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Life, Death, and Geopolitics in the New Arctic
Smithsonian
December 2009
On Sale: December 1, 2009
304 pages
ISBN: 0061579076
EAN: 9780061579073
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
An eye-opening look at the winners and losers in the high-stakes story of Arctic transformation, from nations to natives to animals to the very landscape itself The Arcticβlike the canary in the coal mineβhas reacted more quickly and dramatically to global warming than many had anticipated. Hundreds of scientists are urgently trying to predict just how the Arctic will change and how those changes will in turn affect the rest of the planet. But plenty of other people, driven by profit rather than data, are interested as well. The riches of the worldβs last virgin territory have spurred the reawakening of old geopolitical rivalries. The United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, and the Danish territory of Greenland all control areas around the Arctic Ocean. We face a new era of oil rigs and drill ships, of tankers taking shortcuts from Yokohama to Rotterdam, as well as a potential fight over the Arcticβs treasures. Alongside the winners from an open Arctic sea are the many losers, from the nomadic reindeer herders of Siberia and Scandinavia to the Inuit hunters of Alaska, Greenland, and Canada. Other creatures that rely on the vast expanses of sea ice, including seals, birds, and whalesβand the ecosystems within which they liveβmay disappear to be replaced by different creatures. Combining science, business, politics, and adven-ture, Alun Anderson takes the reader to the ends of the earth for what may be the last narrative portrait of this rapidly changing land of unparalleled global significance.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - January 16, 2010
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