Of course, about the Arctic and Arctic change, it's [inaudible] impossible to keep up with all of the events that are unfolding with so many dimensions of change that are going on. But what I want to do in this last video is at least review a few recent. It's real recent events I'm talking unfolding in the year 2020 that can give you an idea of just the many things that are going on, really focusing here on the economic, social, and political side of the house, which in many cases of course, is tied in with the environmental changes that we're seeing in the Arctic. A key point, it's pretty damn hard to keep up with current Arctic issues. But the few points that I want to hit upon here in terms of most recent defenses, extraction activities, oil, natural gas, coal, fisheries, indigenous concerns keep on rising more and more, and international tensions. They've been there for a while and they're also growing. Let's start out with looking at extraction activities. What is going on most recently? Well, let's think about what's going up at Prudhoe Bay. That's on the north slope of Alaska. It turns out there's been some changes there. Hilcorp corporation or it's just known as Hilcorp. It's based in Dallas. They're taking over British Petroleum Arctic leases and operator position at Prudhoe Bay. There's a change at management you might say. Now remember that oil production in the Prudhoe Bay region has been dropping for some time. There's new development going on offshore, and there's a lot of controversy about drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge and in the National Petroleum Reserve. But things are still happening up there. Now, Norway recently announced plans for a huge expansion of Arctic oil exploration focusing on the Barents Sea. Now, Norway has always been very concerned about environmental impacts, climate impact. But here they are going for new exploration. It's a revenue source, it's economics that drive this as well. When we're dealing with things like climate change, oil production, and so many faceted problem that we've had to deal with. What's going on the Russian side of the house, Novatech. Novatech, that's one of the big natural gas companies. They have a big and liquefied natural gas project. Project number two, LNG stands for liquefied natural gas and they're gung ho on it, and they want to begin production in the year 2022. There's a lot more going on, continuing to go on the Russian side of the house. Now, liquefied natural gas, remember that natural gas is basically just methane, CH4, got a little ethane in it. But it's a gas. If it get liquefied, of course, it's much easier to transport. You're talking about ships that can carry liquefied natural gas. Now, on the US side, a little more of the Trump administration has announced more plans to expand oil production on federal lands on Alaska's north slope. A very aggressive posture on this, and of course, this is very controversial. We talk about the Porcupine Caribou Herd, we've covered before. It's a very controversial issue, but the Trump administration really wants to go gung ho on producing oil on the Alaska North Slope. Now, just going on, what about fisheries? One of the big things in the news is that, Russia is going to open its first commercial Pollock fishery in the Chukchi Sea. That's Alaska Pollock, and why they're doing this is that fish are moving in from the Bering Sea. I presumed that in the Chukchi Sea, there were always some Alaska Pollock, but now with less ice climate change, fish are moving into the Chukchi Sea. Russia sees this as a very viable economic activity. I guess what we'll see is maybe more Russian fish sticks. Now, here's a question of why can Russia commercially fish for Pollock, that is Alaska Pollock in the Chukchi Sea? The answer is that, it lies within their Exclusive Economic Zone, that EEZ. Remember, they're allowed to do that. This is not in the high seas or anything like that. If it's in their EEZ, they have the rights to that. Now as a long standing treaty with the US? No, that's not it. There's no such treaty, they can't, it's illegal. No, it is very legal as I just said. The International Polar code, no that has nothing to do with it. They could do it because it's within their EEZ. Now, what about indigenous concerns? Now, remember that the Arctic is really fairly sparsely settled. Something like only four million people in the Arctic as a whole, most of them came there from elsewhere. But there are many indigenous people, many indigenous populations in the Arctic. Canada. For example, Arctic Canada, half the people there are indigenous. The biggest arctic population is of course, in Russia, and only a small percentage are indigenous. But these are, very proud people that we need to not forget them and this is what they're really concerned about, is that they're being forgotten. Notable events, Nunavut land claim organization submits a complaint to the UN over unfulfilled obligations to Inuit. The argument here is Canada's just not fulfilling their obligations to Inuit, and so people are looking at this and saying, "Hey, stop." This is one thing that's going on. Also an issue that Sami reindeer herders are seeking to sue halt of Norway's largest wind farm. There's concerns that it will interfere with grazing. Here's an interesting multifaceted problem, Norway arguably trying to do a good thing by putting up more wind farms, of course, they're going to drill for more oil and the [inaudible] that offsets it. But they're trying to do a good thing here, but everything has impacts, and now we're seeing potential impacts on Sami reindeer herders. They don't like what is going on. Hopefully an agreement will be worked out. Now, what about international tensions? These have been going on for quite a while, notably between the United States and Russia. On a number of occasions, Russian military aircraft, C'mere US airspace have been spotted, they've been tracked and they've been followed like by NORAD fighter jet. They recently intercepted Russian military aircraft off Alaska, so maybe the two sides testing each other in a sense. Now also here's another interesting one where Russia is pressuring Norway to comply with demands in Svalbard. Now, this goes back to the Norway treaty, the Svalbard Treaty of 1920. This allows our signatories to engage in economic activities on the Archipelago, and Russia is really saying that, "Hey, Norway is putting up more restrictions, that's not fair to us." Again, hopefully we'll be able to work these things out. Well, I already gave away the question here, but that's okay. By what right does Russia have any claims in Svalbard? The answer is yeah, they entered the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, it's not that Svalbard lies within Russia's EEZ, economic exclusive zone. Actually as Svalbard, it's surrounds the waters surrounding it, part of Norway's EEZ, because remember that Svalbard is part of the kingdom of Norway. New claims under the United Nations Convention Law of the Sea, No that wouldn't influence the EEZ, no, that's not it. Again, the International Polar code that deals with shipping and shipping operations, and that has nothing to do with it. Russia saying it's got legitimate beefs, Norway's maybe saying not so fast, but we need to work those things out. Now I want to finish with a little bit of a mention of environmental degradation. There was a big event still ongoing as actually, I'm shooting this video up, when there was a diesel fuel tank at the Norilsk Taimyr Energy Thermal Power Plant Number 3, owned by Nornickel, that big mining operation. It failed, basically, I guess it ruptured. A whole bunch of diesel fuel spilled into rivers, and has become an environmental and an economic disaster. This is a big thing in Russia, and the Russian Arctic. Dealing with these things in a harsh Arctic environment is not easy. Now why did the tank fail? According to Russian sources, it failed because of thawing permafrost. So this goes right back to these issues at some of these environmental events, we're seeing something like a fuel spill, something like that, are related to problems of thawing permafrost because the thawing permafrost can have really bad effects on Arctic Infrastructure. Other concerns, for example, the Alaska pipeline, where the permafrost starts to thaw could become unstable, buildings, things like that. So this does appear to the case apparently, where the tank failure resulting in a big festival of diesel fuel, resulted from thawing permafrost. I hope with this I've given you just a little bit of a taste of some of the really recent events, that have been going on up there, how a number of these events are very much tied to the changing environment. Like if we look for more oil and natural gas, things like that. Well, a lot of that is predicated on the fact that the Arctic is becoming more accessible now as it loses sea ice cover. Point is, everything up there seems to be intimately connected and I hope I've given you some sense of what those connections are. Thank you.
