Canada Cashing in on the Melting Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is open, and several governments are already trying to cash in.

I have previously lamented public discussions of global warming perpetuated by non-experts citing inconclusive or incorrect scientific evidence (see “Gore Wins Global Warming Nobel, Invents the Internet, and Cures Cancer” and “Traum Reviews ‘An Inconvenient Truth’”). Here is some real, measurable, scientific proof that global climate change is occurring. Sadly, where scientists see global warming, politicians see dollar signs.

As reported in the November 2007 edition of Aerospace America magazine, “Navigating troubled waters: Disputed passage, revisited”, for the first time since recording began, extreme melting of Arctic ice has made the Northwest Passage fully navigable. The waterway, once blocked by massive barriers of ice now consists of enough open water to facilitate unaided navigation by private ships and boats.

Ironically, this phenomenon is being treated by governments not as unarguable evidence of impending global climate change but as a means to increase global trade. Like Captain Cook in 1755, Canada and Denmark have already claimed ownership of the Northwest Passage attempting to capitalize on the shorter cargo route it opens between hemispheres. The Canadian armed forces have already stepped up activity in the region.

Canada’s response is hauntingly similar to the plot of Superman: The Movie. Lux Luthor attempts to increase the value of his low-quality inland real estate by launching a nuclear warhead at the San Andreas Fault to cause California to sink into the ocean, making Luthor’s land ocean-front property.

I guess the correct capitalist response to the melting Northwest Passage is to buy land in Canada’s Nunavat Territory. Someday soon, it may be a balmy ocean front resort.