Lots of you will have noticed this report about the Arctic being ice-free, in summer, within twenty years. Now, let's set aside (I know you won't but I can suggest it anyway!) the question of whether it's really going to happen, whether the earth is really heating up or cooling down, whether the actions of Mankind have anything to do with it, and whether there's really anything we can do about it now, even so. Instead, let's just take the report at face value and think a little about some of the implications.
Of course, much of the media commentary has focused on the albedo effect - if the world replaces a large white section with a large dark blue section, it will absorb more of the Sun's light and heat up. And there would be all kinds of environmental implications of that. But I want to think about some other sorts of impact.
Here's what I want to point out. This would transform global politics, global transport, and global population movements. Around the Arctic are vast tracts of largely unpopulated land in Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. If there is going to be navigable water flowing in the Arctic there will be fish to catch, for a start. That alone would create growth in the towns of the Far North - indeed would lead to new fishing towns arising. But that's only the tip of the iceberg (as it were!). For if the Arctic ice is no longer in the way, then transport links between Russia and Canada, Greenland and Alaska will be transformed. The Arctic could soon contain the fastest-growing shipping lanes in the world. And where there is trade, there is a rationale for towns. Trade and fish could lead to enormous population influxes into the Far North. Northern Russia and Northern Canada could become the boom regions of the world.
And that's before we even start to consider the vast tracts of potential summer farmland that could come into play if it were easy to transport away. With eternal sunshine, the Far North has phases in the year when wildlife flourishes. Little is made of this potential at present - what would you do with what you grew in the time? You'd have to carry it away over Canadian wastelands to get it anywhere. But if you could stick it on a ship... Well, then we'd be talking. Some bright spark would make a fortune.
Anyway, that's just a few thoughts, but enough, I reckon. Heady stuff, this climate change, eh? And not all in a bad way...
