Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
in the protection of earth's two poles lay in the Cold War. The two rival
superpowers of that time, the US and the Soviet Union, agreed the 1959
Antarctic treaty, which allows freedom of scientific research on the cold
continent but nothing else, and bans all military activity there.
The reason for this is that neither side had the slightest interest in being
able to fire missiles at each other “the long way round” - via the South
Pole - when they could strike each other far more quickly over the shorter
North Pole route. This, plus the greater uncertainty of legislating on an
area essentially consisting of floating ice, explains why governments never
reached any specific agreement on the status of the Arctic.
Arctic energy resources
Of the six percent of the earth surface encompassed by the Arctic Circle,
one-third is above sea level, and another third is in continental shelves
Undiscovered gas (trillion cubic feet)
>100
6-100
1-6
<1
Area not quantitatively assessed
Area of low petroleum potential
