i About Press releases

As part of our continuing efforts to bring you as much information about our region as possible we offer readers a press release service that allows private firms, public agencies, non-governmental organisations and other groups to submit relevant press releases on our website.

All press releases in this section are published in their full length and have not been edited.

If you have a press release or other announcement you would like to have published, please send it to arcticjournal-editor@arcticjournal.com .

We reserve the right to reject press releases we deem irrelevant or inappropriate.

All material submitted to The Arctic Journal, including pictures and videos, will be assumed to be available for publication by The Arctic Journal and its related entities.

Whether it is shipping . mining or even agriculture . global warming has the potential to bring with it enormous economic benefits to the North.

But a changed climate is not without its impacts. As Aqqaluk Lynge . the former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, said earlier this year to The Guardian . a British newspaper, becoming rich comes at a price.

It is that message that Aleqa Hammond, the premier of Greenland, will deliver to the UN climate change summit this week as she explains, from a national leader’s perspective, the dilemma of global warming in the Arctic.

Some of the changes facing the region could be for the economic better, such as the arrival of mackerel (and even tuna) off Greenland’s coasts. Others for the worse, such as with the unexplained death of reindeer in parts of Canada.

In other cases, such as with the polar bear . the jury is still out. Thinner ice will affect its habitat and hunting patterns, but the historical and genetic record may show that the species may be more adaptable than once thought.

Culturally, global warming is not without its impacts either. In Greenland, for example, dog-sledging is severely impacted by the reduction in the number of days that coastal waters are frozen. Even the iconic Iditarod dog-sledge race was affected this year . The impact on the region and its people has even become a subject for playwrights to reflect on .

And while glaciers retract and annual Arctic Ocean ice extents and thicknesses continue to decline, global warming, say scientists, is also having a geological impact: Greenland is reportedly rising 3cm a year due to the decreased weight of the ice cap. In other places, it is melting permafrost that is causing the ground to heave, bringing with it a host of other problems, from the release of methane . a greenhouse gas 30 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, to degraded archaeological sites and even the re-awakening of pre-historic microbes.

While the scientific data appear to be incontrovertible, the question – beyond whether warmer temperatures are, on balance, a benefit or a threat – is whether global warming is caused by humans or whether it is a natural or even cosmic phenomenon.

Critics of the theory that humans have had a hand in the warming temperatures point to the past. The climate, it is argued, has always fluctuated between warm and cold periods. For example, parts of the region were once covered by trees.

And the first Norse settlers of Greenland disappeared due to the arrival of colder temperatures.

Regardless of their causes, changes in the Arctic climate are a source of unease for some. For others, they are a sign that the North’s star is rising. For many, it is both.

About Editor’s Briefing
Editor’s Briefing is a daily overview of a single current issue or an individual country. The briefing itself provides a summary of the main points about the day’s topic, while the included list of key reads gives readers a place to begin if they would like to learn more. Other internet bits and bobs. including Tweets and videos are occasionally added. As a way to encourage discussion about the topic, the briefing will also seek to include opinionated commentary .

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