Everyone is threatening Greenland. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is once again seeking to buy the island from Denmark, and if it does not respond positively, he is threatening to occupy it. He claims this is a matter of national security and economic security. Russia, which controls large parts of the Arctic Circle, is seeking to strengthen its hold on the region by building new military bases and promoting research and development of natural resources. China is also trying to invest in Greenland's infrastructure projects.
Greenland's threats do not end with the superpowers. The climate crisis threatens the large island with accelerated global warming and melting glaciers that are igniting a global race for the abundant and expensive resources hidden beneath the heavy ice sheet. According to estimates, this includes about 13% of all fossil fuel reserves in the world, about 30% of natural gas reserves and a significant amount of metals such as iron, copper, zinc, nickel and cobalt, as well as other rare metals.
However, the melting of the ice carries a threat from frozen ancient bacteria, including pathogens which may cause diseases. Although these bacteria may have long disappeared from the world, the frozen residuals may affect humans without a known cure.
The island of Greenland is the largest island in the world, located in the Arctic Circle, in the North Atlantic Ocean, which is 80% covered in ice. The rising temperatures, at a rate four times higher than the rate of global warming, are melting the formidable glaciers, and changing the ecosystems of the entire island.
These changes are harming the animals there, from fish to bears, and are also creating a hospitable environment for other species, such as red algae that develop in sunlight and turn the snow reddish.
Greenland is part of the territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. When the Americans purchased Alaska in 1867, they also wanted to buy Greenland, due to the island's strategic location at the center of sea routes that pass from America to Europe and Russia, but were refused by the Danish Kingdom. In 1946, after World War II, the Americans again offered to purchase the island, and in the middle of the last century the U.S. signed a treaty with Denmark that allowed it to establish a military foothold there.
In 2019, during Trump's first term in the White House, he again offered to purchase Greenland, and was again rejected. And now, with Trump re-elected, he is signaling that he wants to buy Greenland and if it does not respond positively, he may occupy it.
As one of the world's largest fossil fuel advocates and climate change deniers, Trump is set on acquiring Greenland's natural gas and coal deposits. Using up these natural resources may further accelerate global warming drive the climate crisis to the point of no return with the burning of fossil fuels and releasing methane as a result of using natural gas.
However, Trump, Putin and Jinping are not alone in the race to Greenland, and fuels are not the only resource hidden under the ice there. Various estimates and initial studies indicate that the island's soil contains huge deposits of metals. Several billionaires, including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg, whose businesses have stock in large emissions of greenhouse gases, are investing in the search for rare metals on the coasts of Greenland, which are increasingly exposed as temperatures rise.
Ironically, these metals are expected to be used in batteries for electric vehicles and batteries for storing renewable energy, as part of huge and developing markets in the shadow of the climate crisis.
However, alongside the various minerals, many scientists fear that ancient bacteria is trapped, dormant in the tremendous glaciers. These are huge quantities of different bacteria, which will be released when the glaciers melt and affect biodiversity and ecosystems not only in Greenland, but throughout the world. The bacteria, possibly including pathogens, can then find their way to rivers and lakes, harming animals and humans alike.
Frozen environments are considered natural reservoirs of huge quantities of microorganisms, most of which are dormant, including human pathogens. A massive release of such bacteria can cause epidemic outbreaks. For example, in 2016, an anthrax epidemic broke out on the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia, killing thousands of reindeer and affecting dozens of people, including a child who died, after 70 years without an outbreak. The cause of this outbreak was attributed to the activation of spores as a result of thawing permafrost, which accelerated during that summer's heat wave.
<< Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv >>
Beyond the dangers of climate change and released pathogens, the melting of the Greenland ice sheets has contributed to about 25% of the rise in global sea levels since the early 1990s. Due to the acceleration of the climate crisis, the rate of melting icecaps today is five times higher than it was 30 years ago. This means that if we continue on the same path and the ice in Greenland melts completely, rising sea levels will threaten all the continents in the world and countless cities.
Trump may be a climate denier, but on the flip side, he also understands that the glaciers in Greenland are melting due to global warming, and that soon it will be easier to sail in the region and also to extract many resources from it. In his current election campaign, he has pledged again to repeal regulations to combat climate change and return America's energy sector and industries to their glory days. It seems that now he has another reason to accelerate the climate crisis.