[Deleted. Off topic.]

[Deleted. Off-topic responding to post above.]

My comment was certainly not off-topic it was on the subject of the opinion piece on exploitation of the Arctic.

The web site referred to http://climateprogress.org/is run by a eminent scientist and discus's climate change, and well worth others reading some of the postings.

At the time of the posting it was on the top of the page it now is lower down at:-

http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/13/begich-as-the-arctic-melts-let%E2%80%99s-drill-baby-drill/

Thanks Keith for an informative article though I would have liked you to have been a bit more assertive in pushing particular options e.g. barracking for indigenous rights, for instance. In a climate-changed world, it certainly looks as though the Arctic states will gain greater power, if only because, as James Lovelock warns, there will be just a few of us left "huddled around the Poles". Development of oil reserves in the Arctic may well speed up the process of global warming, even if it is partly countered by ships taking less time to reach destinations. Personally, the prospect of release of methane from the tundra leading to ever greater global warming, scares me witless. All the other issues (greater mineral wealth, shorter shipping times) may fade into insignificance if the world becomes uninhabitable.

No! Carbon tax, until all scientific data can agree. While all are this way and that way, the conclusions are out!

Which ever way you choose to think......change is happening. Like I said befour, "who said this planet would be stable just for you and your in-come values. Dont play with, what you don't understand.

Its human nature that's the problem, and that comes from the best minds on planet. What do you think will happen if we all screw with this blue/green planet! Are you humans so thick?

You will kill everything......and that's a fact! What is wrong with this picture we are seeing?

The human world has to think! How long can we get away with this.....?

BLUE

If National Governments were under the direction of statesmen, the Arctic would be managed in a similar manner to the Antarctic.

For the lass/lad spearheading a non-mining treaty, a residence (floating?) might be constructed to match the commemorative R J Hawke Living Quarters in the Antarctic - not that he ever spent much time in it.

I do have sympathy for social and creature comforts for the indigenous peoples in the Arctic zones. However, I have little sympathy for any increase in environmental disturbance above their modest traditional ones. And, with a perspective of some fairness, they are already getting a bit of their own back on those a few latitudes south: something of a weather exchange is taking place between the two regions. If only they could send their summer mosquitoes and such-like.
As popnperish notes, times do seem to be a-changing, with the probability that there will be more than just Caribu/Reindeer methanating. A decade ago my neighbor visited the country of his ancestral origins. He came back with interesting observations of residences and other buildings leaning their elbows on the landscape due to softening permafrost in the Russia he travelled. The residents were not newcomers to those areas when the buildings were constructed.

I do not regret the inability of any future Fridtjof Nansen to jump ship near the pole and walk back to Norway. However, I am very saddened by the obvious inability of society to get off the treadmill of ever-continuous growth - in human numbers, and also in their habit of excess consumption of ever-decreasing environmental resources. If it cannot, there is little hope for our species - indigenous included.