cold rush

Last week I mentioned the new issue of Harper's features "Cold Rush: The Coming Fight for the Melting North," by McKenzie Funk. I read it yesterday, and although I had some problems with it, I think it's important. I recommend picking up a copy or finding a friend's to share.

Funk accompanied the Canadian military's "sovereignty operation" in the high arctic. He gives an overview of the potential battle to control the marine passage - and the resources - newly freed up by global climate change. This necessitates an overview of the fears of deep integration, North American Union, or the plain old takeover of Canada by the United States.

Funk, to his credit and in keeping with the high quality of the magazine, avoids the shrill, largely misinformed movement that sees deep integration looming in every mundane trade agreement, and he skips the (supposed) hidden agenda of the (supposed) sympatico between Bush and Harper. Because folks, if the US will one day take over Canada in order to control its resources, Stephen Harper won't have much to do with it.

Funk spends time with Michael Byers, author and oft-quoted expert on Canadian sovereignty issues. Byers, who is neither alarmist nor ostrich, has a lot of important things to say, but Funk focuses more on a PowerPoint presentation given by one of Byers' students, interesting as an illustration of a certain Canadian point of view, but not deserving of equal attention as fact.

Having read Collapse, in which Jared Diamond directly links mass starvation and genocide with environmental destruction (think Rwanda, Somalia), I saw a larger picture in Funk's article than I once would have. (If you still haven't read Collapse, do!) As nonrenewable resources grow ever scarcer, and fewer people control a greater share of those resources, we'll see more of those human cataclysms, as people are driven to increasingly desperate measures.

It's easy to imagine - but too awful to focus on for very long - what other nations may do to get their hands on Arctic oil and water. But that may not only be the US. Despite its bravado, the US's military resources are not unlimited, and are stretched tissue-paper thin; the country is a waning power. The nightmare scenario, if it occurs, may come from the US, or from China, or from Russia, or from North Korea, or from some alliance we haven't yet seen.

I recognize the dangers, and I'm selfish enough to hope I never see them in my lifetime. But I think those dangers are a much larger picture than the spectre of an international highway or the "Amero".

Funk's article is marred by the snide tone he takes towards Canada. He ridicules the arctic military mission accompanies, seeing it as useless. On that point, I must agree. If Russia or the US decides to assert themselves militarily into the arctic, Canada surely would be swept aside - or, I hope, would step aside. But the first part of Funk's story is overlaid with a kind of snarky contempt for Canada. It's unnecessary, and it detracts.

If you can get past that, it's worth reading.