ARCTIC: Oil Spills & more – 9th July 2024

Góðan daginn from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 9th of July twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

A significant change for the Arctic took effect on Monday, the 1st, when the UN's ban on heavy polluting fuel oils in the Arctic came into place. However, this new rule may have unintended consequences. On the same day, the Arctic Council issued a statement expressing concerns that this restriction could make oil spills even more dangerous. Even though the new environmentally compliant fuel has very low sulfur levels and emits less pollution, it coagulates into clumps when exposed to cold water, unlike previous fuels, which remained liquid. This presents a significant challenge because current oil spill cleaning equipment is designed to handle liquid oil. Now, if an oil spill were to occur, existing technology wouldn’t be able to clean it up.

Alaska’s attempts to clean up its Arctic are facing a challenge. In April, the US government implemented new environmental protections across Alaska to prevent new oil and gas developments. However, on Wednesday the 3rd, the state of Alaska issued a lawsuit against the federal government to challenge the new federal regulations. In the state’s lawsuit statement, they said that the federal government overreached its authority and disregarded Alaska's state rights. The state seeks to recoup billions of dollars — which Alaska considers lost revenue from the banning of oil and gas projects. The state also wants the reversal of the ban.

Russia is having more success at cleaning its Arctic though. On Monday the 8th, The Russian Geographical Society wrote on its website that its project to clean up human pollution from the Russian Arctic region has entered a new stage. The federal government funded the project, which began last year and has cleaned over 200 tonnes of waste from the Krasnoyarsk region so far. Now, alongside continuing to remove waste, the project and its volunteers will engage in scientific and botanical research to assess the damage done and how the environment can be restored to good health.

Moving on, Mining in the Arctic is fraught with risks. Last week, a collapse at a Yukon mine in Canada raised alarms about potential poisoning. On Thursday the 4th, John Streicker, the Mining Minister, confirmed cyanide had been detected in local water samples. Although the water isn't used for human consumption, it poses a significant risk to fish, potentially affecting human health through the food chain. In response, on Wednesday the 3rd , the Na-Cho Nyäk Dun First Nation called for a halt to all mining in the Yukon until a comprehensive land use plan protecting their people, ecosystems, and lands, is established.

However, the fish industry in Canada received a boost. On Wednesday the 3rd, the Canadian government announced it was ending the moratorium on northern cod fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador after over thirty years of the ban. The northern cod population collapsed in the eighties, with ninety-nine percent of the population disappearing, and was considered critically endangered until twenty sixteen. Despite the population barely recovering, the government’s report admits that the chance of decline in the next few years is over seventy percent. After three decades of a fishing moratorium, Canada is making a risky decision to try to revive its fishing industry.

More about Canada, as its historical injustices against Indigenous people are still being uncovered. On Wednesday the 3rd, Kimberly Murray, a federally appointed official investigating the former sites of Indigenous residential schools, released a new report stating that the existence of these schools proves that Canada committed crimes against humanity and genocide against its Indigenous population across the 20th century. Murray says that she doesn’t expect a formal response from the Canadian government but hopes the report proves to be an antidote to denialism which is still rampant in Canada even today.

The report is available online, you can find the link in the show notes.

The Arctic and its glaciers are melting rapidly, with unexpected consequences. A report released on Monday the 1st by the University of London found something unusual in Svalbard. Climate change is causing glacier melting, which exposes the rock underneath. Now, it turns out this bedrock is a great home for new life. It is quickly colonized by microscopic lifeforms that absorb nutrients and create a soil layer. The first microorganism to arrive is a fungal yeast, which acts as a significant carbon sink by absorbing carbon from the air and storing it in the ground. While glacier melting is a dire consequence of climate change, an unexpected positive is the emergence of a new carbon sink in the high Arctic.

In another unexpected discovery, on Thursday the 4th the University of Saskatchewan published their report on the discovery of a swathe of undocumented polar bear dens in northern Manitoba, Canada. These dens are the farthest northern polar bear dens ever found and some are over 250 years old. Polar bear denning sites are still a scientific mystery. We know female bears raise their cubs there but why they choose certain dens is still unknown and this report raises even more questions. The report says that formal protections can now be issued to these denning sites to try to protect the polar bear.

Polar Bears International, a conservation charity, has a website dedicated to following GPS-tagged bears. To track bears yourself, check out the link in the show notes!

In Denmark’s Arctic, prospects for a good quality of life have significantly increased. Under current employment regulations, Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland each have different employment laws, with salaries and worker protections outside of Denmark being inferior. However, in an agreement signed between the three nations on Thursday the 4th, all public sector employees in the Danish empire will share the same workers' rights by twenty twenty-six. This means a significant increase in salary, holiday allowance, maternity leave, and other crucial elements of working life. This decision should improve the quality of working life across the Danish empire, which may impact thoughts of independence in the territories.

But people in Sweden are much less happy with their government. The Swedish government announced last month it was proceeding with opening new mines across Luleå, Sweden’s Arctic state. The public response has been fierce. A report published on Thursday the 4th by the University of Luleå found a new civil disobedience movement emerging in Sweden. Public protests are becoming more common, and arrests of protesters have been increasing in recent years. The report found that actions from politicians only inflame protesters' anger. If Sweden wants to calm protesters, it might need its politicians to be less vocal.

In Iceland, the Atlantic puffin, the famous seabird, might be off the menu soon. Erpur Snær Hanssen, Iceland’s foremost puffin expert, told news agency RUV on Sunday the 7th that Iceland should ban puffin hunting to prevent the bird’s extinction. Iceland is home to the world’s largest puffin population, yet the number of birds has declined by 70% since nineteen ninety-five. Erpur believes the government has an international responsibility to protect the puffin and that it needs to do more than just advise hunters to limit their catches. A full moratorium on puffin hunting is needed to protect the colorful seabird.

And to close this edition, some more news about Iceland, where the public is demanding change. An opinion poll conducted by market research company Maskína, which released its results on Thursday the 4th, found that over fifty-four percent of respondents want Iceland to join the EU, and almost seventy-five percent want Iceland to hold a referendum on the countrys status within the EU. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for next year, and it is likely that Iceland’s EU membership will be on the minds of voters.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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