Monday, May 23, 2016
End of Year Reflections
This year has helped be better appreciate the study of history than any previous year. From day one the focus of this class has been abut developing empathy and using it to better understand history. our use of movies to learn history this year has been really useful and fun. on top of being entertaining they are able to provide unique perspective on history and offer unique opportunities to analyse history. Glory, 12 Years a Slave, Smoke Signals, and Thirteen Days, all were great movies that broadened our understanding of the part of history we were studying at the time. the use of newspaper article databases was also very interesting, as it gave a good way to easily access primary sources. These three things have made this year one of the best years of history I've ever had.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Draft
Dear Future,
As of now, May
6, 2016, Antarctica is a very bizarre and unique place in the world. The
treaties that govern it are some of the most complicated, its usage is widely
debated, the resources found there are numerous yet inaccessible, and its
climate is one of the most rapidly changing in the world. While it is
impossible to say what the situation in Antarctica will be when you read this, I
would like to share a bit about what we know now.
Firstly,
Antarctica is cold. Average temperatures around the continent are approximately
-37 degrees C. Antarctica is one of the coldest and driest
places on earth, almost the entire place is considered a dessert. While the
continent itself is an archipelago, it is so densely covered by ice sheets and
glaciers that it appears to be one land mass. The ice sheets on the continent
are very large, often around 2 kilometers deep and hundreds wide. These ice
sheets and glaciers account for 70% of all fresh water on the planet. However, water
is not the only abundant resource on the the continent. The estimations of the
quantity of oil and natural gas vary from 30 to 200 billion barrels of oil
equivalent. Despite this abundance, not a single drop of Antarctic oil has been
sold commercially.
Oil in Antarctica
is extremely challenging to get. While experts say there is plenty of oil
there, the actual act of acquiring it is almost impossible. Firstly there is
the cold. The harsh conditions of the climate, as well as the remoteness
intrinsic to the continent, would make working conditions unbearable. Secondly
there is the ice. Most of the oil is expected to be below the vast and numerous
ice sheets that cover the continent. As stated previously, these come in at
around 2 kilometers thick. This makes getting a drill down to the oil a huge challenge
in and of itself. Also related to the ice, is the fact that the ice would make
for poor foundations for rigs, as they tend to slide and move frequently enough
to make them unsuitable for building large structures. Thirdly is the cost.
Even if these previous challenges could be overcome, it would not be
economically feasible, due to the cost of the extracting and transporting the
oil. Experts estimate that the cost of getting a barrel of oil from Antarctica
to America would be around $100. Currently, oil in America sells for $58 per
barrel. This financial gap makes people unwilling to find ways to overcome the
other logistical challenges of oil extraction in Antarctica. “Antarctic oil is extremely
difficult and, at the moment, prohibitively expensive to extract – but it’s
impossible to predict what the global economy will look like in 2048 when the
protocol banning Antarctic prospecting comes up for renewal. By that stage an
energy hungry world could be desperate (Mathew Teller).”
As mentioned
above, the continent of Antarctica is governed and regulated by a series of treaties,
collectively known as the “Antarctic Treaty System.” The first of these treaties
was written in 1959, and it established Antarctica as a reserve for science and
nature, with indefinite bans on military or nuclear action on the continent
(this was even more remarkable when considering the fact that this was the
first demilitarization treaty of the Cold War). This treaty, along with all the
others that govern it, must be ratified by numerous nations around the globe, because
the place in considered part of the “Common Heritage of Man,” which includes
Antarctica, as well as the oceans, the moon, and all of outer space. The treaty
discussed in the quote in the previous paragraph is the Protocol on Environmental
Protection to the Antarctic Treaty System, passed in 1998. It bans all commercial
mining of any kind in order to protect the environment. However, the mining ban
comes up for review in 2048. This is especially interesting when considering
the fact that most leaders in the oil industry say there are approximately 30
years of oil reserves left in the world, conveniently ending just before the
ban comes up for review. While many experts doubt the accuracy of this claim,
it likely means that leaders in the industry will push very hard to lift the
ban so they can have access to the continent. This claim is supported by China,
one of the world leading producers and consumers of oil, recently making rapid expansion
in Antarctica, rapidly planning and building new bases all across the
continent. But as mention in the quote above, it is currently impossible to say
what will happen. Maybe by then we as a world will reduce our oil consumption
to the point where we don’t need to tap the fields in Antarctica. Maybe we won’t
but the ban will continue anyway to preserve the environment of the continent. Maybe
the ban will be lifted but we still won’t be able to extract the oil and still
make a profit. Or maybe the ban will lift and we will by then have the
technology necessary to make money off of the oil. Or maybe the ban will be
lifted, but instead of commercially selling the oil, we begin mining the water
in the ice, in order to alleviate dehydration.
Works Cited
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/glacier-recession/glaciers-and-climate-change/
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