Arctic Message Arctic Messenger: A Review and Commentary

• Author: Terry Fenge
• Pages: 92-96

Arctic Message Arctic Messenger:

A Review and Commentary

David P. Stone. The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger (Cambridge

University Press. New York. 2015). 360 pages, hardcover. ISBN 9781107094413.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier. The Right to Be Cold (Allen Lane. Toronto. 2015). 336 pages,

hardcover. ISBN 9780143190226.

What does the future hold for the circumpolar Arctic? Well-known American

academic Lawrence C. Smith foresees mass migration of people to the region*cities

on the tundra?*in the coming decades as the planet warms. Writing in the New York

Times, Scott Borgerson, formerly with the US Coastguard, foresees Arctic shipping

between Asia, Europe, and North America in a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean, and

‘‘anarchy’’ as countries compete for the final frontier’s energy and mineral resources.

Just when all of this may come about is unclear, but there is a lot at stake. The

US Geological Survey estimates that 90 billion barrels of oil, almost 1,700 trillion

cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids are yet to be

discovered in the region, primarily in the seas that fringe the Arctic Ocean.

Particularly indicative of the region’s incorporation into the ‘‘world system’’ by

climate change and globalization is the recent admission of China, India, Japan,

South Korea, and Singapore as official observers to the eight-nation Arctic Council,

the region’s premier international cooperative body. These Asian states and the six

European states already involved in the Council are staking out their place in the

future Arctic sun.

But there is another side to the circumpolar Arctic in addition to its energy, minerals,

intercontinental shipping potential, and rising geopolitical importance. In 2002,

the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme adopted

unanimously a resolution that characterizes the Arctic as the world’s barometer

of environmental change. Also, the region is home to Indigenous peoples*Inuit,

Athabaskans, Gwich’in, Sami, and more*who have been there for millennia.

All who want to know more about these elements of the Arctic should read the

well-written, superbly edited, and the hugely informative books by David P. Stone and

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, and they should do so in the given order.

Stone deals primarily with the science*what we know. Watt-Cloutier deals

primarily with public policy*what we should do as a result of what we know. Here

are voices of knowledge, experience, and wisdom. Stone and Watt-Cloutier know and

Arctic Review on Law and Politics

Vol. 6, No. 2, 2015, pp. 178182

#2015 T. Fenge. Thisis an Open Access ar ticle distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), allowing third parties to

copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any

purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.

Citation: T. Fenge.‘‘Arctic Message Arctic Messenger: A Review and Commentary.’’Arctic Review on Law and Politics,

Vol.6, No. 2, 2015, pp. 178 182. http://dx.doi.org/10.17585/arctic.v6.168 178