World Ocean Radio - Arctic
The Arctic Circle, an assembly founded by the President of Iceland and held annually to help define the deliberations of the Arctic Council, was held in October in Reykjavík, Iceland. World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill was there, and he is back this week to discuss the conference and the interests and aspirations of the many countries that had representatives attending in order to assert their claim on what appears to be an inevitable future of exploitation of Arctic resources.
In late September Royal Dutch Shell announced it has terminated oil exploration and drilling efforts in the Arctic, citing disappointing exploratory results, high costs and strict regulations as their reasons to quit. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill will assert that this is a great step forward for the protection of the Arctic and will express hope that Shell will go on to invest in other projects such as solar and wind that they might help to shift the paradigm for the sustainable benefit of us all.
In 1996, the high level intergovernmental Arctic Council was formed to promote cooperation and interaction among the Arctic states. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill will outline the Council’s areas of interest and will argue that The Arctic Council could, over time, serve as a progressive model by which to develop policies and management, sustainable development, and protections for other ecosystems and their inhabitants.
Arctic opportunities and territorial claims are on the rise as temperatures change and the ice melts. Once impassable, the Arctic is now increasingly accessible to drilling, shipping traffic, and other global enterprise. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill describes what a transformed Arctic might look like, and suggests that we should be encouraging, subsidizing, and investing in alternative technologies so that we may leave the pristine North alone.
