Divided We Fall
It’s 2050. Drained, polluted and fought over, the Arctic has vanished completely. In its place? A hostile new world…
Words Klaus Dodds
Illustration Eve Lloyd Knight
While some may expect an optimistic, largely pacific vision of the Arctic in the decades to come, there is another possibility. A vision less hopeful, where conflict and calamity animate and inflame. Perhaps we got our first glimpse of such a future when a Russian flag was gently deposited at the bottom of the central Arctic Ocean in 2007.
It’s 2050. Fearing increased interest and even exploitation from outsiders, Russia, followed by other Arctic states, invests heavily in advanced ships, planes, and other materials designed to enhance their powers to survey, to administer, to exploit, to explore and to defend themselves from those who might imperial their sovereign interests. New technologies, especially in the field of underwater mining, further enhance interest in the areas beyond the Arctic states’ continental shelves — with Russia, Canada and even an independent Greenland beginning to map and survey the remote corners of their outer limits.
But others are interested and increasingly vociferous in arguing that those areas beyond the exclusive economic zones of Arctic states belong to the international community as a whole. A coalition of countries, some quite near to the Arctic and others quite far, argue that actually the resources of the central Arctic seabed and water column are part of the global common. Fishing fleets from distant waters and underwater mining companies begin to operate close to the North Pole before migrating outwards, and get ever-closer to those exclusive economic zones. Other countries begin to use the central Arctic Ocean as a military testing ground, and conduct naval and aerial exercises. Some Arctic parties participate too, but maybe that is due to the fact that they are concerned about maintaining good commercial relations with these powerful actors, rather than military ones.
Fearing fish stock collapse, accidental missile launches and environmental pollution from poorly regulated underwater mining, Arctic states become ever more aggressive in arresting, harassing and even destroying what they consider to be rogue vessels. In the midst of this uncertainty, and with ever-greater access made possible by ever-diminishing sea ice coverage, third parties sponsored by those distant nations conduct their own campaign of harassment and disruption. The United Nations Secretary-General in 2052 speaks of the need to consider sending UN peacekeeping forces to the Central Arctic Ocean to maintain order. In the meantime, each year, Canada, Greenland and Russia celebrate their own North Pole day, conducting an annual nationalistic display for their citizens.
While the parties, both state and nonstate, argue and clash over access and ownership, historians remind audiences that there was a time when the Arctic Treaty System worked well to maintain cordial relations by focusing on things that all parties agreed upon: search and rescue, oil spill response, scientific co-operation and military confidence building. But in those days, non-Arctic states tended to accept the sovereign rights of the Arctic states, including independent Greenland. Terms like ‘shared resource management’ and ‘transnational governance’ enjoyed political traction.
All sides blame one another for the loss of that goodwill and restraint. Further resource discoveries, combined with ever-greater accessibility, shift the view of the maritime Arctic from a frozen desert to a polar Mediterranean and global common. As pressure heightens on food stocks and energy supplies, it was perhaps inevitable that any geopolitical consensus would be sorely tested. Fishing intensifies and debate continues about whether whaling and sealing ought to restart — this time in industrial quantities. But in the absence of large-scale oversight, resources are depleted. Meanwhile others see opportunities to dump nuclear and chemical waste from other parts of the world.
“The physical and mental health of communities worsens while ever-increasing numbers of non-indigenous people are sent north to defend, exploit, transport and monitor the region.”
Sadly for indigenous and northern communities, the improvement they enjoyed in terms of land claims and resource rights get over-turned by desperate governments who invoke national security concerns to justify extraordinary measures. Rights are rescinded, resources are nationalised and securitised.The physical and mental health of communities worsens while ever-increasing numbers of non-indigenous people are sent north to defend, exploit, transport and monitor the region. Anti-government protests break out among northerners across the polar territories, fuelled by resentment towards these intrusions, and the loss of political, economic and cultural rights. Many warn of a second relocation — an unhappy echo of the early 1950s, when the Canadian federal government forced Inuit families out of their homes in northern Quebec, and resettled them in one of the coldest areas of the planet. This time, they fear, they will be driven in the other direction, away from the region altogether.
And all the while, as people and organisations argue over resources and the promise of wealth, the Arctic heats. Methane continues to be released in industrial quantities, and sea ice disappears for the entire summer season. Weather patterns become more and more unpredictable. Winter storms disrupt northern communities and their infrastructure. It becomes increasingly common for fuel supplies to fail and for roads to fracture. Communication might be cheaper and easier, but planes still get cancelled and electronic networks fail. Life is frustrating and expensive. So the original inhabitants of northern communities end up leaving, as others, bizarrely, seek to enter.
In the midst of all this chaos and uncertainty, the tourist trade is booming. Even if there is a whiff of danger, ever-greater numbers decide that they need to see the Arctic before it changes forever. Disaster tourism flourishes and even if a few cruise ships sink as a consequence of unpredictable sea ice, the hazards are considered worth the risk.
People say to one another — experience it while you can.
This article is taken from Weapons of Reason’s first issue: The Arctic. Read the next article: The Pole of Peace.
Weapons of Reason is a publishing project to understand and articulate the global challenges shaping our world by Human After All design agency.
Created in partnership with…
