does anyone feel confident in predicting the future technonolgy upgrades involved with acquiring the natural resources in the discussed Arctic area?
I feel confident that the technology required to achieve such extraction will never make the extraction economically feasible, not to mention the human factors involved.
Is there anyone in that field who takes issue with that assessment?
Thanks for your input Tim. It’s good to see that ‘m not the only sceptical one! All this chest-beating helps fill the column inches though…
Extracting resources from under the Arctic is certainly going to be a serious challenge, and one that is probably beyond pretty much everyone in the immediate future.
But, I doubt that in the grand scheme of things, making a case for Russia’s claim on the North Pole will cost all that much.
From the perspective of pure odds, even if the chances of getting at the resources are, say, 10%, it’s probably a gamble worth taking.
Tim said: /I feel confident that the technology required to achieve such extraction will never make the extraction economically feasible, not to mention the human factors involved./
Fully agreed. What is far more important, I think, is the importance of the polar sea for shipping in the future.
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