Arctic

Summer 2024 Was World’s Hottest Ever Recorded

September 8, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Educate! Arctic, climate crisis, European Union (EU), Global heating

According to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), the summer of 2024 was the planet’s warmest on record for the Northern Hemisphere. The extreme heat of this year’s boreal summer — June to August — means it is more likely that the average global temperature for the entire year will be hotter than that of 2023. “During the past three months of 2024, the globe has experienced the hottest June and August, the hottest day on record, and the hottest boreal summer on record. This string of record temperatures is increasing the likelihood of 2024 being the hottest year on record,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy director of C3S, in a press release from C3S.

The Global South In The Arctic North

May 14, 2024 Renate Bridenthal, Geopolitical Economy. Resist! Arctic, Global South, Indigenous Activism, Inuit, Sovereignty

In January, three months into Israel’s attack on Gaza, a group people in the Inuit city of Iqaluit, the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, rallied and called for a ceasefire. One demonstrator said, “I think Palestinian rights are Indigenous rights to those lands, and we’re on Indigenous land here, and if we’re fighting for the rights of Indigenous people in Canada, in Nunavut, we should be doing the same worldwide.” Bigger rallies took place in the more populated cities of Whitehorse, Yukon, and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. More than 200 people gathered at the Whitehorse waterfront, some of them descendants of Palestinian refugees from the Nakba of 1948.

War Games In Arctic: What’s Driving The West’s New Passion?

March 15, 2024 Bruce K. Gagnon, Space for Peace. Educate! Arctic, Military Exercises, NATO, Wars and Militarism

Two unprecedented military exercises are being conducted by the US and its NATO allies simultaneously in various parts of the Arctic, signaling a new aggressive stance by the West in the region. Thirteen NATO countries participated this week in the Nordic Response 2024 exercise held in Finland and Sweden, near the border with Russia. Additionally, the US Army recently conducted a training event near Fairbanks, Alaska, also close to Russia's borders. The US exercise was conducted within the framework of the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center (JPMRC) and involved 8,000 American servicemen from the 11th Airborne Division and an unspecified smaller number of “foreign allies.”

The New Cold War In The Arctic

October 30, 2023 Adam Federman, In These Times. Educate! Arctic, Greenland, New Cold War, US military

In the spring of 1953, when Regina Kristiansen was 14, she and her family were forced to leave their village of Uummannaq in northwestern Greenland, hundreds of miles above the Arctic Circle. At the behest of Danish authorities, who promised them new homes, they were given just a few days to gather their belongings. Kristiansen drove a dogsled across the ice for two days before reaching a barren island in Baffin Bay. Along with seven other families, they lived in makeshift tents for months as storms lashed the shore and winter approached. One woman gave birth in the tents. Another, a village elder, died before Denmark finished building their homes.

The Arctic Is The Next Frontier In The New Cold War

March 1, 2023 Renate Bridenthal, Geopolitical Economy. Educate! Arctic, China, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, NATO, New Cold War, Norway, Russia, Sweden, US Imperialism

The Arctic had once been a largely peaceful zone, harboring cooperative international scientific research. But today, it is swiftly becoming one of militarized power politics. Heavily armed nations surround the melting Arctic Ocean, with its unstable environment of eroding shorelines, accessible natural resources, and contested maritime passages. This February, the U.S. launched little publicized, month-long military exercises in the Arctic, hosted by Finland and Norway. The Pentagon’s European Command described the exercises – named Arctic Forge 23, Defense Exercise North, and Joint Viking – as a way “to demonstrate readiness by deploying a combat-credible force to enhance power in NATO’s northern flank”.

New Climate Research From A Year-Long Arctic Expedition Raises An Ozone Alarm

June 24, 2021 Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News. Educate! Arctic, climate crisis, Environment, Ozone

After sampling the atmosphere above the Arctic for more than a year during the MOSAiC research voyage, climate scientists say the ozone layer, Earth’s protection against intense ultraviolet radiation, is at risk, despite the progress made in protecting atmospheric ozone by the 1987 Montreal Protocol, the global treaty that banned ozone-harming chemicals. As greenhouse gases heated the surface of the planet, the researchers said, they have also, during the past 50 years, cooled the upper layers of the atmosphere over the Arctic. In the colder stratosphere, long-lived pollutants like chlorofluorocarbons and halons from refrigerants and industrial solvents break down and release chlorine and bromine, which react with sunlight to destroy ozone.

US Troop Build Up Threatens Resource War In The Arctic

April 28, 2021 Sam Carliner, Left Voice. Educate! Arctic, Imperialism, US military, Wars and Militarism

While plenty of headlines are being dedicated to the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, an increase of U.S. forces in another area has gone under the radar. This area is the Arctic. Back in March, the U.S. Army announced its strategy for “Regaining Arctic Dominance,” signaling that the region long devastated by climate change may soon also be devastated by great power competition and U.S. imperialism. This focus on the Arctic comes as a result of the climate crisis. The Arctic is melting three times faster than the rest of the world, but rather than treating this as the existential threat that it is, capitalists view it as an opportunity to expand their regional influence, a move which will fuel the crisis even more.

Freakish Arctic Fires Alarmingly Intensify

August 14, 2020 Robert Hunziker, Counterpunch. Educate! Arctic, climate crisis, Russia, Wildfires

NASA satellite images of fires in eastern Siberia depict an inferno of monstrous proportions, nothing in modern history compares. And, as of July, it’s intensifying. Should people be concerned? Answer: Yes, and double yes. According to Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts: “What has been surprising is the rapid increase in the scale and intensity of the fires through July, largely driven by a large cluster of active fires in the northern Sakha Republic.”

The Struggle To Protect The Sacred Place Where Life Begins

June 28, 2020 Nick Engelfried, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Arctic, Divestment, Indigenous People, Oil and Gas

As the Trump administration neared the end of its first year in office in 2017, it seemed environmental activists had lost one of the most hard-fought battles in the movement’s history. Thanks to a last-minute maneuver by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Congressional Republicans succeeded in passing legislation allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. Some of the worst fears of environmental and Indigenous rights groups for what might happen under the administration appeared to be coming true. However, two and a half years later, no drilling or seismic testing has taken place in the refuge — and there is a very real chance it might never happen. A nationwide grassroots movement led by the Indigenous Gwich’in people has repeatedly delayed the oil leasing process and made the prospect of drilling less attractive to major companies.

The Arctic: World War III’s Newest Battlefield

February 11, 2020 By Michael Klare, Tomdispatch.com Educate! Arctic, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, US Imperialism

When I first met Michael Klare in the late Neolithic age (it was actually the early 1970s), he was already researching the U.S. military in a way no one else was doing. His first book on the subject, War Without End: American Planning for the Next Vietnams, had just been published. The title remains eerily apt, given Washington’s twenty-first-century “forever wars.” Almost 50 years later, he’s still ahead of the curve and his newest book on that military, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change, has only recently come out.

Goldman Sachs Sees Stranded Assets: Rules Out Investment In Coal And Arctic Oil

December 18, 2019 Staff, Ran.org Create! Arctic, Finance and the Economy, Oil

San Francisco– Today, Goldman Sachs announced the strongest fossil finance restrictions of any major U.S. bank, though it still lags behind its leading global competitors. It also remains far from alignment with what is needed to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Goldman Sachs has ruled out direct finance for new or expanding thermal coal mines and coal-fired power plant projects worldwide, as well as direct finance for new Arctic oil exploration and production. The policy makes explicit mention of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Judge Says Trump’s Plan To Allow Drilling In Arctic Ocean Is ‘Unlawful And Invalid’

April 3, 2019 Olivia Rosane, Ecowatch.com Educate! Arctic, Courts, Drilling, Trump Administration

A federal judge in Alaska ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump "exceeded the president's authority" when he signed an executive order to allow offshore oil drilling in around 125 million acres of the Arctic Ocean, CNN reported. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason's decision restores a ban on drilling in 98 percent of the U.S.-controlled Arctic Ocean, according to Earthjustice, which sued to stop Trump's order on behalf of several environmental groups and Alaska Native communities.

NATO’s Upcoming 40,000-soldier Arctic Drill Is A Message To Russia And China

October 23, 2018 Andrew Korybko, Orientalreview.org Educate! Arctic, Arctic drilling, China, Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, NATO, Russia, United States

The US and its allies have been making a big deal about Russia’s Arctic interests for over the past decade since the country planted its flag under the North Pole in 2007, which was Moscow’s dramatic way of asserting its UN-submitted claims to the region on the basis that the Siberian-originating undersea Lomonosov Ridge’s extension all the way to that point makes it Russian territory. The Arctic is poised to become increasingly important in world affairs over the coming decades because the progressive melting of polar ice is allowing for the year-round establishment of the Northern Sea Route between Western and Eastern Eurasia that will cut traditional shipping times in half.

The Arctic Pandora’s Box

July 24, 2018 Eleanor Goldfield, ArtKillingApathy.com Educate! Arctic, Climate Change

Edward Snowden said that his greatest fear with regards to revealing the largest government spying program in history was that “nothing will change.” When I interviewed John Kiriakou, he agreed. When it comes to climate change, it often feels like I’m screaming “fire” at a bunch of people sitting around roasting marshmallows. For so many, the issue of climate change has become normalized, even oddly comfortable. In the film “This Changes Everything,” Naomi Klein laments the apathy she feels in seeing yet another polar bear caught on a melting piece of ice. It’s an image we’ve seen so often, it just becomes another image – a passable piece of our reality – unfortunate but too big, too abstract, too difficult to change. In the film, likewise the book, Klein makes the point that while climate change is indeed a crisis, capitalism is what’s driving that crisis.

Judge Says Groups Can Sue To Keep Arctic, Atlantic Drill Ban

March 22, 2018 Staff, APNews.com Resist! Arctic, Arctic drilling, Courts, Lawsuit

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s reversal of a ban on petroleum drilling in most of the Arctic Ocean and Atlantic underwater canyons can move forward. Federal court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled Monday in Anchorage, Alaska, that environmental groups can sue to keep the ban in place. Former President Barack Obama withdrew Arctic waters under provisions of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Obama also banned exploration in 5,937 square miles (15,377 square kilometers) of Atlantic Ocean canyon complexes. Environmental groups say presidents can permanently withdraw areas but the law makes no provision to reopen areas.

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