Archivo etiqueta «Ártico»
Por Stefan Rahmstorf, profesor de Física del Océano de la Universidad de Potsdam, y director de departamento del Instituto de Investigación sobre el Impacto Climático de Potsdam. Su libro más reciente es The Climate Crisis. Traducción de Kena Nequiz (Project Syndicate, 17/10/11):
Una calamidad silenciosa, en gran medida inadvertida, se ha estado revelando en las últimas semanas en el Ártico. Las consecuencias de largo plazo serán de mayor alcance que las de la crisis de deuda internacional o las de la desaparición de la dictadura libia, que son las noticias que ahora concentran la atención de los medios de … Seguir leyendo
By Michael Byers, a professor of global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and the author of Who Owns the Arctic? (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 19/08/11):
No country will ever “own” the North Pole, which is located roughly 400 miles to the north of any land. The central Arctic Ocean belongs to humanity; its challenges are the responsibility of all nations. Those challenges — of life-threatening accidents, oil spills and over-fishing — are increasing as the sea-ice melts and ships of all kinds gain access.
The 1959 Antarctic Treaty is sometimes advanced as … Seguir leyendo
By Frances G. Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council who served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 18/08/11):
About 55,000 gallons of oil have escaped into the North Sea since last week from a leaky pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell, about 100 miles off Scotland.
Last year, Americans watched in mounting fury as the oil industry and the federal government struggled for five disastrous months to contain the much larger BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now imagine the increased danger and … Seguir leyendo
By Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor of global systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23/08/10):
Standing on the deck of this floating laboratory for Arctic science, which is part of Canada’s Coast Guard fleet and one of the world’s most powerful icebreakers, I can see vivid evidence of climate change. Channels through the Canadian Arctic archipelago that were choked with ice at this time of year two decades ago are now expanses of open water or vast patchworks of tiny islands of melting ice.
In 1994, the “Louie,” as the crew … Seguir leyendo
By Roger Howard, the author of The Arctic Gold Rush: The New Race for Tomorrow’s Resources (THE TIMES, 04/09/09):
The drastic climatic changes in the Arctic, viewed first-hand this week by an ‘alarmed’ UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, are threatening to unleash not only environmental catastrophe on the rest of the world but a furious political struggle between competing regional governments.
The Arctic Five – the US, Russia, Norway, Canada and Denmark (Greenland) – are scrambling to secure territorial rights to disputed and hitherto unclaimed parts of the world’s last great wilderness. This is partly because the retreat of … Seguir leyendo
By Jim Hoagland (THE WASHINGTON POST, 05/07/09):
Europe will be wrangled for the next six months by a lanky, no-nonsense Swede named Carl Bildt. His country chairs this semester’s cascade of European Union summits, procedural debates and other gabfests. As Sweden’s foreign minister, it is Bildt’s job to make sense of it all — a task akin to herding not cats but eels.
Well, he asked for it, didn’t he? When he was Sweden’s prime minister in the 1990s, the conservative politician relentlessly overhauled his country’s socialist economic policies and neutralist orientation to push it into the European Union. Now … Seguir leyendo
By Michael Gerson (THE WASHINGTON POST, 18/07/08):
Two polar bears, known in these parts as ice bears, amble and yawn on an iceberg. The mother and her 2-year-old cub stand out light yellow against bright white and glacial blue — these mascots of the global warming movement seem majestically content on an Arctic summer day.
Polar bears may be threatened, but they can hardly be called fragile. They are serene, cuddly killers, with curved claws that can pull a seal from the water by the top of its head in one smooth stroke. If the ice floes on which they … Seguir leyendo
By Michael Gerson (THE WASHINGTON POST, 16/07/08):
North of Oslo, north of Longyearbyen, almost as north as North itself, the National Geographic Endeavor breaks pack ice in endless daylight through a gray-teal sea. The expedition has been cruising near Svalbard, a group of high arctic islands larger than Denmark — in summer, a land of brown mountains streaked with snow-filled gullies, low clouds that blur distinctions of sky and land, and wide glaciers reaching the ocean in gashes of bright sky blue.
Ashore, this arctic desert is so harsh that the region’s natives wisely never settled here — only men … Seguir leyendo
By John B. Bellinger, the legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 23/06/08):
With the Arctic ice melting, anticipated increases in Arctic shipping, tourism and economic activity, and Russia’s flag-planting at the North Pole last summer, there has been much talk in the press about a “race to the Arctic” and even some calls for a new treaty to govern the “lawless” Arctic region.
We should all cool down. While there may be a need to expand cooperation in some areas, like search and rescue, there is already an extensive legal framework governing the … Seguir leyendo
By Simon Jenkins (THE GUARDIAN, 14/03/08):
Sitting on my desk is an illegal acquisition, a black pebble the size of a walnut. I picked it up some years ago on the slopes of Cape Crozier on Ross Island in the Antarctic. This vast wilderness of rock and ice lies on a cliff overlooking the Ross Sea and is celebrated as destination of the “worst journey in the world”.
This was the title of the book written by Apsley Cherry-Garrard about a trip taken by him and two colleagues from Scott’s 1911 polar expedition to acquire the eggs of the Emperor … Seguir leyendo
By Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor of peace and conflict studies at the University of Toronto and the author of “The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization” (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 04/10/07):
The Arctic ice cap melted this summer at a shocking pace, disappearing at a far higher rate than predicted by even the most pessimistic experts in global warming. But we shouldn’t be shocked, because scientists have long known that major features of earth’s interlinked climate system of air and water can change abruptly.
A big reason such change happens is feedback — not the … Seguir leyendo
By Scott Borgerson, who teaches maritime studies at the Coast Guard Academy, is an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 08/08/07):
Aboard Training Vessel Arctic Tern, off Newport, R.I.
Russia’s flag-planting caper at the North Pole last week captured the world’s attention. Harking back to the heady days of colonial imperialism and perhaps the success of Sputnik, a resurgent Russia dispatched from Murmansk a nuclear-powered icebreaker and a research vessel armed with two mini-submarines to stake a symbolic claim to the Arctic Ocean’s riches. Russia hopes that leaving its flag encased in … Seguir leyendo
By Dan van der Bat, a military historian and author of The Atlantic Campaign (THE GUARDIAN, 04/08/07):
The world’s children may soon be needing to write to Santa Claus in Russian if Moscow’s claim to the North Pole, made this week without a trace of humour, is realised, giving new life to the phrase “cold war”. No sooner had the Russians made their announcement than the US Coast Guard said it would be dispatching an icebreaker to the Arctic on a “research mission” on Monday.Sending submarines to the pole to plant a Russian flag on the seabed more than … Seguir leyendo