Arctic Research Paper

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The Arctic, a seemingly frozen wasteland, holds beneath its blankets of ice many resources valuable to industrial countries, such as oil, natural gas, and abundant populations of fish. The value of the area is irresistibly high. This has led to the Arctic territory splitting up into land masses that are governed Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States, and other Northern regions. They have access to some natural resources, specifically oil fields in Northern Alaska such as Scarborough and Prudhoe Bay, but have all submitted applications to extend their polar seabeds. These governing countries have submitted their applications, knowing that the Arctic is the least protected of the world’s oceans (less than 1.5% protected) with some of the…show more content…
Thus, it is crucial to protect the Arctic. In its need for preservation and protection, the region presents drawbacks in its resources. The Arctic, underneath large ice sheets, holds reserves of natural gas and oil, enough to keep the infrastructure of a single region (or possibly more) fully intact. The drawback lies in the resources which have value placed on them, each region vying for every non-sustainable resource. Large regions in the Northern Hemisphere such as The United States, Canada, Russia, and parts of the Netherlands have all expressed extreme economic interest in the natural gas and oil hidden deep beneath the calm glaciers of the Arctic region. Each territory seeks to drill into those resources and use them for benefit fueled by the desire to compete…show more content…
It has come so far that international organizations must step in and attempt to do something before it’s too late. The devastating effects of the desire for clearly present natural resources in Arctic exhibited by northern regions have led to entire government-funded organizations attempting to save an area millions of miles away. But in recent history, organizations like Greenpeace that attempt to save affected regions like the Arctic, have existed within a political world that is not conscious of the changing climate. In 2011, in order to avoid a government shutdown, $1.39 billion dollars of the Department of Environmental Protection’s budget was cut. The message was clearly made that the importance of the climate is not all it is made up to be, infuriating environmentally-conscious individuals globally. To exist in a political setting that does not acknowledge the world around it that allows its existence in the first place, leads to a very pointed kind of hatred towards large governmental bodies. The President of the United States himself follows this retrograde way of publicly showing off the environment as an aspect of life that needs aid, but then hinders the progress of rebuilding our earth. In 2015 Mount McKinley was renamed Mt. Denali by Barack Obama, a

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