標題:Melting Ice Brings Competition for Resources
Part 4: The Opening of the Northwest Passage
新聞來源:http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,579265-4,00.html
(需有正確連結)
By Gerald Traufetter
Part 4: The Opening of the Northwest Passage
Allen Bay, Canadian Arctic
74° 43' North, 95° 09' West
The powers that be arrive here in the form of a man wearing freshly polished,
black leather shoes. Commanding Officer Marc Rothwell, captain of the "Louis
S. St-Laurent," a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker, orders his crew to drop
anchor in the sea ice near Cornwallis Island. He climbs onto the bridge.
Rothwell has been sailing the seas for 28 years, most of that time in the
Arctic. His job is to "show Canada's colors" in the North.
Several year ago, Rothwell's ship was one of the few capable of digging its
way through the pack ice to bring supplies to the few scattered settlements
in the Canadian Arctic. But today shipping traffic has grown dramatically,
and it will continue to do so. Rothwell monitors a shipping lane that is
expected to compete with the Panama Canal in a few years: the legendary
Northwest Passage, which weaves its way through the archipelagos of the
Canadian Arctic and shortens the nautical distance between New York and
Shanghai by more than 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles).
The first man to sail through the Passage, in 1906, was Norwegian explorer
Roald Amundsen. "Back then he had to spend two winters en route," says the
captain. Today, Rothwell expects to slip through the narrow, frosty
passageway in less than a week.
He bends over and carefully studies a satellite map the Canadian Ice Service
radioed to him. Rothwell knows that his most important ally is the summer
sun, which has melted large puddles into the white surface all around his
ship. "The water surfaces absorb significantly more heat," says Rothwell,
"and the ice melts away quickly."
In the past, a powerful ocean current pushed large amounts of ice from the
Beaufort Sea in the west into the Northwest Passage, creating insurmountable
barriers. But ice production is on the decline. "The ice has never receded as
far north as it has in the last two years," says Rothwell.
A critical point appears to have been crossed long ago, a point that could
mark the end of the constant ice cap in the northern Arctic Ocean. Once the
perennial ice melts, the water will heat up to a point at which a layer of
ice thick enough to survive the summer can no longer develop. "I am both
fascinated and horrified to be able to observe such a epochal change within
my professional life," says Rothwell.
The dispute of the Northwest Passage is already in full swing. Canada claims
unlimited territorial control by its own navy, while the Americans see the
Passage as an international sea lane open to all. David Wilkins, the US
ambassador in the Canadian capital Ottawa, puts it this way: "Sea lanes like
this one should be for the passage of ships. International trade demands
this." But the real reason could also be military, because if Wilkins is
right it would mean that submarines would be permitted to side through the
international sea lane while submerged.
"I'd rather stay out of it," says Captain Rothwell, before putting in his own
two cents. "Even if the ice recedes, it will never disappear completely," he
says. This, he says, can only mean that Canada's strict environmental
regulations for ships traveling in the Arctic must also apply if the
Northwest Passage becomes a high-volume shipping lane. "Up here, the
consequences of an oil spill are far worse than somewhere in the Caribbean or
in the open Atlantic."
Rothwell imagines horror scenarios of container ships crushed by ice floes,
oil spills trapped beneath the ice and wreckage remaining virtually invisible
in the winter-long darkness of a polar night. Until recently, fantasies like
this were just that -- a nightmare with no basis in reality. But that could
change. In 2005, 3 million tons of freight crossed the Arctic on ship. That
number is expected to increase to 14 million by 2015. Shipping analysts even
expect the region to eventually handle one percent of global maritime trade,
or about 77 million tons.
Rothwell hopes that the Canadian north will no longer be seen as his
country's worthless "back door." He also hopes that the new icebreakers the
government has promised will be delivered quickly. "Things have to settled
quickly here," he says.
Station Nord, Greenland
81° 36' North, 16° 40' West
The ice of the Arctic forges many friendships, even unusual ones. One of them
is between Olivier Gilg, an ecologist, and Jan Almqvist, a businessman. The
two men are sitting in the midnight sun, in front of a green barracks
building at Station Nord, Denmark's northernmost military station in
Greenland.
Almqvist is, in a sense, the manager of the northward movement. He is the
general manager of an icebreaking company called POLOG ("Breaking the Ice For
Your Operation!"). Business has always been good, says Almqvist, "but this
year we have almost more work than we can handle."
In the past, Almqvist's work was limited to researchers like Gilg, whom he
helped with the logistics for his animal studies. But today more and more of
POLOG's customers are geologists and pioneers working for the oil and gas
companies. Almqvist organizes everything: aircraft and helicopters, quarters,
tents and polar sleeping bags. He also has the necessary food brought in.
Almqvist founded his company with a group of former fellow soldiers.
Together, they served for four years in the Danish military. Their mission --
a unit of 12 men -- was to secure a border almost 5,000 kilometers (3,105
miles) long. Almqvist was a member of the Sirius Patrol, the legendary unit
that monitored the northern and eastern coast of the enormous archipelago
with huskies and dogsleds. Built as a joint effort by Danes and Americans in
1953, for many years Station Nord served as an emergency landing strip for
the Americans' nuclear bombers.
The camp belonging to the Australian exploration company Ironbark Gold,
Almqvist's best customer, is an hour's plane ride away, on Lemon Fjord. It is
the last speck of land before the North Pole. A dozen geologists and drilling
experts are currently living there in tents. "I'll have investors flown up
there next week," says Almqvist. They're interested in building a zinc mine.
Projects like this are visions of horror for ecologist Gilg -- bulldozers
plowing through Arctic poppies, crushing delicate mosses and lichen. "The
lichens take decades to grow a few millimeters in this cold, dry world," says
Gilg, a Frenchman.
The responsibility for administering the region has shifted from the
Environment Ministry in Copenhagen to the Greenlandic administration in Nuuk.
The government there, says Gilg, wants independence from the Danish
motherland. "Millions in mining revenues are exactly what they want," Gilg
complains.
Gilg is staying at Station Nord with his wife and their five-year-old son,
Vladimir. The couple, together with Swiss ornithologist Adrian Aebischer, are
studying the complex relationships among the few species of Arctic land
animals.
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「就像其他各類集體主義一樣，種族主義也尋求不勞而獲。它尋求自動獲得知識﹔它尋求
自動評價人們的品質而忽略運用理性或道德判斷的責任﹔而更重要的是，它尋求自動的自
尊（或偽自尊）」
Ayn Rand<The Virtue of Selfishness>
致台灣之光的影迷跟球迷
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