alienation news

Global warming opens door to North-West Passage

The fabled North-West Passage - the shortest sea link between Europe and east Asia, across the Arctic Ocean - could be open for business this century.
It would cut 11,000 kilometres off the Europe-Asia route through the Panama Canal, and 19,000 kilometres off the route supertankers must take around Cape Horn, according to the US journal Science yesterday.
The thinning Arctic ice could open the way for exploitation of an estimated 130 billion barrels of oil. But the retreat of the ice also poses a threat to polar bears, walruses and the peoples living within the Arctic Circle.