August 20, 2024 • 61 mins
Across the span of modern human history, the Arctic has been a desolate, dangerous wasteland of freezing ice, inaccessible waters and more than a bit of myth. Yet as the ice recedes, countries and corporations around the globe are already gearing up to take possession of the region's future trade routes -- and billions of dollars' worth of previously untouchable resources. The pieces are already on the chessboard, with multiple groups accusing each other of cover-ups and deceptive tactics. One questions looms larger and larger with each passing season: Who will control the Arctic?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Whobody. Twenty nineteen was a different time, and in the
middle of that time, we are returning to you with
a classic episode, the Race to the Arctic. For a
long time, even now, technically the Arctic has been one
of those inaccessible regions of the world map. It's a
(00:21):
why would you go there kind of place.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, but there are a lot of countries that have
territory that head right up into the old Arctic. So
there are reasons to be up there, right. You got
to defend your space. You got to make sure nobody
else is coming up onto your lands and waters even.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And waters even, and you're underwater lands. Oh right. Because
when we were looking at this, the writing was already
on the wall. There was something already in the wind.
As the ice in the North Pole evaporates, we're looking
at the possibility of enormous profitable trade routes, billions upon
(01:03):
billions of dollars of freight transit, but also untold billions
of dollars of previously inaccessible resources.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Ooh, it's the raw stuff up there. Watch out, watch out.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
People will do terrible things to get those sweet, sweet resources.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
True story. Yeah, and when you tune into this one, folks,
please please reach out to us because we want to
know your thoughts. Who will control the Arctic?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Noel
Is on an adventure.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our super
producer Paul Michig, controlled decand and most importantly, you are you.
You are here that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. On a previous episode, Matt Man, we
opened this show, you and I asking each other where
we would travel, if we could travel anywhere in the world. Yes,
(02:26):
and we you know, we don't talk about it too
explicitly on the air here, but we whether for work
or for other endeavors, we end up traveling like as
a group and as individuals more often than not. You
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yes, correct, And I cannot remember the verdict or our
answers to the question of where we would travel. I'm
going to change mine now to Germany. I want to
go back to Germany. I just want to see what
that place is like.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
You want to see what their whole thing is.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I have a friend named Holger who lived with
us for a while who lives out there.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I want to go visit him.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
That's great. It's always great to visit a country where
you have a connection with someone who lives there.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And you know, on other previous episodes, Man, we talked
about the shape of our planet.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
We did? We did? Is that foreshadowy?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It is?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, just to you know, remind people that yes, this
is a large, spherical like structured planet, as most of
the planets are, at least the ones we've observed, and
that means that our planet has these two things on
it called poles.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Right, why would you go to the poles? In that
conversation that I've had about traveling anywhere on the world,
anywhere terrestrially, one of the questions I would get is
why on Earth would you want to go to the
North Pole? Or why on Earth would you want to
go to Antarctica. You know, it's a valid question. I
(03:53):
would say. One of the coolest things about going to
Antarctica is that so few people throughout human history have
ever made it there and returned alive.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
There you go that's worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So, you know, bragging rights neat little stamp on your passport,
which is very dodgy from a legal perspective.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Or maybe you just really enjoy the cold.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Or maybe you're just super into the cold. You know,
sleeping in your fridge isn't cutting it anymore. It's true, Matt,
You're absolutely right. Planet Earth is very basic information. Planet
Earth has two poles, and they are both cold inhospitable
alien environments. These poles are places where human beings are
not built to be. To the far far north, we
(04:39):
have the Arctic surrounded by the Arctic Circle. To the
far far south, we have the continent of Antarctica. We've
done several episodes on Antarctica. I was surprised to remember
we did one. Let's see, what's our most recent one
we did?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I know we've discussed several times the various attempts to
get to Antarctica and set up bases of oh yeah,
from the World Wars.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
On, Yeah, what happens if there's a murder in Antarctica?
That was one of our most recent.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Ones, something yeah, something along that way.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And then my favorite one to date has been what's
beneath the Arctic Ice, which is one of the videos
on our YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That was a great one talking about this too, the
strange research that could be going on there, because that's
really all that happens there.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Right, or the lethal diseases that may just wake up
you know, there's something almost love craftying about it. But
for the bulk of human history, very very few people,
relatively few people have managed to visit these parts of
the world. Even fewer people have managed to visit these
parts of the world and return alive to tell the tale.
(05:55):
And you have to ask yourself, of course, it makes
sense that few people have managed to visit the Pollwyarth,
would you let's talk a little bit about the Arctic
and the Arctic Circle, which is going to be the
primary focus for today's show. The Arctic is a region
of the planet. It's north of the Arctic Circle, which
will define in a moment, and it includes the Arctic Ocean, Greenland,
(06:18):
Bath and Island, other smaller islands in the north and
the very very northern areas of Europe, Russia, Alaska, and Canada.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
That's right, And really when you're talking about the Arctic,
you're talking about stuff that is around the Arctic Ocean.
So there are several seas that are up there along
the Russian coast and several other bodies of water, but
it's really the Arctic Ocean up there. And you know,
(06:49):
there are really five nations that you're talking about if
you're talking about the Arctic Powers or the Arctic countries,
the controlling powers up there. You've got Russia, the United
States with Alaska, Norway, Denmark and slash, Greenland and Canada.
These are these are the people or the powers you're
talking about when you're when you're going to be discussing
maybe land rights and usage rights of that area.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And that's the that's by the narrowest definition of the
Arctic as a whole. Yes, just just top down Arctic
Ocean and the five closest nations around it. Yes, the
region has also been defined as the area above the
Arctic Circle. And in Russia this area is referred to
(07:35):
as something that translates to the High North. And if
we if we go by that definition, then we add
some other countries to the mix. Iceland, Sweden and Finland
also become Arctic Powers, even though they don't have a
coast on the Arctic Ocean. So these eight nations together
they form what's called the Arctic Council.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And they've got a great website you can check out
by the way they do the Arctic Council. It's an
arcticdh Council dot org.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
What makes the website great, Matt.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's very difficult to read because of the color choices
that they've made, but it's also it's got a lot
of cool information in there, and I don't know, just
check it out if you're interested in exactly what that is.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And when we talk about when we talk about the polls,
one thing that makes the Arctic Circle very, very different
from Antarctica is that this is pretty populated. I mean
sparsely populated, but pretty populated. There are about four million
people who live there. Of those four million people, about
(08:45):
half a Russian and this is still the case despite
the fact that living in the High North, living in
the High North of Russia is a rough life and
the area has been losing population for the several decades.
So we've mentioned the Arctic Circle. What is that It
is essentially an imaginary line. Our species has created it.
(09:08):
We all agree that that's a bully idea and so
we're going to keep it around. It's located at sixty
six point six degrees north latitude, and we use that
latitude as a way to define or demarcate the southernmost
part of the Arctic. Every part of the land and
(09:29):
sea within the Arctic Circle is very, very cold, and
historically speaking, much of it has just been covered with ice.
In addition to the temperature, just the regular weather sucks too.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
If you see a picture of the Arctic Circle, why
it's called the Arctic Circle because that latitude makes this
really nice circle there, and the ice is the defining
factor that Ben is talking about here. If you're looking
at an image of it from the top down, it's
it's a rough place. So in the midwinter months in
this area, the sun never really rises at all, It
(10:06):
just doesn't. You just don't have sun essentially, in Temperatures
stay very very low because of that, and then they
reach massive lows to about negative fifty degrees fahrenheit at
the higher latitudes in this region because you know, you
do have varying latitudes there, and then in the summer months,
like if you go a little bit further south, you
get twenty four hours of sunlight a day, and that
(10:28):
has a pretty big effect on that region because it's
going to melt all the sea. You know, the ice
that's coming up right that's being formed there from the
super cold region, and this is one of the main
reasons that icebergs end up breaking off from this like
frozen northern area and then floating south. And now this
(10:49):
right here is one of the big things we're going
to talk about later when it comes to the economics
of this region and some of the the reasons powers
are fighting to control this region because of this ice.
As it's melting from the north and goes south, you
can't it's very difficult to get ships through there.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And these these crushing temperatures. Just to put this in
perspective for everybody outside of what the United States, mianmar
and Namibia. Sure, negative fifty degrees fahrenheit is negative forty
five point five degrees celsius. So I hope that some
(11:32):
of us listening were like, negative fifty it's cold, but
what is that. I hope that really impacted you. We've
brought it over to Celsia.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Here are freezing temperatures where my hand is around my
chest and down there near the floor is where negative
fifty is.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yes, yeah, that's great. You're absolutely right. The icebergs breaking off,
the rogue ice floating around, I call it rogue, but yeah,
really humans are the rogue element here. This stuff makes
it very difficult and dangerous to move ships through, to
move vessels across the water, or it has historically. That
(12:10):
has not stopped people from living in the Arctic Circle.
This is not new territory. There's not a brand new suburb.
People have lived there for thousands and thousands of years.
If we wanted a ballpark, we could say the earliest
people were around nine thousand years ago. It's an ancient land,
and while they have lived there, it hasn't been easy
(12:30):
to do so. It turned out that despite the thousands
of years of human civilization, admittedly sparse human civilization, but
human civilization nonetheless, no one actually reached the northernmost point.
No one reached the North Pole until the beginning of
the twentieth century, as far as we know. Officially, in
nineteen oh nine, a guy named Robert E. Perry became
(12:51):
the first documented human being to physically reach the North
Pole again, this brutal part of the world. He was not,
by any means the first guy to try it. He
was just the first to make it that we know of.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
That's right and well.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And when we say that's what we know is because
this guy, Robert E. Piery Perry, Robert E. Perry, he
was well known to us. There were a lot of
other indigenous peoples that were living around this area far
before that, at least that we understand. So if you're
talking about the four million people that currently exist and
(13:30):
live there, you're talking about mostly Inuit, Sammy, and you
know people who live in.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Russia and navigating the Arctic because of the ice that
you mentioned, Matt, and because of the temperatures, it's incredibly
dangerous and potentially incredibly rewarding on a couple of fronts. First,
the realm of commerce, the ability to transport goods across
this area of ocean can present tremendous economic advantage to
(14:00):
any nation or corporation controlling shipping routes.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, because you're also going to have problems navigating this
by air this area because of the temperature, sometimes because
of other issues that you're dealing with at the northern Pole.
So having a giant ship getting through the water with
all of the freight that it could carry, that would
be hugely advantageous. The other problem here is the realm
(14:28):
of military might, because if you could, let's say you're
Russia and you already have roughly fifty percent of the
surrounding land mass of the Arctic Circle, if you can
move forward and fully navigate the entire Arctic Ocean well
and easily, then it really changes something that we've mentioned
(14:48):
before over here called force projection, which is just having
the ability to have a ship with weapons on it
wherever you want it to be at any time.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And up until recently, the present of all that ice
made both of these goals thought exercises, you know what
I mean, hypothetical scenarios. Yeah, not attainable things. And let's
take a brief, a brief side trip all the way
down south to Antarctica, just to mention it, because a
(15:20):
lot of these things will apply to Antarctic as well.
Southernmost continent on Earth. It's the least populous surprise surprise
by far. That's because it's also the possessor of several superlatives.
It is not only the driest place in the world,
it is also the coldest place in the world and sorry,
Chicago the windiest place in the world. It's not a country.
(15:42):
It has no government, there is no native population. The
entire continent is set aside for now as a scientific preserve,
but that hasn't stopped countries from laying territorial claims. Britain, France, Norway, Australia,
New Zealand, Chile and Argentine have all laid claims. The
(16:03):
Nazi Party or Germany did as well. During World War Two,
military activities banned on this continent, and it's also a
legal to prospect for minerals or oil. Fifty different nations,
including Russia, China, and the US, have agreed with this
Antarctic treaty, but everybody's all about bending the rules, especially
(16:25):
as it gets easier and easier to find stuff there.
So that's how it stands now. We're going to spend
most of our time on the Arctic today. But it's
important to note that some of the same concerns that
apply to the North Pole apply or at least will
apply to the South Pole. And the big question is
what happens when all this changes.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So yeah, we've really been just looking at the background
for a lot of this stuff. But what happens when
when some of the ice melts, when it gets a
little warmer, when some of these things that were just
bubble thought bubbles in someone's head in a situation room,
become an actual actionable plan.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
That's what we're looking at today. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
We've explored a bit of the history. We've taken a
brief look at the present day situation. Yet we are
living in a time rife with Malcolm Gladwell esque tipping points.
They're dangling, lumering, capering, swinging wildly on the horizon. Yes, sure,
the climate in these areas is changing, but the economic, geopolitical,
(17:32):
and military landscapes are changing as well. And the race
began years ago, it was just not on your mainstream
news networks. It's becoming increasingly apparent that this may well
be one of the next great global contests, and the
outcome of this race may well determine the course of
human affairs for decades, perhaps centuries to come. In short,
(17:56):
who will control the Arctic?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And we'll get to that right after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Here's where it gets crazy. Everybody wants a piece, that's it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, there are a lot of powers that are interested,
and not just the ones who are immediately adjacent to
the Arctic.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Circle right, right, So we know that different countries have
historically laid claim to the Arctic, right, and there have
been numerous disputes about this, which we can explore. But
the accelerated trend of changing climate or temperatures in these
(18:40):
areas is also accelerating the rate of change in geopolitics
of the Arctic.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
So yeah, if we want to take a quick.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Look at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations twenty eighteen
report cards, specifically the Arctic report Card, you can find
that at Arctic DOAA dot gov if you want to
follow along here. But in their highlights, they're talking about
surface air temperatures in the Arctic. They've continued to warm
(19:10):
at twice the rate relative to the rest of the globe,
which is troubling. The air temperatures there for the past
five years have exceeded all previous records since nineteen hundred,
And there's a whole bunch of other stuff in here
that you can look at, specifically talking about sea ice.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Let's see, sea ice.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Remained younger, thinner, and covered less area than in the past.
The twelve lowest extents of the satellite record have occurred
in the last twelve years in the Arctic, And there's
a toime like, if you really want to dig deep
into the information, you can find it there on the
report card. But essentially it's just saying that the ice
is receding. There's less of it, it's younger ice, it's
(19:51):
not building up the thick levels that it used to.
It really is happening, and it's happening now and it
has been happening.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And this is catastrophic for the creatures, for the wildlife
that have adapted over millions and millions of years to
live in this environment. It's terrible for those. This is
one of the worst times in polar bear history to
(20:18):
be a polar bear. However, for humans in the short term,
if we look at the checkers game rather than the
chess game, this could be a bonanza, a cavalcade of
money to be made, assuming that we still practice the
economic ideology of money in the near future, which we
(20:41):
probably will because we're not a super creative species. This development,
should it continue, will unlock massive hydrocarbon and mineral resources
in the Arctic and in the Continental Shelf. This could also,
at the same time make a year round northern sea
route practical via two ways Russia's Northeast Passage or Canada's
(21:06):
Northwest Passage. And the reason this is important is because
it could cut transit time to ship from somewhere in
East Asia to Europe or North America's east coast by
thirty percent, which may not sound like a lot, but
it's huge.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Like if you ever get a check and taxes are
thirty percent of that, you know you'll really feel it.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Well, yes, And as we're thinking about this, it's not
you know, we mentioned Canada's Northwest Passage and Russia, Russia's
Northeast Passage. It's not just those countries those nations that
would be using those passages. It's this has wider implications.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yes, yes, this has wider implications. It goes down to
the argument of what should be considered international waters and
what should be considered sovereign waters.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Right well, and then even if it's not international waters,
countries and nations working together with trade deals to use
those waters, right And it's just there's so many there's
so many things to think about with it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
A lot of you know what. Now you mentioned it, Matt,
A lot of lawyers are gonna make a ton of
cash off this, too, y. So the thing is that
this could economically be very good for a ton of
nations and a ton of people throughout the world, depending
on how it's played out. However, without sounding too skeptical
(22:34):
of our ability to work together, we do have to
point out that one of the first possibilities on the horizon,
let's say all this ice melts, one of the first
possibilities on the horizon is going.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
To be war, or at least the threat of war, right,
the posturing.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Well, let's call it, yeah, posturing, rivalry, brinksmanship, whatever you
want to call it. What you know what, why don't
we call it Russia and America too? Oh go electric
Arctic boogaloo.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Okay, that's great.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, Well, if you're listening and you're in the
un please feel free to use that just credit our show.
The disappearance of ice in the Arctic immediately changes the
status quo for Russia and the United States in the
following ways, in ways that are very very good for
the Federated States of Russia. Moscow suddenly gets access to
(23:25):
more than four thousand miles of Arctic coastline, and that
would fundamentally transform Russia from a continental to a maritime power.
Russia would have access to all weather bases and immediately
start constructing them.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
By the way, Yeah, it would be a no brainer
to do that.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
It would be ridiculous not to do it. This also
creates security risk along Russia's northern border, Alaska and Russia
being very close together, and previously these concerns just didn't apply.
They're not applicable because of the area's harsh climate. It's
just too much of pain to do stuff there. So,
(24:09):
the prospect of the Arctic Ocean emerging as a new
theater of military rivalry or what did you call it?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Met naughty boats?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yes, of naughty boat tag. There we go. That's that's
the way to explain for it, of naughty boat tag.
This prospect is being taken very very seriously, not by
just the US, but by NATO, by Moscow, of course,
(24:41):
and they're trying to figure out how they are going
to sort this out without entering into what's called a
hot war.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, where stuff is actually fired.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Right, well, so where stuff is actually fired from from
from one puppet master to the other puppet master. Yeah,
so like a proxy war is occurring in Syria.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
That's where the hands go out and manipulate the other things.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right, and they fire at each other, exactly, Proxy wars
in Afghanistan, proxy wars like in Southeast Asia. These things happen,
but this presents a situation where it could possibly be
a genuine military conflict the likes of which we haven't
(25:31):
seen since World War Two.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
And just if you wanted to have an example of
how important naval bases are to the Russian Federation Russian
Federation of States, is how to say it to Russia.
You just you can look to several years ago in
Ukraine and Crimea and the handling of some of the
shipping and naval bases that were so important in that
(25:55):
region to the country, and the actions that were taken
to make sure those were secured. Just if you if
you want to take those as examples, you can understand
how important this stuff is, especially if then you multiply
it by the scale that it would be in the Arctic.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's the next all example in Crimea itself
has It was sad to see that drop out of
the news cycle because the story of Crimea it self
is fascinating, and it doesn't it doesn't start, you know,
just a few years ago when Russia invaded or excuse me, when.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
When patriots in Crimea, guys with.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Balaklava's right, Yeah, Anyway, there are people some of us
listening are saying, all right, guys, that's a little alarmist.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
You're going cold war on us.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You're going cold war, You're going hot war on us,
You're going World War three on us, because that's what
you're essentially implied. Right. The problem is that now we
are not talking about two nations fighting over a border,
and we have not been talking about that sort of
thing in world politics and world militaries for decades. Everybody
(27:09):
is crewed up now. Every country is in some sort
of gang to one degree or another. And a war
with a European country who's a member of NATO means
that you're beefing with all of NATO. Yeah, And if
you are starting to fight with Russia, you're starting to
fight with all of Russia's buddies as well. And now
(27:32):
that this previously inaccessible part of the world may be
up for grabs, everybody wants a peace. We talked about
the Arctic Council, those five eight nations.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
So that's Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the US.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
But again, when we say everybody wants a peace, we
mean picture that Gary Oldman, give everyone everything, right. China, Japan,
and South Korea all also want to be involved in
Arctic affairs, and China is the PRC People's Republic of
China is the biggest player in this game, or at
(28:14):
least the most visible about it. China recently declared itself
to be a quote near Arctic state, which is weird. Yeah,
which is weird because if you look at this scale
of just you know, I'll be I'll be a jerk
about it. If you look at the scale of the
Solar system, every state is a near arctic state. Okay,
(28:37):
it's like what what is what is not a near
Arctic state? Is is Uganda or the Bahamas or those
not near Arctic states? Sure? Sure, arguably right, But that's
that's a very relative term, you know what I mean?
You could you could be you could be like a
little north or south of the equator and then call
(28:59):
yourself an near Antarctic State because you're closer slightly to Antarctica.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I don't know, I just I think it's I think
it's slippery semantics. But they say they're in New Arctic State,
and in January twenty eighteen, they unveiled their plans for
a polar silk route, announcing that the country of China
is an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs. I would agree
with that because of just the sheer volume of stuff
(29:26):
shipping to and from that country.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yes, and that's exactly what they're interested in. They want
to be able to ship everything through there and save
that thirty percent or however much they would end up
saving shipping things. And since twenty thirteen they've been they've
had observer status in the Arctic Council because they've kind
of seen this on the horizon on the both climate
(29:50):
horizon as well as the geopolitical horizon. So it's just
something to keep your eye on for sure.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Right And they've been building influence in this area for
as you said, Matt, for some time. But the issue
here goes into the question of how closely trade and
military action may or may not be related, and.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When we talked about deals like, it's not just those
countries with the Northeast and the Northwest passage, it's people
making deals with those countries. And to this effect, Beijing
was talking specifically with Canada and Russia to work out
some kind of free trade agreement with both of these
countries with some of the Scandinavian nations that are up
(30:38):
there to you know, for China essentially to infuse money
into some of the bigger projects that are happening in
those areas. Specifically, there's one called the Yamal Lng project
that which has to do with natural gas and oil
capturing through Russia. And there are other projects in the
(30:58):
US in Alaska that are doing you know, pretty much
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
As well as Canada.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And it's just it's China, like you said, Ben, trying
to have it seat at the table, to get in
on the ground floor with these projects as investors, to
then have a stake in other parts of it.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Right, right, if the legal framework of geopolitics won't work,
then surely the financial framework of who owes who money
will will deliver. Right there you go, And let's real
quick on the timeline here. According to NASA Global Climate
models predict the Arctic will be ice free during the
(31:39):
summer months by the middle of this century. Wo so
by twenty fifty And that's very much a ballpark that
could be that that could mean anywhere from twenty forty
to twenty fifty five, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
So it's so weird with timescales because it feels so
long term, and yet that is fully short term to
twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yes, that is not long at all.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Hey man, you'll probably you'll probably be here.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Maybe you should schedu go ahead and book your tickets
now my cruise, your artic cruise. You can take it
on a Chinese icebreaker. Perhaps the snow Dragon two and
the snow Dragon one have already been created and there's
an expedition scheduled for the first half of twenty nineteen.
(32:29):
This is also happening in This is happening in a
zero sum environment. To be absolutely clear, what that means
is that there there's a finite amount of power, there's
a finite amount of territory, and there's a finite amount
of resource to be extracted.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
So why there are a lot of resources that we'll
get into.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Right the annual the economy of this region could exceed
four hundred and fifty billion dollars US. We're bringing up
just that point because the government of China has been
quick to capitalize on what they see as lack of
expertise and interest from the US from Uncle Sam from Washington,
(33:15):
d C. And that's not related to in let's not
related to any particular administration. These big boy rules. We're
talking about the way other countries look at each other.
But real politics tells us other countries only care about
what's happening domestically in a different country if it will
(33:37):
help their bottom line or give them an opportunity to
require more power and influence on the global stage.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Can I use this right?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Can I use this otherwise? Why are you telling me
we have problems of our own? Says every country? So resources,
that's why. That's That's ultimately what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Almost every time I'm on the show, Yeah, almost every time,
not every time.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Almost every time in history.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
It might be dressed up as values or interest or
national security, national security or someone's religion makes you know,
gets us in a stink or whatever, But really, ultimately
that's that's all window dressing. It's all a nice sided
ketchup to the actual fries, which are resources. So yes,
(34:30):
they're tremendous shipping and military force projection advantages to controlling
the Arctic. But why are those important? Because it boils
down to what can you get from there and what
can you move across there? That's it.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So resources, But why are they so important? Let's get
into that right after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So here's the thing. You nailed it in one word,
that resources. Every every conflict is about resources. Right, We've
said this before. We don't just mean it in post
World War two. We don't just mean it in terms
of Russia grabbing crimea or something. We mean throughout human history,
(35:23):
throughout the span of our civilization, virtually every large scale
conflict has been about resources. Now it'll be dressed up,
you know, there will be some window dressing, especially in democracies. Right,
it will be like, oh, it's our values, right, yeah,
Or what's another one.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
It presents a national security risk there we go.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Or you know, if you go a little further back,
these people's religion is bad to us.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, that lumber that's all over there, that has nothing
to do with it.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
That control of the bay has nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
The ability to send things down this river because you know,
don't worry about that.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Catholicism bad, And of course religious and racial discrimination is
a real thing. It's also an avenue to justify taking
stuff from people.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
It's a lever you can pull.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
It's yeah, it's very much. War is very much a
stuff oriented thing.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Are we too cynical or is this? I mean, this
feels so real to me and I've seen it happen
so many times throughout history. I'm not being too cynical
in these thoughts, am I?
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Because I really do feel like this is just the truth.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I am the worst person to ask because I completely
agree with you, Matt. I mean there are okay, so yes,
it's true, there are tremendous shipping and military force projection
advantages to having control over all or some of the Arctic,
especially those shipping routes. But why are they important? Why
it's not bragging rights. It ultimately boils down to resource extraction.
(37:02):
What can we get from there? What can we move
across there? In two thousand and eight, the US Geological
Service estimated that the Arctic alone contains more than one
six hundred and sixty nine trillion cubic feet of natural
gas reserves.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
O m GIA. So this amount is massive.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
It's about thirty percent of all of the world's remaining
supply of natural gas that has not been in some
way found developed or begun to be extracted. This is
that number is almost four times the entire United States
reserves that exists right now.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And that this number also does not include what are
called methane hydrates on the seabed, which can also be
converted to a very valuable resource. The addition of this stuff,
if it ever becomes cost effective to extract it, which
is a big deal, which is a huge deal, could
boost potential reserves exponentially. In addition, there are probably around
(38:07):
forty four billion barrels of natural gas liquids and ninety
billion barrels of oil. That's about thirteen percent of the
undeveloped oil reserves on the planet. In one place, the
Geological Service estimates that eighty four percent of the Arctic's
hydrocarbons are offshore. Sixty percent of the Arctic oil is
(38:31):
in Russian territory, and not just in the territory that
the Russian government thinks belongs to it, which is different,
but in the territory that everybody sort of agrees belongs
to it. So according to their surveys, the Russian surveys,
ninety percent more than ninety percent of the hydrocarbon reserves
are located in the Arctic zone of the Siberian Continental Shelf,
(38:55):
And without going into the weeds too much, this is
a commercial powder keg. This could guarantee Russia's seat at
the table. One of the criticisms that you'll hear about
Russia pretty often is that Russia is pretending to be
a world power or a superpower. It's got a lot
(39:17):
of domestic problems, as we all do. Again, you know,
most other world leaders care about that to the point
that it might present an opportunity for them, but otherwise
it's like, not my job, not my problem. And so
the criticism that you'll hear about Russia is that they
have two things that give them a seat at the table,
(39:41):
a nuclear arsenal and gas reserves. Okay, hydrocarbon reserves. So
if they were able to exponentially increase the amount of
stuff that they control in a hydrocarbon economy, then they
also they also increase their prominence and importance and influence
(40:02):
in world affairs. You know, there were times a few
years back, not so long ago, in recent history, while
we were alive, when Russia could literally just turn off
the gas supply to a large swath of Europe just
if they wanted to, just you know, I like fun, Like,
what else are you doing on a Friday? That's power,
(40:24):
That is power is power. It's not clear, however, yet,
whether these reserves are whether it makes sense to get
them right now?
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Oh yes, of now, well, yeah, that's the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
It's building the infrastructure and the having the technology to
be able to extract that stuff from the depths where
it exists in those cold temperatures and all the all
the other factors. Even if it begins melting, it's still
a tremendous It would be a tremendous achievement to be
able to get that, and it would cost so much money,
(40:56):
which is one of the biggest problems here. There's this
thing called the International Energy Agency.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Or the IEA.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
We love to read those, and they believe that in
order to make this economically feasible to do to extract this,
you know, the oil and natural gas here, the average
price essentially of oil would have to be around one
hundred and twenty dollars per barrel for the development for
this to even work, to make to have it make sense,
(41:25):
you can make money back, so you're not just throwing
money into the Arctic in order to make some back.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Right, and for perspective, right now, as we're recording it,
crude oil probably averaged around sixty five bucks a barrel
or so, yeah, February of this year, so oil would
almost have to double.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
You got to make some calls to the opequ big
heads and talk to them.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I think, yeah, they're also cutting production right, Yeah, and
rush is part of the conversation. Oh man, different show.
So there's all so the cost of creating all the
infrastructure you need to get this stuff out right, This
is no longer Beverly Hillbilly's land. Kudos to anyone I
got that reference. They will have to build around one
(42:14):
trillion US dollars worth or sixty nine trillion rubles worth
of stuff to extract this oil, to process it, to
make it something that they can sell, and they don't
have this country, Russia does not have the technology so
far as we know, to exploit those deep water deposits.
(42:35):
Yet additionally, a lot of the stuff they do have
to extract energy from this part of the world was
not designed to cope with this part of the world melting.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, it's designed to be in the frozen areas. You
can see some that thing that we mentioned a little earlier,
the Jamal LNG project. You can actually see images of
what some of the some of it looks like. And
it is just built on essentially ice. I mean, it
is just built on ice inside ice. And if that
(43:09):
were all to melt, it would it would quickly change
how that how that whole system functions, how that facility functions.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
It could create a large issue.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Yeah, absolutely, because there's gonna be a liminal space. There's
gonna be a transition period. Earth does not work on
light switches, you know what I mean. What's gonna happen
is that stuff will stuff will begin to melt, and eventually,
when it melts to a to a high enough degree,
(43:41):
there will be avenues to access this hidden oil, these
hidden hydrocarbons. But before it reaches that point, it's it'll
just be muddy and things will be not quite accessible.
But all the stuff we built before will not work. Yeah,
so there's going to be this worse before it gets
(44:02):
better scenario, and that's when that's when the series of
battles will start. These will be happening concurrently. The battles
already started in the courtroom. That's where a lot of
international battles start. Primary disagreements here, as you already point out,
met concern what we think of as international waters and
what we think of as sovereign waters or territory controlled
(44:23):
by a single nation or an uncalling now eventually a
single corporation. So conflicting claims the Arctic date back to
at least nineteen twenty five, when Canada said that, all right,
we're going to say our maritime border extends to cover
everything from sixty degrees west to one hundred and forty
(44:44):
one degrees west and then northward all the way to
the North Pole and the North Pole. Remember this nineteen
twenty five, So the North Pole had just been reached
in nineteen oh nine and Canada was like, let's get
on it. So they also claim these very channels and
straits that constitute what we call the Northwest Passage are
part of its internal waters, not international. You want to
(45:07):
travel on this road you have to play with us.
The US and other countries have argued that this is
complete malarchy. Yeah, there's an international waterway. You have to
let us go free and unencumbered, which means we can
come and go as we please. This is one example.
There are a ton of other examples. Russias and a
(45:28):
lot of them because they control a lot of the coastline.
Now the battle has been moving forward symbolically. In two
thousand and five the Russian Arctica Expedition, which was the
first manned descent to the seafloor beneath the North Pole.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
And this is baller, by the way.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
If they planted a Russian flag made of titanium on
the Arctic floor at the geographical.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Pole, Wow, that's what's up.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I thought it was Yeah, I thought it was a
power move. The US and Canada Denmark thought so too,
but they didn't think it was cool. No, and the
Kremlins they said, what are you doing. You can't just
say this belongs to you. And the Kremlin said it
was not asserting sovereignity. And this is where we found
this excellent caddy quote from Russian Foreign Minister Sergi Lavarov.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
We're not throwing flags around. We just do what other
discoverers did. The purpose of the expedition is not to
skates whatever rights of Russia, but to prove that our
shelf extends to the North Pole. By the way, on
the Moon, it was the same. Remember when you planted
(46:39):
that America flag on the Moon.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
It's just because we got here first.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Come on, like, we sent a submersible down and we
put a giant, awesome titanium flag down there.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
It's strange, but these symbols are important.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
They are, they really are.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
And that's why in Antarctica you can still get a
passport stamp from Great Britain or something, or you or
these countries will operate post offices. So what happens when
the weather warms, It brings hotter wars. Historically, the Arctic
Ocean has not been a significant military theater for the US,
which means it's not a place where we put our
(47:17):
weapons of destruction and our weapons of war. At the
height of the Cold War, US and Soviet ballistic missile
submarines hid below the polar ice caps. And you know
played this game of cat and mouse, right.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
You know the it's the you can at least harken
back to images of Hunter for at October.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Right, right, And it's a good call. And both sides
did have early warning networks, and they had armies defending them.
But these early warning networks had while they had anti
submarine equipment and armament, the main thing they were looking
out for was a way to know as soon as
(47:59):
possible if a missile had been launched. Because the biggest
significance of the Arctic for both sides of the Cold
War was this. It is it was the shortest shipping
route for boats, right, if you could get rid of
the ice bi de Yeah, but it's the shortest flight
path for an ICBM or intercontinental ballistic missile and other
(48:20):
nuclear missiles. So if if a missile is fired from
Russia to the US, that's how it's gonna get that's
the shortest way for it to get there.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Or from Alaska or the Russian Federation.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Or from Alaska to the Russians, yeah, or.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
From any submarine that's hanging out in the Arctic ocean.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
So in recent years, the increase in temperature across the
Arctic has diminished that polar ice cap. As you said,
bet the northeast passage right now in Russia's Arctic seas
can can be used for two or three months of
the year and even longer if you have an icebreaker
(48:59):
like China does, like Russia does. Canada's Northwest Passage is
not near as pash it's shallow, it's prone to getting
clogged by ice, but it too has seen some more
commercial traffic because there's less and less ice around. And
now the Arctic Ocean, because of this warming, is emerging
(49:19):
as the next place where people, well I say people,
where the Russian government and the US government are going
to butt heads. It is preposterous that this is not
a bigger deal right now. Because Russia controls the board.
That's what makes it different. Russia is way more qualified
(49:41):
and way more competent for any kind of when in
regards to any kind of conflict here in this area
of the world.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Well yeah, if you look at the you just think
about the naval fleets of the US, and then you
think about the land area of Alaska, which is the
only the US controlled territory up there. If you just
look at a picture of the Arctic Circle and think
about that alone, then think about just the history of
operating up there.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
And then all of the naval.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
You know, a lot of the Pacific fleets, the you know,
the different fleets of the US has. It's just a
whole different game. And Russia has been doing it for
a while.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yes, yeah, that's a good way to put it. According
to Andrew Holland, who is CEO of the American Security Project,
the Arctic is the only theater of operations where the
US Navy is outclassed by a peer competitor. Russian surface
warships have demonstrated the ability to carry out complex combined
operations in the High North, while the American Navy maintains
(50:43):
a policy that only submarines operate above the Barren Strait.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
There you go, complex combined operations.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Oh Holland, and you listening, no offense? I just like
that voice. So yeah. Since two thousand and eight, Russia's
Arctic development has, at least according to the Pentagon assertive
force posture, with constant military drilling and quote provocative air maneuvering.
So Russia has four different fleets Baltic, Pacific, Black Sea,
(51:15):
and Arctic. The Arctic Fleet or Northern Fleet, has eighty ships.
Thirty five of those are submarines and others are surface
ships led by a battle cruiser. But over the last
decade it's been increasingly expanded, it's been improved. Starting in
twenty twelve, it's regularly patrolled a two thousand mile stretch
(51:37):
of the Northern Sea. And more importantly, Russia operates a
fleet of forty ice breakers. That's forty forty more ice
breakers than the rest of the world icebreaker fleet combined.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Sounds familiar to the US when you just think about
defense spending in that kind of thing, and yeah, exactly,
But then well, we do have icebreakers.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
We have three. Uncle Sam has three ice breakers, and
they need a lot of help in like the ice
breakers themselves. So if a war breaks out, if a
physical or hot war does break out over disputes in
the Arctic, it will almost certainly become a global conflict.
NATO will be involved, The dominoes will start to fall,
(52:24):
as the US alone would be outclassed, right, and then
we would see other countries who are aware of this,
hungry for the opportunity, would also insert themselves in some way,
because chaos is a chaos is fertile soil for opportunity,
(52:44):
you know what I mean. Military planners envision rivalry and
perhaps conflict between NATO powers, the US and Russia. But
eventually they say China will get in the game because
that country is very very set in to resource acquisition
and can detect minerals from miles and decades away.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Yeah, they know where it is, they know it exists,
and they're going to find a way to be a
part of it.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Right, that's the idea, right, And the same sort of
stuff is happening in Antarctica. If current economic projections hold true,
there are going to be some very dangerous times ahead,
especially for the average person. Right. There are going to
be global busts of economies, bubbles will pop, and if
(53:35):
that happens, that's going to make different different countries increasingly
desperate to obtain control and sovereignity over these things. And
that means the economic disaster could accelerate this timeline. Climate
change is already accelerating, sure, changing temperatures whatever you want
to call them, are already accelerating it. But the economic
(53:57):
stuff could be even more powerful on this timeline because
what was that number, one hundred and twenty dollars a barrel?
Is that when it becomes something like that, Okay, so
what if it just spikes and one day, one day
it's one hundred and ninety barrel.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Then everybody's gonna be trying to get it and.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
The drilling starts tomorrow. Yeah, that's what happens.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
You know. Wow. Okay, so that's where we are right
now with this. You know, one thing I.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Was wondering about as we were researching this was Denmark
and Greenland because if you look at a map and
you see how large Greenland is and how much ice
covers that piece of land, and there are resources there,
a lot of resources. If that also melts, it makes
me wonder if someone eventually one of these superpowers eventually
(54:47):
invades Denmark's control at least over Greenland something like that,
because you know, and we only barely touched Antarctica in
this episode, because we've talked about so many times before,
but as Ben said right at the end, there, it's
the same thing. That's a huge continent, and if some
of that ice is melting, no matter how high the
(55:08):
water is rising, we're going to be trying to get
over there and discover things and find more resources because
they're there.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
We be not just Uncle Sam or not just humans. Yeah,
we also being you and me, Oh yeah, Oh.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
We're going to be down there trying to get as
much titanium to make more flags as we possibly can.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Whether you are a president, a peasant, a prime minister,
or a pioneer, one thing is for sure. Everyone is
waiting for the day that the ice melts and doesn't
come back in winter, which is a scary thing. The
they and the stuff they don't want you to know
for today's episode is multi dimensional. I mean, there are
(55:54):
companies that don't want you to know the ongoing negotiations
they're having with their own governments. There are military contractors
who don't want you to know the kind of stuff
they're building. And there are of course governments who don't
want you to know what they're planning, especially if you
work for another government. Yeah, it always reminds me of
(56:15):
that story or that old proverb. You know, when elephants
make war, only the grass suffers. The majority of humanity.
Is the grass here just getting trampled, just getting trampled
quite possibly, or who knows, maybe maybe our species will
say what's the best way to what's the best way
(56:36):
to normalize this and create a situation where there's not
a global catastrophe and that's that's quite possible. I mean,
no one really wants a third World war, to want
managed conflicts and ways to assertively negotiate their way to
the biggest slice of the pie, whatever the pies ingredients are.
(56:58):
And sometimes you fight to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
And increasingly hydrocarbons in that pie are not as lucrative
or interesting.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
Yeah at present, you know, in the moment, Yeah, in
the moment. And that goes into whether or not technology
is being suppressed, and that goes into whether or not
we're getting real numbers about the petrol industry in general.
But those are stories for another day. If we wanted
to end on a less dystopian scary note, we can't
(57:30):
tell you that you can travel as a private citizen
to Antarctica. From an environmental perspective, it's a fascinating place
to visit, or so we hear. You do get price
breaks if you travel in a group. Would highly recommend
that because it's quite expensive and it's something you would
have to save up for, but.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
Hey, it's a that's a cool goal if you can achieve.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
It once in a lifetime experience. Yeah, if you don't
feel like saving up the money, but you feel like
spending a lot of time there. It is remarkably I
don't want to say it's too easy, but it's remarkably
less difficult than I thought. To get hired as a
you know, like a cook or a support staff in
a research station.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
Do it and then write to us like every day,
make make a diary.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Tell us who you think the hidden alien is?
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Oh, or do you want to start a podcast? Go
on that journey and then we'll just start a new
podcast with you.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
Speaking people going on that journey. One last thing forty
close today's episode, Flat earthers are launching a trip to Antarctica. Matt,
Did you see that.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yes, they are going to figure out once and for
all whether or not this Earth is flat, and whether
or not you can reach the end of the Earth.
And they're going to go down there to find you know,
essentially the Game of Thrones wall basically, but if on
the other side of the wall there was nothing just
space essentially, right, It's the ice wall supposed to to
(59:00):
be several thousand feet thick, and it goes one hundred
and sixty four feet high perhaps, and it's this thing
that rings the entire planet and there's a group of
people who are going to be there soon. They're taking
off soon, allegedly, right.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
The supposed ice wall is a couple thousand feet thick,
one hundred and sixty four feet high and surrounds the planet.
This is planned for next year, for twenty twenty. It's
organized by the Flat Earth International Conference or fei C.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
And just so you know, according to this article from
the Sun, which is oh excuse me, yes, he's an
original article posted by the Sun that was in the
New York Post. YouTube star logan Paul, the guy that
everybody just loves. He says he wants to find the
facts and also join them.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
So yeha yehaw.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
Indeed, maybe our boy is going to be there. Who's
our boy, the rapper that we talked about.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
What's his name? Bob?
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Yeah, yeah, maybe he'll be there as well. Yes, uh,
And maybe you will be there if you're listening. If so,
we'd love to hear about your adventures. We hope that
you enjoyed this episode, and if you live in the
northern climes, we'd love to hear more about your experiences.
Do you feel like this is alarmist? How How quick
(01:00:22):
do you feel the ice is or is not melting?
And how do you see things changing in a world
without northern ice? Let us know you, and that's our
classic episode for this evening. We can't wait to hear
your thoughts. We try to be easy to find online.
Find us in the handle conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook X and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. We're
(01:00:42):
conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Show call our number. It's one eight three three std WYTK.
Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
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we can't wait to hear from you at our good
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Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Whobody. Twenty nineteen was a different time, and in the
middle of that time, we are returning to you with
a classic episode, the Race to the Arctic. For a
long time, even now, technically the Arctic has been one
of those inaccessible regions of the world map. It's a
(00:21):
why would you go there kind of place.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Yeah, but there are a lot of countries that have
territory that head right up into the old Arctic. So
there are reasons to be up there, right. You got
to defend your space. You got to make sure nobody
else is coming up onto your lands and waters even.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And waters even, and you're underwater lands. Oh right. Because
when we were looking at this, the writing was already
on the wall. There was something already in the wind.
As the ice in the North Pole evaporates, we're looking
at the possibility of enormous profitable trade routes, billions upon
(01:03):
billions of dollars of freight transit, but also untold billions
of dollars of previously inaccessible resources.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Ooh, it's the raw stuff up there. Watch out, watch out.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
People will do terrible things to get those sweet, sweet resources.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
True story. Yeah, and when you tune into this one, folks,
please please reach out to us because we want to
know your thoughts. Who will control the Arctic?
Speaker 4 (01:35):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Noel
Is on an adventure.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our super
producer Paul Michig, controlled decand and most importantly, you are you.
You are here that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. On a previous episode, Matt Man, we
opened this show, you and I asking each other where
we would travel, if we could travel anywhere in the world. Yes,
(02:26):
and we you know, we don't talk about it too
explicitly on the air here, but we whether for work
or for other endeavors, we end up traveling like as
a group and as individuals more often than not. You
know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Yes, correct, And I cannot remember the verdict or our
answers to the question of where we would travel. I'm
going to change mine now to Germany. I want to
go back to Germany. I just want to see what
that place is like.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
You want to see what their whole thing is.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, I have a friend named Holger who lived with
us for a while who lives out there.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I want to go visit him.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
That's great. It's always great to visit a country where
you have a connection with someone who lives there.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
And you know, on other previous episodes, Man, we talked
about the shape of our planet.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
We did? We did? Is that foreshadowy?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
It is?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Well, just to you know, remind people that yes, this
is a large, spherical like structured planet, as most of
the planets are, at least the ones we've observed, and
that means that our planet has these two things on
it called poles.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Right, why would you go to the poles? In that
conversation that I've had about traveling anywhere on the world,
anywhere terrestrially, one of the questions I would get is
why on Earth would you want to go to the
North Pole? Or why on Earth would you want to
go to Antarctica. You know, it's a valid question. I
(03:53):
would say. One of the coolest things about going to
Antarctica is that so few people throughout human history have
ever made it there and returned alive.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
There you go that's worth it.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
So, you know, bragging rights neat little stamp on your passport,
which is very dodgy from a legal perspective.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Or maybe you just really enjoy the cold.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Or maybe you're just super into the cold. You know,
sleeping in your fridge isn't cutting it anymore. It's true, Matt,
You're absolutely right. Planet Earth is very basic information. Planet
Earth has two poles, and they are both cold inhospitable
alien environments. These poles are places where human beings are
not built to be. To the far far north, we
(04:39):
have the Arctic surrounded by the Arctic Circle. To the
far far south, we have the continent of Antarctica. We've
done several episodes on Antarctica. I was surprised to remember
we did one. Let's see, what's our most recent one
we did?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
I know we've discussed several times the various attempts to
get to Antarctica and set up bases of oh yeah,
from the World Wars.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
On, Yeah, what happens if there's a murder in Antarctica?
That was one of our most recent.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Ones, something yeah, something along that way.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
And then my favorite one to date has been what's
beneath the Arctic Ice, which is one of the videos
on our YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That was a great one talking about this too, the
strange research that could be going on there, because that's
really all that happens there.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Right, or the lethal diseases that may just wake up
you know, there's something almost love craftying about it. But
for the bulk of human history, very very few people,
relatively few people have managed to visit these parts of
the world. Even fewer people have managed to visit these
parts of the world and return alive to tell the tale.
(05:55):
And you have to ask yourself, of course, it makes
sense that few people have managed to visit the Pollwyarth,
would you let's talk a little bit about the Arctic
and the Arctic Circle, which is going to be the
primary focus for today's show. The Arctic is a region
of the planet. It's north of the Arctic Circle, which
will define in a moment, and it includes the Arctic Ocean, Greenland,
(06:18):
Bath and Island, other smaller islands in the north and
the very very northern areas of Europe, Russia, Alaska, and Canada.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
That's right, And really when you're talking about the Arctic,
you're talking about stuff that is around the Arctic Ocean.
So there are several seas that are up there along
the Russian coast and several other bodies of water, but
it's really the Arctic Ocean up there. And you know,
(06:49):
there are really five nations that you're talking about if
you're talking about the Arctic Powers or the Arctic countries,
the controlling powers up there. You've got Russia, the United
States with Alaska, Norway, Denmark and slash, Greenland and Canada.
These are these are the people or the powers you're
talking about when you're when you're going to be discussing
maybe land rights and usage rights of that area.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And that's the that's by the narrowest definition of the
Arctic as a whole. Yes, just just top down Arctic
Ocean and the five closest nations around it. Yes, the
region has also been defined as the area above the
Arctic Circle. And in Russia this area is referred to
(07:35):
as something that translates to the High North. And if
we if we go by that definition, then we add
some other countries to the mix. Iceland, Sweden and Finland
also become Arctic Powers, even though they don't have a
coast on the Arctic Ocean. So these eight nations together
they form what's called the Arctic Council.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
And they've got a great website you can check out
by the way they do the Arctic Council. It's an
arcticdh Council dot org.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
What makes the website great, Matt.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
It's very difficult to read because of the color choices
that they've made, but it's also it's got a lot
of cool information in there, and I don't know, just
check it out if you're interested in exactly what that is.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
And when we talk about when we talk about the polls,
one thing that makes the Arctic Circle very, very different
from Antarctica is that this is pretty populated. I mean
sparsely populated, but pretty populated. There are about four million
people who live there. Of those four million people, about
(08:45):
half a Russian and this is still the case despite
the fact that living in the High North, living in
the High North of Russia is a rough life and
the area has been losing population for the several decades.
So we've mentioned the Arctic Circle. What is that It
is essentially an imaginary line. Our species has created it.
(09:08):
We all agree that that's a bully idea and so
we're going to keep it around. It's located at sixty
six point six degrees north latitude, and we use that
latitude as a way to define or demarcate the southernmost
part of the Arctic. Every part of the land and
(09:29):
sea within the Arctic Circle is very, very cold, and
historically speaking, much of it has just been covered with ice.
In addition to the temperature, just the regular weather sucks too.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Yeah, it really does.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
If you see a picture of the Arctic Circle, why
it's called the Arctic Circle because that latitude makes this
really nice circle there, and the ice is the defining
factor that Ben is talking about here. If you're looking
at an image of it from the top down, it's
it's a rough place. So in the midwinter months in
this area, the sun never really rises at all, It
(10:06):
just doesn't. You just don't have sun essentially, in Temperatures
stay very very low because of that, and then they
reach massive lows to about negative fifty degrees fahrenheit at
the higher latitudes in this region because you know, you
do have varying latitudes there, and then in the summer months,
like if you go a little bit further south, you
get twenty four hours of sunlight a day, and that
(10:28):
has a pretty big effect on that region because it's
going to melt all the sea. You know, the ice
that's coming up right that's being formed there from the
super cold region, and this is one of the main
reasons that icebergs end up breaking off from this like
frozen northern area and then floating south. And now this
(10:49):
right here is one of the big things we're going
to talk about later when it comes to the economics
of this region and some of the the reasons powers
are fighting to control this region because of this ice.
As it's melting from the north and goes south, you
can't it's very difficult to get ships through there.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And these these crushing temperatures. Just to put this in
perspective for everybody outside of what the United States, mianmar
and Namibia. Sure, negative fifty degrees fahrenheit is negative forty
five point five degrees celsius. So I hope that some
(11:32):
of us listening were like, negative fifty it's cold, but
what is that. I hope that really impacted you. We've
brought it over to Celsia.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Here are freezing temperatures where my hand is around my
chest and down there near the floor is where negative
fifty is.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Yes, yeah, that's great. You're absolutely right. The icebergs breaking off,
the rogue ice floating around, I call it rogue, but yeah,
really humans are the rogue element here. This stuff makes
it very difficult and dangerous to move ships through, to
move vessels across the water, or it has historically. That
(12:10):
has not stopped people from living in the Arctic Circle.
This is not new territory. There's not a brand new suburb.
People have lived there for thousands and thousands of years.
If we wanted a ballpark, we could say the earliest
people were around nine thousand years ago. It's an ancient land,
and while they have lived there, it hasn't been easy
(12:30):
to do so. It turned out that despite the thousands
of years of human civilization, admittedly sparse human civilization, but
human civilization nonetheless, no one actually reached the northernmost point.
No one reached the North Pole until the beginning of
the twentieth century, as far as we know. Officially, in
nineteen oh nine, a guy named Robert E. Perry became
(12:51):
the first documented human being to physically reach the North
Pole again, this brutal part of the world. He was not,
by any means the first guy to try it. He
was just the first to make it that we know of.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
That's right and well.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
And when we say that's what we know is because
this guy, Robert E. Piery Perry, Robert E. Perry, he
was well known to us. There were a lot of
other indigenous peoples that were living around this area far
before that, at least that we understand. So if you're
talking about the four million people that currently exist and
(13:30):
live there, you're talking about mostly Inuit, Sammy, and you
know people who live in.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Russia and navigating the Arctic because of the ice that
you mentioned, Matt, and because of the temperatures, it's incredibly
dangerous and potentially incredibly rewarding on a couple of fronts. First,
the realm of commerce, the ability to transport goods across
this area of ocean can present tremendous economic advantage to
(14:00):
any nation or corporation controlling shipping routes.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, because you're also going to have problems navigating this
by air this area because of the temperature, sometimes because
of other issues that you're dealing with at the northern Pole.
So having a giant ship getting through the water with
all of the freight that it could carry, that would
be hugely advantageous. The other problem here is the realm
(14:28):
of military might, because if you could, let's say you're
Russia and you already have roughly fifty percent of the
surrounding land mass of the Arctic Circle, if you can
move forward and fully navigate the entire Arctic Ocean well
and easily, then it really changes something that we've mentioned
(14:48):
before over here called force projection, which is just having
the ability to have a ship with weapons on it
wherever you want it to be at any time.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
And up until recently, the present of all that ice
made both of these goals thought exercises, you know what
I mean, hypothetical scenarios. Yeah, not attainable things. And let's
take a brief, a brief side trip all the way
down south to Antarctica, just to mention it, because a
(15:20):
lot of these things will apply to Antarctic as well.
Southernmost continent on Earth. It's the least populous surprise surprise
by far. That's because it's also the possessor of several superlatives.
It is not only the driest place in the world,
it is also the coldest place in the world and sorry,
Chicago the windiest place in the world. It's not a country.
(15:42):
It has no government, there is no native population. The
entire continent is set aside for now as a scientific preserve,
but that hasn't stopped countries from laying territorial claims. Britain, France, Norway, Australia,
New Zealand, Chile and Argentine have all laid claims. The
(16:03):
Nazi Party or Germany did as well. During World War Two,
military activities banned on this continent, and it's also a
legal to prospect for minerals or oil. Fifty different nations,
including Russia, China, and the US, have agreed with this
Antarctic treaty, but everybody's all about bending the rules, especially
(16:25):
as it gets easier and easier to find stuff there.
So that's how it stands now. We're going to spend
most of our time on the Arctic today. But it's
important to note that some of the same concerns that
apply to the North Pole apply or at least will
apply to the South Pole. And the big question is
what happens when all this changes.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So yeah, we've really been just looking at the background
for a lot of this stuff. But what happens when
when some of the ice melts, when it gets a
little warmer, when some of these things that were just
bubble thought bubbles in someone's head in a situation room,
become an actual actionable plan.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
That's what we're looking at today. Right.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
We've explored a bit of the history. We've taken a
brief look at the present day situation. Yet we are
living in a time rife with Malcolm Gladwell esque tipping points.
They're dangling, lumering, capering, swinging wildly on the horizon. Yes, sure,
the climate in these areas is changing, but the economic, geopolitical,
(17:32):
and military landscapes are changing as well. And the race
began years ago, it was just not on your mainstream
news networks. It's becoming increasingly apparent that this may well
be one of the next great global contests, and the
outcome of this race may well determine the course of
human affairs for decades, perhaps centuries to come. In short,
(17:56):
who will control the Arctic?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And we'll get to that right after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Here's where it gets crazy. Everybody wants a piece, that's it.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, there are a lot of powers that are interested,
and not just the ones who are immediately adjacent to
the Arctic.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Circle right, right, So we know that different countries have
historically laid claim to the Arctic, right, and there have
been numerous disputes about this, which we can explore. But
the accelerated trend of changing climate or temperatures in these
(18:40):
areas is also accelerating the rate of change in geopolitics
of the Arctic.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
So yeah, if we want to take a quick.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Look at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations twenty eighteen
report cards, specifically the Arctic report Card, you can find
that at Arctic DOAA dot gov if you want to
follow along here. But in their highlights, they're talking about
surface air temperatures in the Arctic. They've continued to warm
(19:10):
at twice the rate relative to the rest of the globe,
which is troubling. The air temperatures there for the past
five years have exceeded all previous records since nineteen hundred,
And there's a whole bunch of other stuff in here
that you can look at, specifically talking about sea ice.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Let's see, sea ice.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Remained younger, thinner, and covered less area than in the past.
The twelve lowest extents of the satellite record have occurred
in the last twelve years in the Arctic, And there's
a toime like, if you really want to dig deep
into the information, you can find it there on the
report card. But essentially it's just saying that the ice
is receding. There's less of it, it's younger ice, it's
(19:51):
not building up the thick levels that it used to.
It really is happening, and it's happening now and it
has been happening.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
And this is catastrophic for the creatures, for the wildlife
that have adapted over millions and millions of years to
live in this environment. It's terrible for those. This is
one of the worst times in polar bear history to
(20:18):
be a polar bear. However, for humans in the short term,
if we look at the checkers game rather than the
chess game, this could be a bonanza, a cavalcade of
money to be made, assuming that we still practice the
economic ideology of money in the near future, which we
(20:41):
probably will because we're not a super creative species. This development,
should it continue, will unlock massive hydrocarbon and mineral resources
in the Arctic and in the Continental Shelf. This could also,
at the same time make a year round northern sea
route practical via two ways Russia's Northeast Passage or Canada's
(21:06):
Northwest Passage. And the reason this is important is because
it could cut transit time to ship from somewhere in
East Asia to Europe or North America's east coast by
thirty percent, which may not sound like a lot, but
it's huge.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Oh yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Like if you ever get a check and taxes are
thirty percent of that, you know you'll really feel it.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Well, yes, And as we're thinking about this, it's not
you know, we mentioned Canada's Northwest Passage and Russia, Russia's
Northeast Passage. It's not just those countries those nations that
would be using those passages. It's this has wider implications.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yes, yes, this has wider implications. It goes down to
the argument of what should be considered international waters and
what should be considered sovereign waters.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Right well, and then even if it's not international waters,
countries and nations working together with trade deals to use
those waters, right And it's just there's so many there's
so many things to think about with it.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
A lot of you know what. Now you mentioned it, Matt,
A lot of lawyers are gonna make a ton of
cash off this, too, y. So the thing is that
this could economically be very good for a ton of
nations and a ton of people throughout the world, depending
on how it's played out. However, without sounding too skeptical
(22:34):
of our ability to work together, we do have to
point out that one of the first possibilities on the horizon,
let's say all this ice melts, one of the first
possibilities on the horizon is going.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
To be war, or at least the threat of war, right,
the posturing.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Well, let's call it, yeah, posturing, rivalry, brinksmanship, whatever you
want to call it. What you know what, why don't
we call it Russia and America too? Oh go electric
Arctic boogaloo.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Okay, that's great.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh yeah, Well, if you're listening and you're in the
un please feel free to use that just credit our show.
The disappearance of ice in the Arctic immediately changes the
status quo for Russia and the United States in the
following ways, in ways that are very very good for
the Federated States of Russia. Moscow suddenly gets access to
(23:25):
more than four thousand miles of Arctic coastline, and that
would fundamentally transform Russia from a continental to a maritime power.
Russia would have access to all weather bases and immediately
start constructing them.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
By the way, Yeah, it would be a no brainer
to do that.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
It would be ridiculous not to do it. This also
creates security risk along Russia's northern border, Alaska and Russia
being very close together, and previously these concerns just didn't apply.
They're not applicable because of the area's harsh climate. It's
just too much of pain to do stuff there. So,
(24:09):
the prospect of the Arctic Ocean emerging as a new
theater of military rivalry or what did you call it?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Met naughty boats?
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yes, of naughty boat tag. There we go. That's that's
the way to explain for it, of naughty boat tag.
This prospect is being taken very very seriously, not by
just the US, but by NATO, by Moscow, of course,
(24:41):
and they're trying to figure out how they are going
to sort this out without entering into what's called a
hot war.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, where stuff is actually fired.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Right, well, so where stuff is actually fired from from
from one puppet master to the other puppet master. Yeah,
so like a proxy war is occurring in Syria.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
That's where the hands go out and manipulate the other things.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right, and they fire at each other, exactly, Proxy wars
in Afghanistan, proxy wars like in Southeast Asia. These things happen,
but this presents a situation where it could possibly be
a genuine military conflict the likes of which we haven't
(25:31):
seen since World War Two.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
And just if you wanted to have an example of
how important naval bases are to the Russian Federation Russian
Federation of States, is how to say it to Russia.
You just you can look to several years ago in
Ukraine and Crimea and the handling of some of the
shipping and naval bases that were so important in that
(25:55):
region to the country, and the actions that were taken
to make sure those were secured. Just if you if
you want to take those as examples, you can understand
how important this stuff is, especially if then you multiply
it by the scale that it would be in the Arctic.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Absolutely, absolutely, that's the next all example in Crimea itself
has It was sad to see that drop out of
the news cycle because the story of Crimea it self
is fascinating, and it doesn't it doesn't start, you know,
just a few years ago when Russia invaded or excuse me, when.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
When patriots in Crimea, guys with.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Balaklava's right, Yeah, Anyway, there are people some of us
listening are saying, all right, guys, that's a little alarmist.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
You're going cold war on us.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
You're going cold war, You're going hot war on us,
You're going World War three on us, because that's what
you're essentially implied. Right. The problem is that now we
are not talking about two nations fighting over a border,
and we have not been talking about that sort of
thing in world politics and world militaries for decades. Everybody
(27:09):
is crewed up now. Every country is in some sort
of gang to one degree or another. And a war
with a European country who's a member of NATO means
that you're beefing with all of NATO. Yeah, And if
you are starting to fight with Russia, you're starting to
fight with all of Russia's buddies as well. And now
(27:32):
that this previously inaccessible part of the world may be
up for grabs, everybody wants a peace. We talked about
the Arctic Council, those five eight nations.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
So that's Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the US.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
But again, when we say everybody wants a peace, we
mean picture that Gary Oldman, give everyone everything, right. China, Japan,
and South Korea all also want to be involved in
Arctic affairs, and China is the PRC People's Republic of
China is the biggest player in this game, or at
(28:14):
least the most visible about it. China recently declared itself
to be a quote near Arctic state, which is weird. Yeah,
which is weird because if you look at this scale
of just you know, I'll be I'll be a jerk
about it. If you look at the scale of the
Solar system, every state is a near arctic state. Okay,
(28:37):
it's like what what is what is not a near
Arctic state? Is is Uganda or the Bahamas or those
not near Arctic states? Sure? Sure, arguably right, But that's
that's a very relative term, you know what I mean?
You could you could be you could be like a
little north or south of the equator and then call
(28:59):
yourself an near Antarctic State because you're closer slightly to Antarctica.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I don't know, I just I think it's I think
it's slippery semantics. But they say they're in New Arctic State,
and in January twenty eighteen, they unveiled their plans for
a polar silk route, announcing that the country of China
is an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs. I would agree
with that because of just the sheer volume of stuff
(29:26):
shipping to and from that country.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yes, and that's exactly what they're interested in. They want
to be able to ship everything through there and save
that thirty percent or however much they would end up
saving shipping things. And since twenty thirteen they've been they've
had observer status in the Arctic Council because they've kind
of seen this on the horizon on the both climate
(29:50):
horizon as well as the geopolitical horizon. So it's just
something to keep your eye on for sure.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Right And they've been building influence in this area for
as you said, Matt, for some time. But the issue
here goes into the question of how closely trade and
military action may or may not be related, and.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
When we talked about deals like, it's not just those
countries with the Northeast and the Northwest passage, it's people
making deals with those countries. And to this effect, Beijing
was talking specifically with Canada and Russia to work out
some kind of free trade agreement with both of these
countries with some of the Scandinavian nations that are up
(30:38):
there to you know, for China essentially to infuse money
into some of the bigger projects that are happening in
those areas. Specifically, there's one called the Yamal Lng project
that which has to do with natural gas and oil
capturing through Russia. And there are other projects in the
(30:58):
US in Alaska that are doing you know, pretty much
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
As well as Canada.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
And it's just it's China, like you said, Ben, trying
to have it seat at the table, to get in
on the ground floor with these projects as investors, to
then have a stake in other parts of it.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Right, right, if the legal framework of geopolitics won't work,
then surely the financial framework of who owes who money
will will deliver. Right there you go, And let's real
quick on the timeline here. According to NASA Global Climate
models predict the Arctic will be ice free during the
(31:39):
summer months by the middle of this century. Wo so
by twenty fifty And that's very much a ballpark that
could be that that could mean anywhere from twenty forty
to twenty fifty five, you know.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
So it's so weird with timescales because it feels so
long term, and yet that is fully short term to
twenty fifty.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yes, that is not long at all.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Hey man, you'll probably you'll probably be here.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
Maybe you should schedu go ahead and book your tickets
now my cruise, your artic cruise. You can take it
on a Chinese icebreaker. Perhaps the snow Dragon two and
the snow Dragon one have already been created and there's
an expedition scheduled for the first half of twenty nineteen.
(32:29):
This is also happening in This is happening in a
zero sum environment. To be absolutely clear, what that means
is that there there's a finite amount of power, there's
a finite amount of territory, and there's a finite amount
of resource to be extracted.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
So why there are a lot of resources that we'll
get into.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Right the annual the economy of this region could exceed
four hundred and fifty billion dollars US. We're bringing up
just that point because the government of China has been
quick to capitalize on what they see as lack of
expertise and interest from the US from Uncle Sam from Washington,
(33:15):
d C. And that's not related to in let's not
related to any particular administration. These big boy rules. We're
talking about the way other countries look at each other.
But real politics tells us other countries only care about
what's happening domestically in a different country if it will
(33:37):
help their bottom line or give them an opportunity to
require more power and influence on the global stage.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Can I use this right?
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Can I use this otherwise? Why are you telling me
we have problems of our own? Says every country? So resources,
that's why. That's That's ultimately what it comes down to.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Almost every time I'm on the show, Yeah, almost every time,
not every time.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Almost every time in history.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
It might be dressed up as values or interest or
national security, national security or someone's religion makes you know,
gets us in a stink or whatever, But really, ultimately
that's that's all window dressing. It's all a nice sided
ketchup to the actual fries, which are resources. So yes,
(34:30):
they're tremendous shipping and military force projection advantages to controlling
the Arctic. But why are those important? Because it boils
down to what can you get from there and what
can you move across there? That's it.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So resources, But why are they so important? Let's get
into that right after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
So here's the thing. You nailed it in one word,
that resources. Every every conflict is about resources. Right, We've
said this before. We don't just mean it in post
World War two. We don't just mean it in terms
of Russia grabbing crimea or something. We mean throughout human history,
(35:23):
throughout the span of our civilization, virtually every large scale
conflict has been about resources. Now it'll be dressed up,
you know, there will be some window dressing, especially in democracies. Right,
it will be like, oh, it's our values, right, yeah,
Or what's another one.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
It presents a national security risk there we go.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Or you know, if you go a little further back,
these people's religion is bad to us.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Yeah, that lumber that's all over there, that has nothing
to do with it.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
That control of the bay has nothing to do with it.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
The ability to send things down this river because you know,
don't worry about that.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Catholicism bad, And of course religious and racial discrimination is
a real thing. It's also an avenue to justify taking
stuff from people.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
It's a lever you can pull.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
It's yeah, it's very much. War is very much a
stuff oriented thing.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
Are we too cynical or is this? I mean, this
feels so real to me and I've seen it happen
so many times throughout history. I'm not being too cynical
in these thoughts, am I?
Speaker 3 (36:35):
Because I really do feel like this is just the truth.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
I am the worst person to ask because I completely
agree with you, Matt. I mean there are okay, so yes,
it's true, there are tremendous shipping and military force projection
advantages to having control over all or some of the Arctic,
especially those shipping routes. But why are they important? Why
it's not bragging rights. It ultimately boils down to resource extraction.
(37:02):
What can we get from there? What can we move
across there? In two thousand and eight, the US Geological
Service estimated that the Arctic alone contains more than one
six hundred and sixty nine trillion cubic feet of natural
gas reserves.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
O m GIA. So this amount is massive.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
It's about thirty percent of all of the world's remaining
supply of natural gas that has not been in some
way found developed or begun to be extracted. This is
that number is almost four times the entire United States
reserves that exists right now.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And that this number also does not include what are
called methane hydrates on the seabed, which can also be
converted to a very valuable resource. The addition of this stuff,
if it ever becomes cost effective to extract it, which
is a big deal, which is a huge deal, could
boost potential reserves exponentially. In addition, there are probably around
(38:07):
forty four billion barrels of natural gas liquids and ninety
billion barrels of oil. That's about thirteen percent of the
undeveloped oil reserves on the planet. In one place, the
Geological Service estimates that eighty four percent of the Arctic's
hydrocarbons are offshore. Sixty percent of the Arctic oil is
(38:31):
in Russian territory, and not just in the territory that
the Russian government thinks belongs to it, which is different,
but in the territory that everybody sort of agrees belongs
to it. So according to their surveys, the Russian surveys,
ninety percent more than ninety percent of the hydrocarbon reserves
are located in the Arctic zone of the Siberian Continental Shelf,
(38:55):
And without going into the weeds too much, this is
a commercial powder keg. This could guarantee Russia's seat at
the table. One of the criticisms that you'll hear about
Russia pretty often is that Russia is pretending to be
a world power or a superpower. It's got a lot
(39:17):
of domestic problems, as we all do. Again, you know,
most other world leaders care about that to the point
that it might present an opportunity for them, but otherwise
it's like, not my job, not my problem. And so
the criticism that you'll hear about Russia is that they
have two things that give them a seat at the table,
(39:41):
a nuclear arsenal and gas reserves. Okay, hydrocarbon reserves. So
if they were able to exponentially increase the amount of
stuff that they control in a hydrocarbon economy, then they
also they also increase their prominence and importance and influence
(40:02):
in world affairs. You know, there were times a few
years back, not so long ago, in recent history, while
we were alive, when Russia could literally just turn off
the gas supply to a large swath of Europe just
if they wanted to, just you know, I like fun, Like,
what else are you doing on a Friday? That's power,
(40:24):
That is power is power. It's not clear, however, yet,
whether these reserves are whether it makes sense to get
them right now?
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Oh yes, of now, well, yeah, that's the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (40:35):
It's building the infrastructure and the having the technology to
be able to extract that stuff from the depths where
it exists in those cold temperatures and all the all
the other factors. Even if it begins melting, it's still
a tremendous It would be a tremendous achievement to be
able to get that, and it would cost so much money,
(40:56):
which is one of the biggest problems here. There's this
thing called the International Energy Agency.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Or the IEA.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
We love to read those, and they believe that in
order to make this economically feasible to do to extract this,
you know, the oil and natural gas here, the average
price essentially of oil would have to be around one
hundred and twenty dollars per barrel for the development for
this to even work, to make to have it make sense,
(41:25):
you can make money back, so you're not just throwing
money into the Arctic in order to make some back.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Right, and for perspective, right now, as we're recording it,
crude oil probably averaged around sixty five bucks a barrel
or so, yeah, February of this year, so oil would
almost have to double.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
You got to make some calls to the opequ big
heads and talk to them.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
I think, yeah, they're also cutting production right, Yeah, and
rush is part of the conversation. Oh man, different show.
So there's all so the cost of creating all the
infrastructure you need to get this stuff out right, This
is no longer Beverly Hillbilly's land. Kudos to anyone I
got that reference. They will have to build around one
(42:14):
trillion US dollars worth or sixty nine trillion rubles worth
of stuff to extract this oil, to process it, to
make it something that they can sell, and they don't
have this country, Russia does not have the technology so
far as we know, to exploit those deep water deposits.
(42:35):
Yet additionally, a lot of the stuff they do have
to extract energy from this part of the world was
not designed to cope with this part of the world melting.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, it's designed to be in the frozen areas. You
can see some that thing that we mentioned a little earlier,
the Jamal LNG project. You can actually see images of
what some of the some of it looks like. And
it is just built on essentially ice. I mean, it
is just built on ice inside ice. And if that
(43:09):
were all to melt, it would it would quickly change
how that how that whole system functions, how that facility functions.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
It could create a large issue.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Yeah, absolutely, because there's gonna be a liminal space. There's
gonna be a transition period. Earth does not work on
light switches, you know what I mean. What's gonna happen
is that stuff will stuff will begin to melt, and eventually,
when it melts to a to a high enough degree,
(43:41):
there will be avenues to access this hidden oil, these
hidden hydrocarbons. But before it reaches that point, it's it'll
just be muddy and things will be not quite accessible.
But all the stuff we built before will not work. Yeah,
so there's going to be this worse before it gets
(44:02):
better scenario, and that's when that's when the series of
battles will start. These will be happening concurrently. The battles
already started in the courtroom. That's where a lot of
international battles start. Primary disagreements here, as you already point out,
met concern what we think of as international waters and
what we think of as sovereign waters or territory controlled
(44:23):
by a single nation or an uncalling now eventually a
single corporation. So conflicting claims the Arctic date back to
at least nineteen twenty five, when Canada said that, all right,
we're going to say our maritime border extends to cover
everything from sixty degrees west to one hundred and forty
(44:44):
one degrees west and then northward all the way to
the North Pole and the North Pole. Remember this nineteen
twenty five, So the North Pole had just been reached
in nineteen oh nine and Canada was like, let's get
on it. So they also claim these very channels and
straits that constitute what we call the Northwest Passage are
part of its internal waters, not international. You want to
(45:07):
travel on this road you have to play with us.
The US and other countries have argued that this is
complete malarchy. Yeah, there's an international waterway. You have to
let us go free and unencumbered, which means we can
come and go as we please. This is one example.
There are a ton of other examples. Russias and a
(45:28):
lot of them because they control a lot of the coastline.
Now the battle has been moving forward symbolically. In two
thousand and five the Russian Arctica Expedition, which was the
first manned descent to the seafloor beneath the North Pole.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
And this is baller, by the way.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
If they planted a Russian flag made of titanium on
the Arctic floor at the geographical.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
Pole, Wow, that's what's up.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I thought it was Yeah, I thought it was a
power move. The US and Canada Denmark thought so too,
but they didn't think it was cool. No, and the
Kremlins they said, what are you doing. You can't just
say this belongs to you. And the Kremlin said it
was not asserting sovereignity. And this is where we found
this excellent caddy quote from Russian Foreign Minister Sergi Lavarov.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
We're not throwing flags around. We just do what other
discoverers did. The purpose of the expedition is not to
skates whatever rights of Russia, but to prove that our
shelf extends to the North Pole. By the way, on
the Moon, it was the same. Remember when you planted
(46:39):
that America flag on the Moon.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
It's just because we got here first.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
Come on, like, we sent a submersible down and we
put a giant, awesome titanium flag down there.
Speaker 1 (46:51):
It's strange, but these symbols are important.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
They are, they really are.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
And that's why in Antarctica you can still get a
passport stamp from Great Britain or something, or you or
these countries will operate post offices. So what happens when
the weather warms, It brings hotter wars. Historically, the Arctic
Ocean has not been a significant military theater for the US,
which means it's not a place where we put our
(47:17):
weapons of destruction and our weapons of war. At the
height of the Cold War, US and Soviet ballistic missile
submarines hid below the polar ice caps. And you know
played this game of cat and mouse, right.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
You know the it's the you can at least harken
back to images of Hunter for at October.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
Right, right, And it's a good call. And both sides
did have early warning networks, and they had armies defending them.
But these early warning networks had while they had anti
submarine equipment and armament, the main thing they were looking
out for was a way to know as soon as
(47:59):
possible if a missile had been launched. Because the biggest
significance of the Arctic for both sides of the Cold
War was this. It is it was the shortest shipping
route for boats, right, if you could get rid of
the ice bi de Yeah, but it's the shortest flight
path for an ICBM or intercontinental ballistic missile and other
(48:20):
nuclear missiles. So if if a missile is fired from
Russia to the US, that's how it's gonna get that's
the shortest way for it to get there.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Or from Alaska or the Russian Federation.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Or from Alaska to the Russians, yeah, or.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
From any submarine that's hanging out in the Arctic ocean.
Speaker 3 (48:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
So in recent years, the increase in temperature across the
Arctic has diminished that polar ice cap. As you said,
bet the northeast passage right now in Russia's Arctic seas
can can be used for two or three months of
the year and even longer if you have an icebreaker
(48:59):
like China does, like Russia does. Canada's Northwest Passage is
not near as pash it's shallow, it's prone to getting
clogged by ice, but it too has seen some more
commercial traffic because there's less and less ice around. And
now the Arctic Ocean, because of this warming, is emerging
(49:19):
as the next place where people, well I say people,
where the Russian government and the US government are going
to butt heads. It is preposterous that this is not
a bigger deal right now. Because Russia controls the board.
That's what makes it different. Russia is way more qualified
(49:41):
and way more competent for any kind of when in
regards to any kind of conflict here in this area
of the world.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
Well yeah, if you look at the you just think
about the naval fleets of the US, and then you
think about the land area of Alaska, which is the
only the US controlled territory up there. If you just
look at a picture of the Arctic Circle and think
about that alone, then think about just the history of
operating up there.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
And then all of the naval.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
You know, a lot of the Pacific fleets, the you know,
the different fleets of the US has. It's just a
whole different game. And Russia has been doing it for
a while.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yes, yeah, that's a good way to put it. According
to Andrew Holland, who is CEO of the American Security Project,
the Arctic is the only theater of operations where the
US Navy is outclassed by a peer competitor. Russian surface
warships have demonstrated the ability to carry out complex combined
operations in the High North, while the American Navy maintains
(50:43):
a policy that only submarines operate above the Barren Strait.
Speaker 2 (50:47):
There you go, complex combined operations.
Speaker 1 (50:52):
Oh Holland, and you listening, no offense? I just like
that voice. So yeah. Since two thousand and eight, Russia's
Arctic development has, at least according to the Pentagon assertive
force posture, with constant military drilling and quote provocative air maneuvering.
So Russia has four different fleets Baltic, Pacific, Black Sea,
(51:15):
and Arctic. The Arctic Fleet or Northern Fleet, has eighty ships.
Thirty five of those are submarines and others are surface
ships led by a battle cruiser. But over the last
decade it's been increasingly expanded, it's been improved. Starting in
twenty twelve, it's regularly patrolled a two thousand mile stretch
(51:37):
of the Northern Sea. And more importantly, Russia operates a
fleet of forty ice breakers. That's forty forty more ice
breakers than the rest of the world icebreaker fleet combined.
Speaker 2 (51:50):
Sounds familiar to the US when you just think about
defense spending in that kind of thing, and yeah, exactly,
But then well, we do have icebreakers.
Speaker 1 (52:02):
We have three. Uncle Sam has three ice breakers, and
they need a lot of help in like the ice
breakers themselves. So if a war breaks out, if a
physical or hot war does break out over disputes in
the Arctic, it will almost certainly become a global conflict.
NATO will be involved, The dominoes will start to fall,
(52:24):
as the US alone would be outclassed, right, and then
we would see other countries who are aware of this,
hungry for the opportunity, would also insert themselves in some way,
because chaos is a chaos is fertile soil for opportunity,
(52:44):
you know what I mean. Military planners envision rivalry and
perhaps conflict between NATO powers, the US and Russia. But
eventually they say China will get in the game because
that country is very very set in to resource acquisition
and can detect minerals from miles and decades away.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Yeah, they know where it is, they know it exists,
and they're going to find a way to be a
part of it.
Speaker 1 (53:14):
Right, that's the idea, right, And the same sort of
stuff is happening in Antarctica. If current economic projections hold true,
there are going to be some very dangerous times ahead,
especially for the average person. Right. There are going to
be global busts of economies, bubbles will pop, and if
(53:35):
that happens, that's going to make different different countries increasingly
desperate to obtain control and sovereignity over these things. And
that means the economic disaster could accelerate this timeline. Climate
change is already accelerating, sure, changing temperatures whatever you want
to call them, are already accelerating it. But the economic
(53:57):
stuff could be even more powerful on this timeline because
what was that number, one hundred and twenty dollars a barrel?
Is that when it becomes something like that, Okay, so
what if it just spikes and one day, one day
it's one hundred and ninety barrel.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
Then everybody's gonna be trying to get it and.
Speaker 1 (54:17):
The drilling starts tomorrow. Yeah, that's what happens.
Speaker 3 (54:20):
You know. Wow. Okay, so that's where we are right
now with this. You know, one thing I.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Was wondering about as we were researching this was Denmark
and Greenland because if you look at a map and
you see how large Greenland is and how much ice
covers that piece of land, and there are resources there,
a lot of resources. If that also melts, it makes
me wonder if someone eventually one of these superpowers eventually
(54:47):
invades Denmark's control at least over Greenland something like that,
because you know, and we only barely touched Antarctica in
this episode, because we've talked about so many times before,
but as Ben said right at the end, there, it's
the same thing. That's a huge continent, and if some
of that ice is melting, no matter how high the
(55:08):
water is rising, we're going to be trying to get
over there and discover things and find more resources because
they're there.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
We be not just Uncle Sam or not just humans. Yeah,
we also being you and me, Oh yeah, Oh.
Speaker 2 (55:24):
We're going to be down there trying to get as
much titanium to make more flags as we possibly can.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
Whether you are a president, a peasant, a prime minister,
or a pioneer, one thing is for sure. Everyone is
waiting for the day that the ice melts and doesn't
come back in winter, which is a scary thing. The
they and the stuff they don't want you to know
for today's episode is multi dimensional. I mean, there are
(55:54):
companies that don't want you to know the ongoing negotiations
they're having with their own governments. There are military contractors
who don't want you to know the kind of stuff
they're building. And there are of course governments who don't
want you to know what they're planning, especially if you
work for another government. Yeah, it always reminds me of
(56:15):
that story or that old proverb. You know, when elephants
make war, only the grass suffers. The majority of humanity.
Is the grass here just getting trampled, just getting trampled
quite possibly, or who knows, maybe maybe our species will
say what's the best way to what's the best way
(56:36):
to normalize this and create a situation where there's not
a global catastrophe and that's that's quite possible. I mean,
no one really wants a third World war, to want
managed conflicts and ways to assertively negotiate their way to
the biggest slice of the pie, whatever the pies ingredients are.
(56:58):
And sometimes you fight to see what happens.
Speaker 2 (57:01):
And increasingly hydrocarbons in that pie are not as lucrative
or interesting.
Speaker 1 (57:07):
Yeah at present, you know, in the moment, Yeah, in
the moment. And that goes into whether or not technology
is being suppressed, and that goes into whether or not
we're getting real numbers about the petrol industry in general.
But those are stories for another day. If we wanted
to end on a less dystopian scary note, we can't
(57:30):
tell you that you can travel as a private citizen
to Antarctica. From an environmental perspective, it's a fascinating place
to visit, or so we hear. You do get price
breaks if you travel in a group. Would highly recommend
that because it's quite expensive and it's something you would
have to save up for, but.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
Hey, it's a that's a cool goal if you can achieve.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
It once in a lifetime experience. Yeah, if you don't
feel like saving up the money, but you feel like
spending a lot of time there. It is remarkably I
don't want to say it's too easy, but it's remarkably
less difficult than I thought. To get hired as a
you know, like a cook or a support staff in
a research station.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
Do it and then write to us like every day,
make make a diary.
Speaker 1 (58:17):
Tell us who you think the hidden alien is?
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Oh, or do you want to start a podcast? Go
on that journey and then we'll just start a new
podcast with you.
Speaker 1 (58:26):
Speaking people going on that journey. One last thing forty
close today's episode, Flat earthers are launching a trip to Antarctica. Matt,
Did you see that.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
Yes, they are going to figure out once and for
all whether or not this Earth is flat, and whether
or not you can reach the end of the Earth.
And they're going to go down there to find you know,
essentially the Game of Thrones wall basically, but if on
the other side of the wall there was nothing just
space essentially, right, It's the ice wall supposed to to
(59:00):
be several thousand feet thick, and it goes one hundred
and sixty four feet high perhaps, and it's this thing
that rings the entire planet and there's a group of
people who are going to be there soon. They're taking
off soon, allegedly, right.
Speaker 1 (59:14):
The supposed ice wall is a couple thousand feet thick,
one hundred and sixty four feet high and surrounds the planet.
This is planned for next year, for twenty twenty. It's
organized by the Flat Earth International Conference or fei C.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
And just so you know, according to this article from
the Sun, which is oh excuse me, yes, he's an
original article posted by the Sun that was in the
New York Post. YouTube star logan Paul, the guy that
everybody just loves. He says he wants to find the
facts and also join them.
Speaker 1 (59:50):
So yeha yehaw.
Speaker 2 (59:52):
Indeed, maybe our boy is going to be there. Who's
our boy, the rapper that we talked about.
Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
What's his name? Bob?
Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
Yeah, yeah, maybe he'll be there as well. Yes, uh,
And maybe you will be there if you're listening. If so,
we'd love to hear about your adventures. We hope that
you enjoyed this episode, and if you live in the
northern climes, we'd love to hear more about your experiences.
Do you feel like this is alarmist? How How quick
(01:00:22):
do you feel the ice is or is not melting?
And how do you see things changing in a world
without northern ice? Let us know you, and that's our
classic episode for this evening. We can't wait to hear
your thoughts. We try to be easy to find online.
Find us in the handle conspiracy Stuff, where we exist
on Facebook X and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. We're
(01:00:42):
conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Show call our number. It's one eight three three std WYTK.
Speaker 1 (01:00:49):
Leave a voicemail and if you have more to say,
we can't wait to hear from you at our good
old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:00:58):
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Ben Bowlin
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