The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future

529 The European Space Agency’s first CryoSat satellite cost about €140 million but was destroyed in a 2005 launch failure; a follow-up CryoSat-2 was built and launched successfully in April 2010. NASA launched its first ICESat in 2003 and is building two more ice-seeking satellites, ICESat-II and DESDynI, slated for launch around 2015; a total capital investment of USD $2 billion seems likely for these three satellite missions. For more background, see Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond, Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space: A Community Assessment and Strategy for the Future (Washington, D.C.: National Research Council, 2007), ISBN: 978-0-309-10387-9, 456 pp.

530 This paragraph refers to details presented earlier in the book, including U.S. naval exercises off Alaska’s North Slope, Norway’s recent purchase of five Aegis-armed frigates and nearly fifty F-35 fighter jets, and Samsung’s pursuit of a polar tanker vessel to transport liquefied natural gas from Arctic waters. The total amount received by the U.S. Minerals Management Service from energy companies for an Arctic offshore lease sale totaled USD $2.7 billion in 2008.

531 Arctic Council, AMSA, Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009: 77-79.

532 From GIS analysis of global map data I calculate the following in square kilometers for the world’s planetary surface area, land extent, ice-free land extent, and ice-free/permafrost-free land extent, respectively. World: 508,779,504 km², 147,263,072 km², 132,801,596 km² and 109,508,640 km², respectively. North of 45° N: 74,697,936 km², 40,364, 452 km², 38,212,960 km², and 17,100,072 km². North of Arctic Circle: 21,239,512 km², 7,930,424 km², 6,159,648 km², and 271,632 km². By all measures, we see the Arctic proper (between 66.55? and 90? N latitude) is truly a tiny place.

533 This particular geographic definition of the “Arctic,” proposed in the 2004 Arctic Human Development Report, encompasses all of Alaska; Canada north of 60° N latitude together with northern Quebec and Labrador; all of Greenland and the Faroe Islands; Iceland; the northernmost counties of Norway, Sweden, and Finland; and in Russia the Murmansk Oblast, the Nenets, Yamalo-Nenets, Taimyr, and Chukotka autonomous okrugs, Vorkuta City in the Komi Republic, Noril’sk and Igarka in Krasnoyarsky Kray, and parts of the Sakha Republic lying closest to the Arctic Circle. Pp. 17-18, Arctic Human Development Report (Akureyri, Iceland: Stefansson Arctic Institute, 2004), 242 pp.

534 USA North, defined as states touching or lying north of 45° N latitude. Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin all graze the 45th parallel and are contained within a NORC country as per the “North” definition in Chapter 1. Excluding New York State would lower the NORC totals to $5.944 trillion GDP, 31,837,087 km² land area, and 235,059,000 people.

535 The so-called “resource curse” refers to empirical evidence that states with abundant resource wealth perform less well than resource-poor ones, but there is little consensus about why this is. See M. L. Ross, “The Political Economy of the Resource Curse,” World Politics 51 (1999): 297-322; C. N. Brunnschweiler, E. H. Bulte, “The Resource Curse Revisited and Revised: A Tale of Paradoxes and Red Herrings,” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 55, no. 3 (2008): 248-264.

536 The bulk of the Arctic economy is based on commodity exports. Public services comprise 20%-40% GDP, transportation accounts for some 5%-12%, with tourism and retail significant only in particular areas. In 2001 the total Arctic economy was U.S. $230 billion (in purchasing power parity), with Arctic defined as all of Alaska (USA); Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, Nunavik, and Labrador (Canada); Greenland and the Faroe Islands (Denmark); Iceland; Nordland, Troms, Finnmark, and Svalbard (Norway); Vasterbotten and Norrbotten (Sweden); Oulu and Lapland (Finland); and the republics of Karelia, Komi, and Sakha; the oblasts of Arkhangelsk, Murmansk, Tyumen, Kamchatka, and Magadan; the autonomous okrugs of Nenets, Khanty-Mansii, Yamal-Nenets, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Taimyr, Evenk, Koryak, and Chukchi (Russian Federation). “Public services” includes public administration, health care, and education. “Economic Systems,” pp. 59-84 of Arctic Human Development Report (Akureyri, Iceland: Stefansson Arctic Institute, 2004), 242 pp.

537 NTCL, founded in 1934 as Northern Waterways Limited, was purchased in 1985 by the Inuvialuit Development Corporation and Nunasi Corporation, making it a 100% private, aboriginal-owned company. For more, see www.ntcl.com/about-us/history-timeline.html.

CREDITS

Frontmatter maps by author.

Page 51. Musical lyrics from “Whoever You Are” by Tommy C. Jordan and Greg Kurstin © 1996 Nudo Music/Warner Bros. Records, Inc., reprinted by permission of Tommy C. Jordan and Hal Leonard Corporation (Whoever You Are, Words and Music by Greg Kurstin and Tommy Jordan, ©2004 EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC, INC., TUCANO MUSIC, AND NUDO MUSIC, all Rights for TUCANO MUSIC Controlled and Administered by EMI BLACKWOOD MUSIC INC., All Rights Reserved, International Copyright Secured, Used by Permission).

Page 118: Maps by author using model data courtesy of Joseph Alcamo and Martina Florke, Center for Environmental Systems Research, University of Kassel.

Page 126, 128: Climate model projections reprinted courtesy IPCC AR4 (see endnote 277 for full reference). Climate-change projection maps presented in Chapter Five were modified by permission of the IPCC, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Figure 10.8, Cambridge University Press. Please note that the modifications made to these maps (“optimistic,” “moderate,” “pessimistic”) are for the purposes of this book only, and are not suggested or used by the IPCC.

Pages 158-159: Maps by author using 2006 shipping data from AMSA, 2009 (see endnote 362).

Page 166: Map by author.

Page 212: Map by author.

Page 250: “Abandonment of the Jeannette” reprinted from Wonders of the Polar World, National Publishing Co.: Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, 1885. “The Last Polar Bear” used by permission from Freezingpictures/Dreamstime.com/GetStock.com.

For photo insert (numbers refer to photograph sequence):

1. Photo used by permission from James Martell; 2, 3. Photos by author; 4. Photo used by permission from John Rasmussen, Narsaq Foto; 5. Photo used by permission from Dr. Ivan Frolov, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Saint Petersburg; 6. Photo used by permission from ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russian Federation, 7-11. Photos by author; 12. Photo used by permission from Dr. Vladimir Romanovsky, University of Alaska—Fairbanks; 13. Photo by author; 14. Photo used by permission from Toronto Star/GetStock.com; 15. Photo used by permission from Dr. Richard Forster, University of Utah; 16. Photo used by permission from David Dodge, The Pembina Institute (www.oilsandswatch.org); 7. Photo used by permission from Benjamin Jones, Alaska Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Anchorage. Backmatter author photo used by permission from Karen Frey, Clark Univertiy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project came about thanks to the urging of two highly accomplished colleagues: Judith Carney and William A. V. Clark, of the UCLA Department of Geography. The conversation over a brief coffee with Clark, a hard-boiled statistician not known for mincing words, went like this:

Clark:

You need to apply for a Guggenheim and write a book.