Very important topic here. The thawing of the Arctic Circle & the international crime fraternity of idiots & imbeciles slavering at the concept of bringing their baneful standard of industrialized rape, ruin, ravin & ravage to one of the few parts of the globe that has managed to escape their wasteful destructive nihilism & the curse of development & major extractive action.
Every twat wants a piece, & within the tremulous vulture consortium even India has staked a claim. India? demanding ‘rights’ to the artic? Everything about this gigantic turn-for-the-worse is bad. Everything. The eradication, taming & tarring of one of our last wildernesses, an implausible explosion & critically catastrophic expansion in multifaceted pollution that would essentially lock-in planetary annihilation, all so some psycho-CEO-secretion from the yacht-folk can buy another golden gimp mask. The prospect of large scale military conflict over the poisonous treasures beneath the melting ice is another very plausible schema. With so many morons vying to suck the trough’s deadly riches & great, almost allegoric, nuance to who can claim what, & how authentic those assertions are (& who exactly will be the authority to arbitrate such disputes & proclamations?) – not to mention the potential dividends that would amount to fortunes by todays absurdist, fossil-fuel-death-cult extinction advocacy & suicidal short-term oblivionomics – it could easily lurch into another shitty war by gilded actors that will play no physical part in the actual battle themselves.
The searing irony of climate breakdown is that the arctic, which is profusely surfeit in both oil & lucrative commercial minerals of the rare variety, becomes more accessible as the world warms/worsens. So the more adverse/dangerous/warm it gets, the more these holocaust baiting vampires can extract & profit. I honestly believe, at least in quarters, that this is why there is such an indescribably deranged, homicidal & counter-logical policy & effort within the fossil fuel industry, the banks & investors & their treasonous vassal governments to spur forward with exploration/extraction despite ever mounting peril, death toll, fallout, diminishment & crisis. It is a conspiracy of profound wickedness that we will not survive without extreme countermeasures. Economy is enemy.
Martin Breum (I think the dude is Danish?) is a journalist & artic specialist with a keen interest & large body of written & filmed work in the region. For me, the book veers between drab & immensely engaging. There are some very laborious passages that prompted me into speed-reading mode, but it generally wasn’t long before far more stimulating & informative blocks arrived, which I do believe make up the preponderance of Cold Rush.
This is a huge one (thawing/opening up of the arctic). Concerning the penetration & establishment of extractive industry into this area, it fundamentally cannot happen. we are so far passed the safety margins already without the paralogical, criminally insane, wanton self-destruction of further/greater extraction & ecological damage & effacement. Whatever lunacy is being considered, it cannot & must not, & will not be allowed. You might as well get in your casket now & set one up for every single child being born from now onwards. It is not a contingency we can entertain with any degree of negotiation or credibility no matter what the suited maniacs, denialists, sociopaths & mass murdering madmen would have us believe whilst the world literally burns (& inequality mushrooms, cos’ the profits from this perverse industry are never shared out & just end up cramming some wealth-negator wretch’s offshore account). Keep it in the fucking ground & leave the fucking wilderness alone. Stay out & focus your attentions & efforts on the burgeoning disaster your unforgivably wayward imperilment & massive market-driven abuse has already wrought on us all. Clean up, not close in. all investment in detoxification & restoration.
Although it falls foul of superficiality & ambling on occasions, this is a good book with prime information on an a crucial & increasingly important dilemma that needs to be taken off the fuckin’ table. Those committed & serious about averting annihilation need to get up in this quickly & head them off! The bastards are already greasing their caskets, & yours & mine too! KEEP IT IN THE GROUND!!!
Martin Breum, 2018, I.B. Taurus, 239 pages