A worldwide Landgrab!

As rising temperatures melt the polar ice cap, five countries race to map their claims to a new energy frontier. Nearly a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas may lie beneath the seabed around Greenland. The article I read is about some men who go out and discover something that could change the world. But, there also is a lot of opinion towards this particular subject.


In three decades the retreat of sea ice has freed more than a million square miles of ocean for research and commerce. The creation of oil and gas deposits requires the right mix of organic material, heat, rock, pressure, and passage of time. It may be hard to look at the Arctic today and imagine that it ever had enough organic life, enough heat. The floor of the Arctic appears to be rich in petroleum, home to nearly a quarter of the world’s undiscovered supply. Sea ice is melting drastically opening the sea to shipping and the seafloor to mineral exploration. The countries in the fight for triumph are Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the U.S. And all of these are hoping to claim a piece of this discovery, if not all.

My opinion towards this specific article is very broad. I think that it is very cool and useful that this particular part of the Arctic is being studied. And it is even better to know that there might be something at the bottom of the Arctic that could solve the small amount of the world’s problems. But I also believe that first; we need to find a solution to our loss of oil problem. We can’t always rely on what we think might lie ahead. Researchers don’t know for sure that there is a third of the world’s oil lying beneath the waters of Greenland. The keyword in this is may. There may be a massive amount of oil around Greenland’s waters. But it is definitely not definite. I almost feel like we’re trying to rely on the fact that we could possibly not have to worry so much about oil. But it’s not a fact yet. I believe that we should be fixing the problem with oil first, and then start thinking about the future possibilities.

The race for the Arctic may be about oil, but it is about the oil, but it is about the oil that government’s hope is there, not the oil they know is there. So according to our own government, they are aware that they have no real clue if there really is that huge amount of oil at the bottom of the Arctic. They just infer that there might be. Studies may show it, but they have said that as far as their concerned it is not a for sure true fact.

In conclusion, this article is basically about five countries fighting to be able to have a part of this massive discovery, which they aren’t even sure is there. But in my own opinion I think that we all need to settle down and figure out the problems that are necessary, rather than the ones we don’t even really know exist.