ENVS 15: Environmental Issues of the Earth's Cold Regions

The first ever major international history of this forbidding continent - from the eighteenth century voyages of discovery to the fierce rivalries of today, as governments, scientists, environmentalists, and oil companies compete for control. ...

The Arctic has again become one of the leading issues on the international foreign policy agenda, in a manner unseen since the Cold War. Drawing on the perspectives of geopolitics and international law, this Handbook offers fresh insights and perspectives on the most pressing issues, grouped under the headings of political ascendancy, climate and environmental issues, resources and energy, and the response and policies of affected countries. ...

Bitter cold and constant snow. Polar bears, seals, and killer whales. Victor Frankenstein chasing his monstrous creation across icy terrain in a dogsled. The arctic calls to mind a myriad different images. Consisting of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, the United States, Russia, Greenland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, the arctic possesses a unique ecosystem--temperatures average negative 29 degrees Fahrenheit in winter and rarely rise above freezing in summer--and the indigenous peoples and cultures that live in the region have had to adapt to the harsh weather conditions. As global temperatures rise, the arctic is facing an environmental crisis, with melting glaciers causing grave concern around the world. But for all the renown of this frozen region, the Arctic remains far from perfectly understood. In A History of the Arctic, historian John McCannon provides an engaging overview of the region that spans from the Stone Age to the present. ...

The Routledge Handbook of the Polar Regions is an authoritative guide to the Arctic and the Antarctic through an exploration of key areas of research in the physical and natural sciences and the social sciences and humanities. It presents 38 new and original contributions from leading figures and voices in polar research, policy and practice, as well as work from emerging scholars. This handbook aims to approach and understand the Polar Regions as places that are at the forefront of global conversations about some of the most pressing contemporary issues and research questions of our age. ...

A growing number of scientists estimate that there will be no summer ice in the Arctic by as soon as 2013. Are we approaching the "End of the Arctic?" as journalist Ed Struzik asked in 1992, or fully entering the "Age of the Arctic," as Arctic expert Oran Young predicted in 1986? Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom: The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic looks at the uncertainty at the top of the world as the shrinking of the polar ice cap opens up new sea lanes and the vast hydrocarbon riches of the Arctic seafloor to commercial development and creates environmental disasters for Arctic biota and indigenous peoples. Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom explores the geopolitics of the Arctic from a historical as well as a contemporary perspective, showing how the warming of the Earth is transforming our very conception of the Arctic. ...

Focusing on both Polar Regions, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of political processes related to the rapidly changing Arctic and Antarctic, where the environmental impacts of human activities are extremely visible. Environmental changes in the Arctic and the Antarctic are increasingly seen as barometers of the global impact of human activities, while newly arising economic opportunities in both Polar Regions prompt predictions that they will be the site of future conflicts. ...

This book offers a wide-ranging account of the emerging issues of international politics in the Artic, and the emerging Geopolitical debates that surround the region. In this thorough but accessible book covering environmental issues, the author examines the Geopolitics of emerging land and resource disputes and the rise of both nationalist and pan-Arctic movements in the region. ...

The Technocratic Antarctic is an ethnographic account of the scientists and policymakers who work on Antarctica. In a place with no indigenous people, Antarctic scientists and policymakers use expertise as their primary model of governance. Scientific research and policy-making are practices that inform each other, and the Antarctic environment--with its striking beauty, dramatic human and animal lives, and specter of global climate change--not only informs science and policy but also lends Antarctic environmentalism a particularly technocratic patina. ...

See Chapter 3: Arctic Environmental Change and Potential Challenges.