ARCTIC: Carbon Capture & more – 14th May 2024

Góðan daginn from BA! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 14th of May twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

When it comes to cleaning the planet, all sorts of fancy technologies will be needed, but sometimes, something as simple as a vacuum will do the job. On Wednesday the 8th, Swiss company Climeworks opened the world’s largest carbon air capture plant in Iceland. The technology works by sucking in air and removing the carbon dioxide using chemicals. Climeworks plans to transport about 36 thousand tons of carbon underground each year, where it will naturally transform into stone, locking it away permanently. Jan Wurzbacher, the company’s co-founder, said this plant marks a small step toward their goal of removing 1 billion tons of carbon each year by twenty fifty.

The most pressing concern in Iceland right now isn’t carbon; it’s volcanoes. The Icelandic Meteorological Office confirmed on Thursday the 9th that the Sundhnúkur volcano had ceased erupting, but the threat lingers. Magma continues accumulating beneath the surface, raising concerns about a new eruption in the coming days, possibly in a different location. While residents of Grindavik, the nearby town, have been allowed brief returns, the civil defense department issued a warning on the 9th of a potential evacuation order with little advance notice.

Norway faces a pivotal legal battle, marking the most significant ruling on Indigenous rights since the nineteen nineties. On Monday the 6th, the Sami Parliament filed a substantial land claim to Norway’s Supreme Court, which seeks to determine whether the Sami would govern the 5,500 square kilometer municipality of Karasjok in Northern Norway.

The case revolves around whether Karasjok and its Indigenous Sami inhabitants legally ceded their territory to Norway in the past or if Norway merely imposed its authority without legal consent. While a verdict is months away, success for the Sami could pave the way for other Norwegian municipalities to pursue similar paths, potentially reinstating Sami governance in their ancestral lands.

Moving over to the US where the Coast Guard’s aims to build a new icebreaker fleet are failing miserably. During a testimony to a US House subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security on Tuesday the 7th, Ron O’Rourke from the Congressional Research Service outlined the challenges facing the US's Polar marine program. He revealed that plans to construct three heavy icebreakers are now five years behind schedule, with costs soaring to over $5 billion dollars, a stark increase from the initial estimate of under $2 billion. Witnesses at the hearing attributed the project's poor performance to various factors, including a shortage of qualified naval architects and engineers, resulting in frequent changes to the initial ship designs.

Even in a quickly changing Arctic, some traditions remain. On Tuesday the 7th, Euronews reported that The Faroe Islands' annual whale hunt, or grindadráp, started once again. This tradition involves the mass slaughter of pilot whales, using traditional blades and spikes to inflict severe wounds that lead to the whales bleeding to death. While Faroese authorities and some of its residents defend the practice as a cultural tradition dating back to the year 800, it consistently sparks severe outcry from conservation organizations worldwide due to its brutal nature. Despite the controversy, the hunt is set to continue throughout the summer, with an additional 500 pilot whales expected to be killed this year.

More terrible news for Arctic ocean life as the Norwegian Nature Conservancy confirmed on Wednesday the 8th that there was an oil spill on Norway’s northern coast. The source of this spill is currently unknown but the victims are clear. Hundreds of severely wounded seabirds have been washing ashore across northern Norway, with the vast majority not expected to survive. The Coastal Administration launched an airborne investigation on Friday the 10th but couldn’t find the source of the spill. This news comes on the back of the Norwegian government expanding oil drilling in this same area in recent weeks.

Restoring the damaged Arctic environment is a task our modern systems are struggling to achieve. But a blast from the past might just hold the key. New research published on Wednesday the 8th in the journal Nature by the Colossal Biosciences Institute reveals that about 50,000 ancient wooly mammoths could thrive in modern Northern Alaska and their presence would cause the Arctic to rewild into a healthier balance. The Colossal Biosciences Institute is a genetics company working on reviving the extinct wooly mammoth by twenty twenty-eight.

If anyone wants to create their own Arctic paradise then now’s your chance. On Wednesday the 8th, a plot of land the size of Manhattan went up for sale in the Norwegian islands of Svalbard, high in the Arctic. According to Knight Frank, the real estate agency handling the sale, The selling price is over $300 million US dollars. The land, called Søre Fagerfjord, is available for anyone to purchase. Will Matthews from Knight Frank spoke to Euronews on Friday the 10th and confirmed that the agency is in contact with several ultra-high-net-worth individuals who are passionate about protecting this rare and vulnerable part of the Arctic.

Canada's efforts to clean up the Faro mine in Yukon's Arctic region face significant challenges. The mine used to generate lots of toxic waste and was never cleaned up, and since it was abandoned in nineteen ninety-eight contamination spread, making the site one of the country's most contaminated areas. Despite a plan devised in February to address the contamination while offsetting the carbon emissions associated with the cleanup, the federal government announced on Wednesday the 8th that it couldn’t carry out this offsetting strategy because the projected carbon release during the operation surpasses the executive’s capacity for offsetting. While the government suggests that future technological advancements may enable such offsetting, sustainability expert Alex Tavasoli from the University of British Columbia criticized this response as a cop-out, accusing the government of evading immediate action and solutions.

A report released on Monday the 6th by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention has highlighted the difficulties Sami people still face in Sweden. The document is the first to study hate crimes against the Sami people and found that three-quarters of the Sami population reported being targeted for racial abuse. Since this racial abuse often happens in remote areas where evidence is hard to gather, many Sami people have become afraid to openly display their culture. The report recommends that a specialized hate crime unit be stationed in the Arctic. There are three in southern Sweden, but no such unit exists in the north.

Even though they have to face climate change and a melting homeland, residents of the Arctic are choosing to stay. According to a report published on Thursday the 9th by Penn State researchers in the Regional Environmental Change journal, there's little evidence of individuals or households migrating out of the polar regions of Alaska and northern Canada due to climate change. Instead, strong familial and cultural ties bind people to the Arctic, fostering resilience in the face of environmental shifts. While some settlements have relocated as a result of climate change, the communities themselves have always remained within the Arctic region. This study underscores the unique resilience of Arctic communities and their deep connection to their homeland.

Finally, award season has come to the Arctic. The Arctic Inspiration Prize is an annual Canadian prize which is given to new and innovative projects to improve northerners’ lives. The twenty twenty-four award ceremony was held on Tuesday the 7th with ten projects chosen to receive over $2 million US dollars in shared funding. The biggest prize of $750,000 dollars went to a project in northern Labrador called the Inotsiavik Center. This will be a new center for promoting and reviving the Inuit cultures of northern Labrador.

To check out all of the winning projects, follow the link in the show notes!

And that’s it for this week! Thanks for joining us!

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