Northwest passage is open!!

[Ancalagon]

Hmm

They said this was not going to happen for a few decades yet... well it's open *now*

This is going to be huge - notably on who controls the passage. Canada believes that the passage shoudl be under Canadian control, something I fully agree with. When some rusty tanker spills a gazillion tons of oil on our shores, who's going to be left with the bill hmm?

Ancalagon

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/09/14/northwest-passage-esa.html


Record sea ice loss opens Northwest Passage
Last Updated: Friday, September 14, 2007 | 10:45 PM ET
CBC News

Sea ice in the Arctic has sunk to its lowest level since satellite record-keeping began, fully opening the most direct route through the Northwest Passage, the European Space Agency said Friday.

The much-coveted shortcut connecting Asia to Europe through the Canadian Arctic has been historically impassable.

The European Space Agency says sea ice continues to melt year after year, but a drastic drop this year has made the direct route "fully navigable" for the first time since satellite records began in 1978.

"We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around three million square kilometres," said Leif Toudal Pederson from the Danish National Space Center.

Over the past decade, he says, a drop of about 100,000 square kilometres per year is the average.

"So a drop of one million square kilometres in just one year is extreme," said Toudal.

The ice loss has also meant the Northeast Passage, along the Siberian coast, is "only partially blocked," the space agency says.

First travelled in 1903

While usually impassable, the Northwest Passage has been open enough for some explorers to travel through, with the first to travel the entire route in 1903.

And from 1940 to 1942, an RCMP schooner navigated the passage from west to east, then back again in a show of Canadian sovereignty over the North.

As a shorter shipping route than the Panama Canal by 5,000 kilometres, the Northwest Passage is seen as the "Arctic Grail."

The promise of an open passage has already led to international disputes.

Canada claims full rights to the parts of the passage running through its territory, saying it can control transit there. During the last election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a campaign promise to defend Canada's Arctic sovereignty.

Countries disputing Canada's claim argue the route should be open to all vessels.

[Pigs in Space]

Canada = Worlds next economic giant??

[EhtoZed]

Canada claims full rights to the parts of the passage running through its territory, saying it can control transit there. During the last election, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a campaign promise to defend Canada's Arctic sovereignty.Sure, he made a promise, but he's done precious little to defend any sovereignty. And arguably he's jeopardised it by not acting soon enough. Fucking Harper.

[GreyOne]

I thought he was funding a military training base and port? A half billion invested now will pay dividends later on.

[Northcott]

I thought he was funding a military training base and port? A half billion invested now will pay dividends later on.

Yep. With plans for more.

Mind you, there's considerable controversy about how that money's being spent. Instead of refurbishing an old base that's set up and ready to go, they're talking about building something new from scratch -- more delays, more money spent.

Harper's movements to guard our Arctic sovereignty, and his willingness to conflict with even Bush over this, is one of the few points he has my respect on. I'm hoping he won't fuck it up with waffling and favourtism in contracts for development.

[Northcott]

And while I'm thinking of it:

I'm expecting at least some mild sabre-rattling from Russia in the next year or three. On the one hand, they've been having some fairly in-depth talks with our nation about establishing friendly trade and travel relations, development of a port in Hudson's Bay to facilitate travel through the NW passage, and other key items of mutual interest.

On the other, they'll want to dispute the territorial issue and try and grab as much as they can. They've been doing an awful lot of flexing, and if that trend continues then I'd be amazed if at least some of it weren't pointed in our direction.

[Varaj]

Now we can enact our plan "Fried Bacon". Canada ask yourselves, "Why was the US willing to take over most of the defense of this continent?"
:plotting:

[GreyOne]

Now we can enact our plan "Fried Bacon". Canada ask yourselves, "Why was the US willing to take over most of the defense of this continent?"
:plotting:

Because we expected you too?

Who got played?

[Varaj]

Because we expected you too?

Who got played?

When we finally get back at you for burning the Whitehouse and finish clearing the passage with burning hockey players you will be ooh so sorry.

[Freedom Canadian]

When we finally get back at you for burning the Whitehouse and finish clearing the passage with burning hockey players you will be ooh so sorry.

Bah, soon our money will be worth more than your money.

[Varaj]

Bah, soon our money will be worth more than your money.

We will send in our troops to keep you down. We will give you pancakes and hockey to keep you distracted.

[Scarbonac]

The way I sees it, youse frostbacks owe us for taking in all your surplus performers these many decades and making them famous.


So we'll be takin that Nort'west Passage, a couple lbs of back-bacon and a case of Molson's.

[Varaj]

And in all fairness to the US. We are the ones that pumped out all the greenhouse gases that opened that little passage so the way we see it is ours anyhoo.
If you canooks had your druthers we would all be hugging meese and frozen to our balls. Thank god for rampart American consumerism.

[Edena_of_Neith]

Where exactly is the Canadian port and military base being built?

[Utrecht]

Canada = Worlds next economic giant??

yep, just like Egypt and Panama are today :D

Bah, soon our money will be worth more than your money.


Well, at least ours does not have a Loon on them :shock: . Eagle = cool. Loon = getting hung up by your shorts on your locker.......

[Northcott]

Eagle = cool.

Is that why you folks almost drove it into extinction? There's a symbolic gesture for you! :D



And for Edena:
http://www.sfu.ca/casr/id-arctic-empires-2.htm

Though in a quick read-through from the article it doesn't talk much about current settlements, population issues, or existing military structures in the north. It's just a dig on the government's current plans.

[doc]

Specer Tracy (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032851/) discovered it first !!!

[Freedom Canadian]

Well, at least ours does not have a Loon on them :shock: . Eagle = cool. Loon = getting hung up by your shorts on your locker.......

98 cents yesterday

99 cents today

??? tomorrow

[Utrecht]

98 cents yesterday

99 cents today

??? tomorrow

All fear the looooooon!!!!!! :D

[bunny]

It did break even today. I'm scared. And feeling highly inclined to shop US. I'm not sure why, but it's still cheaper by 30% on a lot of items (especially cars!) to head south and by what you want there.

[Freedom Canadian]

All fear the looooooon!!!!!! :D

If I had any artistic talent at all, I would draw an eagle who just got punched in the face by a loon. The eagle would be all stunned with small cartoon loons flying around its head, Loony Tunes style. :D

[Northcott]

It did break even today. I'm scared. And feeling highly inclined to shop US. I'm not sure why, but it's still cheaper by 30% on a lot of items (especially cars!) to head south and by what you want there.

Lower average wages, and when items are imported up here the retailers don't get their money back when the dollar shifts value. So they have to either a) lower the prices immediately and eat the loss (which can finish them), or b) wait out the shift in currency and hope they can draw enough customers to keep afloat until local prices begin to reflect the shift in the dollar.

[EhtoZed]

Is that why you folks almost drove it into extinction? There's a symbolic gesture for you! :DAmerica killed cool?

[Northcott]

On a related tangent:

It's likely not a coincidence that Russia is doing all this chest-puffing and sabre rattling now -- with their big new bombs, their bold military displays, and Putin's separating himself from Bush.

Russia is trying to lay claim to a huge chunk of the arctic, based on the idea that the continental shelf is connected to Russia, and so obviously the whole thing belongs to them. Man, I wonder what other kind of wonky "we own the sea" claims that could lead to.

Anyway, the arctic is not only valuable for the opening of the NW passage, but it's estimated that there's a vast amount of oil as of yet untapped under there. Or Cthulu. But scientists seem to think that it's oil. If one nation could claim a huge chunk of the arctic waters and find a way to drill, then that nation could be the new Saudi Arabia in terms of oil wealth.

Personally, I think that Iceland had the better idea with using their massive geothermal energy potential to invest in fuel cells: cheap and clean energy for them. As it gets more efficient, it'll become viable in terms of international production.

Anyway: Russia's trying to become a world power again. Currently they're trying to take over the arctic. My hunch is that Putin's probably willing to fight for this, if he thinks that resistance is weak. This would be a very bad time for the USA to be both trapped in a crappy quagmire of war in the Middle East and run headlong into a recession.

I think Bush may well go down as the worst president in the history of the USA.

[Edena_of_Neith]

The Northwest Passage was the second best option for the original explorers. They had already tried another route and failed.
That route is the North Passage, straight up to the Pole and across the east Arctic to the Bering Straits and on to the Far East.

The new climatic projections show the North Passage opening up and remaining open during the summer, from 2020 onward (in some scenarios, this happens earlier than 2020, and in some, later.)
And heck, if an icebreaker created a route through the surviving ice peninsula sticking out from the shrunken icecap to northernmost Russia, something pretty close to the North Passage could be open right now.
This will make the Northwest Passage irrelevant.

On the other hand, Churchill may grow into a great city. Who would have thunked it?