survey<\/a>, however, showed that 75% of greenlanders would support the extraction of the sand deposited by the glaciers. crucially, the majority of those surveyed prefer that this extraction is done so that greenlandic people are able to receive the profits, thus leading to greater financial independence from denmark. <\/p>\n\n\n\neven though greenland\u2019s melting ice is clearly dire, many are seeing an opportunity to leverage this situation to promote initiatives that could ironically mitigate our global climate impact. however, ice core scientist seierstad takes a broader perspective. she notes that these proposed initiatives like mining, sand extraction, and re-routing of trade routes are \u201cnot solutions to the climate crisis.\u201d rather, she puts the emphasis on the big picture: \u201cwe need to find a way to reduce our carbon emissions drastically by moving away from fossil fuels, and we will need to carbon capture as well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
while caught up in the growing excitement around resource extraction, we can\u2019t lose sight of the larger picture that greenland\u2019s melting ice is an anthropogenic tragedy, or one that has been caused by humans. seierstad also said that, \u201cclimate change is happening extremely fast in the arctic – so fast in fact that greenlanders can see it almost from year to year.\u201d seierstad is also witnessing how glaciers are shrinking and how sea ice is thinning or disappearing since her first visit to greenland in 2001.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
this ice melt is affecting the livelihoods of many, if not all, of those that live in the arctic. should we choose to extract, we should bring all stakeholders to the table and run environmental impact assessments to know exactly how any new initiative would affect the area. and for greenland\u2019s sake in particular, let\u2019s not take our focus away from the broader, global solutions that will make the largest impact. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
as the vast greenland ice sheet melts, mining for heavy metals, withdrawals of sediment, and the use of northern trade routes may expand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5034],"tags":[144,2330,2331,2896,81,37],"storyfest_categories":[],"class_list":["post-27204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-storyfest-2023","tag-climate-change","tag-greenland","tag-ice","tag-melt","tag-sustainability","tag-water"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
melting ice creates greenland resource extraction dilemma - planet forward<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n