The Arctic Oil Rush (Vanity Fair)
(Pic: Subhankar Banerjee, Vanity Fair) An interesting article has appeared in the May 2008 edition of Vanity Fair by Alex Shoumatoff. He writes about Chilangarov’s hugely popular (in Russia, not the rest of the world) stunt of planting a flag on the seabed of the North Pole,
“I don’t give a damn what all these foreign politicians … are saying about this. If someone doesn’t like this, let them go down themselves and try to put something there. Russia must win. Russia has what it takes to win. The Arctic has always been Russian.” (A. Chilangarov)
But of most interest to the Reindeer Blog is what he writes about reindeer husbandry and the challenges they face in Sakha Yakutia in the face of climate change - which in mainstream Russian scientific circles is not happening, a notion contradicted by Bob Corell (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment author, Heinz Center scientist and EALAT team member also quoted in the article). The mainstream view in Russia is that it is currently getting colder. The author visited several villages in Sakha Yakutia interviewing reindeer herders, horse breeders and wild reindeer hunters.
Read the full article here. / Download pdf here
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Posted: April 23rd, 2008 under Sakha, arctic, oil and gas.
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