Everybody Wants to be the Elves

Posted on August 11, 2007 in Development

There’s a huge fight in the makings over the ownership of the North Pole, previously a region which nobody cared about. Denmark, Russia, and Canada have all made strong claims for ownership of Lomonosov Ridge:

• Russia planted a flag on the ocean floor beneath the North Pole
• Canada is building a new military base on Baffin Island and promises to aggressively defend its interests
• Denmark has rented the services of a Swedish icebreaker and is now checking the ocean floor for indications that the Lomonosov Ridge is connected to Greenland
• The United States finds itself in a predicariment because it has never ratified the UN accord which grants ownership of underwater territory to the country which can prove that that piece of land is part of its continental shelf.

This may be the defining fight of the last years of petroleum addiction and the first battle of the ages following Global Warming.

[tags]North Pole, Arctic Ocean, petroleum, Russia, Canada, Denmark, border disputes, border dispute, development, global warming[/tags]