Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Science continued to offer collaborative possibilities, and Cold War adversaries (including
the two superpowers) exchanged scientists and organized research station placements.
Science provided a form of regime security for the ATS, enabling countries to continue to
demilitarize the region. As long as all the participants conducted scientific activities, and
respected the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty, there was no apparent need to undermine
the prohibition on military activities. Finally, science provided a useful foil to those would-
be critics, including members of the developing world, worried about improper uses of the
Antarctic. This was particularly sensitive in the 1970s and 1980s. While Antarctic
geologists might indirectly be investigating and evaluating the resource potential of the
region, to the wider world, it appeared that they were seeking to better understand the
geological history of the polar continent and surrounding ocean.
The Janus-faced nature of Antarctic science sits uneasily with the claims that are made
routinely about the Antarctic as a site of and node for global environmental debates. In
December 2009, the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) released a report
entitled 'Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment', which brought the significance of
the Antarctic to the attention of policy-makers. As Colin Summerhayes, Executive Director
of SCAR, noted:
Antarctica is an unrivalled source of information about our planet … by integrating this
multidisciplinary evidence into a single source we will help scientists and policy makers
understand the distinction between environmental changes linked to Earth's natural cycles,
and those that are human induced.
However, it is also the case that the seven claimant states, including two Antarctic science
leaders, Australia and Britain, tend to operate scientific stations in their sectors, and
concentrate funding overwhelmingly in research-related projects therein. Meanwhile, others
such as Argentina are remarkably explicit about the role that science plays in consolidating
'their' sovereignty in the Argentine Antarctic Territory, $si
to consolidate Argentine
sovereignty rights in the Antarctic, going deeper in the scientific and technical activities
aiming at attaining full knowledge of the Antarctic nature, specifically the areas related to
the country's priorities, promoting conservation and preservation of fishing and mineral
resources, environmental protection, Latin-American integration in Antarctic matters and
rendering of services.
Science does geopolitical work, and this is true of both past and present. Argentina is not
unique in this regard, but simply best seen as one of the most emphatic. The science of
whaling, as the next chapter suggests, was an essential element in the armoury of imperial
Britain. Science not only informed policy-making but provided a form of 'environmental
