Geostrategically located, with profitable natural resources, the Arctic is rapidly becoming a militarized zone of power politics in the new cold war, contested by the US and Europe, Russia and China.
The fight over the proposed Pebble mine in southern Alaska is a harbinger: Global copper demand is expected to grow dramatically.
Apart from water and air, humble sand is the natural resource most consumed by human beings, using 40 billion tons of sand and gravel every year. And the recent worldwide construction boom—all those mushrooming megacities, from Lagos to Beijing—is devouring unprecedented quantities. In some places multinational companies dredge it up with massive machines; in others local people haul it away with shovels and pickup trucks. Everywhere, sand mining wreaks havoc.
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Announcement - New Politics Forum on the Environmental Crisis - New York - Dec. 9
Mammoth companies are trying to collect water that all life needs and charge for it as they would for other natural resources.
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