Sixteen years ago, on this day, August 2, 2007, Russia planted a flag on Arctic sea-bed
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/02/russia.arctic
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 383ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Putin wanted to throw his weight around and planting the flag on the Arctic seabed was a good “strongman” gimmick. The Arctic was, as long predicted, warming quickly, and literally changing the map of the world. Resources, wars, land-grabs, the usual stuff…
What I think we can learn from this is that the Westphalian system (created at the end of the 30 years war) is a failure, We have known that the tensions about borders and the “Law of the Sea”/”Law of the atmosphere” have been growing and growing. We’d seen it with acid rain then with ozone than with climate.
What happened next
The Arctic kept melting. People kept exploring for oil. Greenpeace got arrested. And Putin? Putin kept being a quality human being.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.