Economic Opportunities & Impacts in a Changing Arctic USGS CARA report 30% of world’s remaining undiscovered gas and 11% of the worlds oil deposits The polar bear… The iconic symbol of the Arctic. Or is it? Looks like a polar bear, but it’s a funny looking one. In fact, it’s a hybrid, a cross between a grizzly and a polar bear. More have been found recently. They are called pizzley or grolar bears. Will this become symbolic of impacts in a changing Arctic?…As sea ice diminishes, and as polar bears are forced to come ashore more frequently, they interact with grizzley’s, on land, and the result is this hybrid, shot on Banks Island, Canada by US hunter Jim Martell, in 2006. 2006 mounted remains of a grizzly-polar bear cross. U.S. hunter Jim Martell killed this first known grizzly-polar bear (Banks Island, Canada) and has it on display in his Idaho home. Photograph by: Edmonton Journal/Handout/2006 File, Edmonton Journal/Handout/2006 File Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Bear+shot+High+Arctic+confirmed+grizzly+polar+cross/2978588/story.html#ixzz0mruRXq7H

Trillion Dollar Arctic Issues Ownership, sovereignty Climate change mitigation/adaptation Resources (fish, O&G, minerals) Global trade: trans-Arctic shipping Shared values – culture & conservation

June 14, 2010 Colbert Report

Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the global average. Sea ice shrunk to an area of 3.41 m square kilometers (1.32 m square miles), half of what it was in 1979, and a quarter of the volume of that in 1979. So, smaller, and significantly thinner. September 16, 2012

Two views from USCG Healy at 80°N (156W) 9/6/07 9/12/12 Larry Mayer

Because of the Arctic’s changing physical environment, the global demand for new sources of energy, the increasing reliance on the maritime domain to support the global supply chain, and a renewed international interest in the Arctic as a result, the economic environment of the Arctic is changing I think everyone knows, especially after what has been going on in the Gulf of Mexico since 20 April, that the Coast Guard has a primary role in the protection of the marine environment. Technology already allows for exploration of parts of the Arctic previously inaccessible, and countries are already exploiting the oil & gas resources of the region. Increasing oil exploration, production, and transport in Arctic waters will increase the risk of an oil spill occurring in cold and ice-infested waters despite the best efforts of those involved. When those occur, the Coast Guard provides the Federal oversight and is the primary federal responder for all environmental protection and response issues within Alaska’s maritime domain. Frankly, today the Coast Guard, industry, and others would face a significant challenge in responding adequately to a major environmental disaster in the Arctic. The resources to respond simply are not readily available, the distances are too vast, the mechanical oil spill recovery equipment currently used in warmer waters was not designed to collect more viscous oils or oil-ice mixtures, and little is known about the most effective methods for cleaning up oil in ice-covered waters. ============================================================ Note: The upper, center picture is that of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea (WAGB 11) underway with a Coast Guard Vessel of Opportunity Skimming System (VOSS).

• ICCOPR • R&T plan • NAS study • USARC report

Red Dog Mine. World’s largest zine mine, in NW Alaska. Arctic Fish Mention the Pebble Mine and the salmon story…

Dr. Mike F. Sigler, NMFS, 6/29/09 talk Ice-Diminished Arctic

Nikki Kahn/TWP Nettie Foxglove, 83, one of the 12,000 shareholders in the NANA Regional Corp., at her home in Selawik, Alaska. (Photo by Nikki Kahn/TWP). Wash Post 10/1/10 On the North Slope, Mayor Edward Itta, an Inupiat Eskimo, may hold the key to the future of oil drilling in the Arctic. Parade Magazine, 7/18/10