What conservatives don’t want you to know is that they believe the ice caps are melting. Russia knows this too and has been building new shipyards along its northern border to take advantage of the year-round shipping that this will provide. This route is called the Northern Sea Route (NSR). What we’ve spent generations achieving by constructing the Panama and Suez Canals, Mother Nature is slowly replicating by opening two competing routes: the Northwest and Northeast Passages.
How does Greenland fit into this picture? It borders both passages, one on each side. As the polar ice continues to retreat, Greenland will become increasingly strategic for the placement of ports and military installations. Whoever controls Greenland holds a significant bargaining chip for access to both the Northeast Passage (NEP) and the Northwest Passage (NWP).
Greenland also has many natural resources, including oil, gas, rare earth minerals, and other valuable metals. However, only a small portion of the island has been explored.
Minerals
- Rare Earth Minerals: Greenland has some of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of rare earth elements outside of China.
- Other Metals: The island contains significant amounts of lithium and cobalt. It also holds deposits of zinc, lead, gold, iron ore, copper, graphite, olivine, cryolite, and marble.
- Uranium: Greenland is known to have radioactive minerals, including uranium.
Oil, Gas, and Other Minerals
- Oil and Gas: Greenland has large reserves of oil and natural gas.
- Other Resources: The island also has boron, helium, and hydrogen.
Oil plays a key role in our current energy consumption, while lithium and other minerals are essential for building electric battery technology. With Greenland’s proximity, these resources will become cheaper to access as the ice melts.
All the talk about annexing Greenland or incorporating Canada as part of the United States may seem silly, but it is actually well thought out. However, conservatives don’t want to openly admit that they believe in climate change and the future of electric vehicles.
This week, Republican Representative Earl L. “Buddy” Carter from Georgia introduced a bill:
This bill petitions Congress to consider annexing or acquiring Greenland and subsequently renaming it “Red White and Blueland.” Not only does that name fail to roll off the tongue, but it also seems likely to disturb the spirits of my Viking ancestors.