Global warming will create new Arctic power centers
Global warming will make cities in northern countries like Canada and Scandinavia the next big global economic powers, a senior academic has predicted. Towns in these areas will become ‘migration magnets’ as previously frozen assets become usable.
Professor Laurence Smith, a UCLA professor of geography and of earth and space sciences, claims that sparsely populated parts of world like the northern US, Greenland and Russia will become ‘migration magnets’ as people flock to the new centers of global power, UCLA’s web site reads.
UCLA’s Professor Laurence Smith is known for his work on the effects of climate change
Climate change will change the northern areas in many ways, Smith says – new shipping lanes will open, allowing trade ships to pass directly from the Atlantic to the Far East, new reserves of oil and gas will be discovered, and the northern areas will be one of the few places in the world where crop production will increase. These countries will control vast reserves of fresh water which will be sold to other regions.
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- In many ways, the New North is well positioned for the coming century even as its unique ecosystem is threatened by the linked forces of hydrocarbon development and amplified climate change, writes Professor Smith in a new book about the effects of climate change - “The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization’s Northern Future”.
Among the cities that Smith believes will massively increase their influence over the next 40 years are Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Ottawa in Canada and the U.S., Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki in Scandinavia and St. Petersburg and Moscow in Russia.
He also names 10 ‘ports of the future’ that will benefit from increased Arctic traffic - these include Iceland’s Reykjavik, Tromso in Norway, Murmansk in Russia and Nuuk in Greenland.
The Californian scientist is amazed how “globalised, livable and peaceful” cities in the northern areas of the world are, and believes that many northern places that are now marginal or not really thought much about will emerge as very nice places to be.
Read also: Welcome to the new Arctic
