Denmark is joining the scramble for the Arctic with the launch of a scientific mission to try to prove its ownership of the North Pole.

Forty scientists, travelling by ice breaker, will gather evidence to support a claim that an underwater mountain range beneath the polar ice cap is an extension of the Danish territory of Greenland.

 

The move will add to tensions in the region, after Russia provoked anger this month by planting a rust-proof titanium flag on the sea bed beneath the Pole.

 

On Friday, Canada announced two new military bases in its far north. Norway and the US also have territorial claims in the region.

Vast energy reserves beneath the floor of the Arctic Ocean have sparked renewed interest in the long-neglected polar territories.

The US Geological Survey has estimated that the Arctic has up to 25 per cent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas.

 

Deep ice and the bitter climate have long made oil extraction uneconomic, but the thinning of the ice cap with global warming has begun to make drilling feasible.

 

See whole article here:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml...12/wpole112.xml

 

I find it deeply ironic that we have now burnt so much fossil fuel thst the ice caps are melting - so now we we can get access to even more fossil fuel!

wherever reserves are, will one day be a battle zone.. so its not a case of wether or not they are worth fighting for, its inevitable.

 

Russia has already shown that when other Countries rely on her for Oil &

Gas, she is quite prepared to threaten to turn off their supplies, if they anger

her in any way. She has done it before - to Georgia, for example.

 

With its North Sea Oil running out - and North Sea Gas, the UK will eventually

have to rely on Russia for at least some Oil & Gas - unless we can get it all

from elsewhere.

 

If we simply let Russia 'own' vast Oil Fields in the Arctic, it will make Russia even

more arrogant, & we may have still more Countries asking for its Fuel in the

future - and then they too will be vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

 

It is therefore essential that Canada, Norway & Greenland do not simply

say nothing while Russia thinks up spurious reasons as to why it owns much of

the Arctic, & the Fuels beneath it.

 

We should not have Wars over it, but we should not simply let Russia grab what

it can now, as we ALL will pay for that, one day, if we just sit back & watch it happen.