Posted by
Joel Aaron on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 1:08:32 AM
Long before Alex the Great was creating the irony of "Great" in association with imperialism that would cause revisionist historians centuries later to play footsie with textbook symantics, mankind had begun its never-ending race to claim strategic land and strategic resources. This summer, for the first time in recorded history, the Northwest Passage was ice-free from the Pacific to the Atlantic. And with the meltdown in the North Arctic making it possible to go after the estimated 25% of the world's black gold reserves located there, everyone from Russia to Canada to Denmark and Norway are racing for the land grab. Why is it all escalating now for the U.S.? Is it really because we can finally tap natural resources that were too difficult to reach before or because we're concerned that countries' with presidents who like to do topless photo ops on fly fishing trips and fraternize with other world powers with whom we have beefs are going for the glory...not to mention the military strategery.
This week, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Joe Biden will begin hearings for the U.S. adoption of the Law of the Sea convention which came in to force for many other nations in 1994. Why are we ramping up rhetoric for ratification? Because the U.N. provisions on the Law give a country exclusive economic rights to the sea's resources within 200 nautical miles of the countries' respective coastline with a provision to extend the limit to 350 miles if they can prove that their continental shelf extends that far. Enter Russia, Denmark and Canada to duke it out over the underwater Lomonosov Ridge that is currently in question. Essentially, the U.S. must sign the convention in order to legitimize ourselves in the race for everything from the strategic military outpost to the potential natural resources that Santa's Sweatshop represents. Some conservatives in the U.S. have seen the proposed signing as a no-win acknowledgement of U.S. sovereignty bowing to "world government" of the high seas. They fear this might hinder our ability to, say, apprehend ships with terrorist ties cruising through the Northwest Passage.
Despite the political "hand fold" that some feel would be communicated by a ratification, Biden is optimistic with support coming from everyone from the Administration to the American Petroleum Institute AND the World Wildlife Fund. The real political trick here would be for Republicans to find some way to take credit from Senator Biden and the Democrats if the ratification goes through and somehow get campaign finance support from both groups, no matter how disparate their intentions for the area may be. For the API, the Republican pitch could be, "We are helping you squeeze profits from a faraway land that is too difficult for Green Peace to do a location shoot and use against you in a television smear-ad." For the World Wildlife Fund, "We are influencing Senator Biden so that you can set up a polar bear reserve before big biz petroleum gets there and disrupts Yogi's natural habitat."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who seems perpetually miffed at Washington for insisting that the Northwest Passage is an international strait and should be open to ALL ships, stated in August that "the first principle of Arctic sovereignty is use it or lose it, eh? (use inflection)". Of course, the Maple Leafers maintain their concerns are more environmental than militaristic. And for his part, Anatoli Sagalevich, the Russian commander who piloted a submarine to plant the Russian flag on the North Pole seabed in August, professes astonishment at the nervous twitch his actions received from the international community. "The Americans placed their flag on the moon, and it doesn't mean the moon became theirs." (Aside: No, but it does mean we could land a lunar rover on a moon crater faster than you could).
Truly, why do we even concentrate on black gold when two out of three polar bears polled are lobbying for cellulose ethanol as a better energy source and the third bear is discounted for already having drowned in the melting Northwest Passage. Cellulose ethanol is the wave of the future. Don't believe me? Ask the molecular biologist sitting atop millions in federal grant money. Nevermind that some of our greatest men in lab coats have been working on generating energy from plant matter at a competitive price for several decades. Cellulose may be a tricky little molecule to break down for energy but, hey, keep it up! The polar bears are counting on you and Russia can't exploit corn reserves against our French allies in the war on terror.