Word: arctics
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...deeply touched by your recent article on Siberia and the Lena Delta Biosphere Reserve in Yakutia [COVER STORY, Sept. 4]. How I wish the members of the 104th Congress could show as much restraint and responsibility concerning the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge! In contradiction of the intent of the 1980 Alaska Land Conservation Act, budget resolutions are being considered by this Congress that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and natural gas leases. There are better ways to balance the budget. While there is still time to make a difference, I hope we will all strongly encourage...
Market pressures and the demands of the Russian economy may eventually make the route financially viable. That is a moment many environmentalists dread. Tankers are likely to be the chief users of the route, and oil spills could do unimaginable harm to arctic ecosystems. Dorothy Childers of Greenpeace points out that the sea route follows the easiest path through the polar ice, the same path taken by migratory birds and marine mammals. Will development be worth the risk...
...Lena Delta Biosphere Reserve and protect the area. Perhaps in 50 or 100 years there will be a new technology for extraction, and then, if we still need oil and gas, future generations can decide whether to review the reserve's status." This is a perspective that Yakutia's arctic neighbors in Alaska might consider, as oil and gas interests clamor to open the great Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling...
...Kamchatka peninsula's 450,000 people, 320,000 live in two cities. The rest of the peninsula has less than one person per 4 sq. km. But still, people are leaving. The peninsula has lost 40,000 people, nearly 10% of its population, since 1985. In Yakutia, the Arctic city of Cherski, near the mouth of the Kolyma River above the Arctic Circle, has lost nearly half its population in just the past two years. (Recently, though, it has had a reported influx of Russian mafia hit men who use the town as a "riverbed"--slang for a hiding place...
...costs of acquiring that knowledge are great and often individually insurmountable. The only way to solve that quandary is by sharing opportunity, costs and benefits, something neither scientists nor government agencies have been prone to do in the past. That is why the recent interagency agreement that established the Arctic Science Submarine Program is truly unique and valuable. It sponsors a series of annual cruises to the Arctic Ocean under the sea ice for civilian science, exploiting the endurance and flexibility of a nuclear submarine. Each participating agency has something to gain. As budgets shrink, costs rise and the quest...