New and very cold war: Battle for the Arctic

A new cold war could be on the horizon in the Arctic.

A new cold war might be heating up, as the US, Russia and other world powers are making claims for ownership of some Arctic assets.

With global warming looking like less and less of a myth, massive ice melt in the Arctic North is allowing for easy oil and mineral extraction. Some say that this race for resources up north is a “cold rush,” but with some heavy-hitters throwing their hat in the ring for ownership of Arctic land, things stand to get only more serious with time.

Representatives from the US, including Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, recently dropped by the Arctic Council in Nuuk, Greenland, marking the first time high-ranking officials from America have bothered to attend. Only weeks earlier, the US had a small fleet of nuclear-powered submarines patrolling the Arctic, 150 miles off of American land.

And with the US, Russia, Canada and others all concerned over who owns what, some are scared that a new cold war — an actually cold, cold war — could be on the horizon.

Aqqaluk Lynge tells The Guardian that he is “nervous” about the developments happening in the Arctic. Lynge is the former chairman of the indigenous peoples' forum, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and notes that "There is a military build-up and an increase in megaphone diplomacy.”

“We do not want a return to the cold war,” adds Lynge.

In the meantime, the US is just now showing interest in the Arctic, with Russia having already increased missile testing in the area and the nation of Norway recently moved its main military base to the far north as well. Canada and the US have separately been in discussion for years now on an increased naval presence in the Arctic too.

In 2007, Russian explorer Artur Chilingarov placed a flag of his country in Arctic turf, telling reporters that "The Arctic is Russian. We must prove the North Pole is an extension of the Russian landmass." That didn’t sit too well with Canada, however, who took the gesture as provocative.

Paul Berkman of the Arctic Ocean geopolitics program at the Scott Polar Research Institute tells The Guardian that he believes that this increase isn’t anything to shrug off . "You have to ask why are these alarming and alarmist headlines being written and it may be there is unfinished business from the Cold War,” he say.

Fracking forces eviction of entire Pennsylvania trailer park

An entire community in central Pennsylvania is being ordered to find new homes after a fracking operation has forced dozens of low-income earning residents to try to relocate from a local trailer park.

Nearly three-dozen families lived in Jersey Shore, PA’s Riverdale Mobile Home Park earlier this year, but all of that quickly changed. The owners of the 12-acre plot of land sold the property to Aqua America and Penn Virginia Resource Partners, who plan to soon start hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — where some trailers still stand today.

“Now I feel like an absolute refugee,” Eric Daniels, 43, tells PublicSource.org. He has invested more than $12,000 into a mobile home in Riverdale in only three short years, but the recent land transfer has forced him to flee the community. He tells reporters that it would have cost him $7,300 to relocate his home to another community where his monthly rent would be $325 more than what he pays today.

Daniels has canceled his family life insurance and is now behind in other payments, all so that his former front yard could become the site of a controversial drilling procedure that has scientists and activists alike scratching their heads.

In the last few years, countless energy companies have invested in fracking, a process that involves pumping chemicals deep into the Earth to procure natural gas. Researchers have revealed that some of the chemicals used in the process are known cancer-causing agents, though, and others insist that increased hydraulic fracturing has led to a direct increase in seismic activity.

Despite not much being known about the long-term effects of fracking, the practice is becoming more and more commonplace across the country. Also on the rise, of course, are concerns from citizens like Daniels who are being displaced from their homes.

PublicSource reports that residents of Riverdale Mobile Home Park outside of Williamsport, PA only became informed that they’d be losing their homes this past February. They say that they were not asked for insight or opinion into the deal and were left in the dark until the land owners sold the property on February 23 for $550,000. Aqua America then issued eviction notices offering as much as $2,500 in incentives for residents ready to move out quickly, calling that decision “out of concern, out of compassion and out of understanding.”

The Center for Media and Democracy reports, however, that on June 12, residents were told by Aqua America that forced evictions would begin the next day and anyone who refused to leave was subject to arrest. Last month both police and private security forced raided a protest waged by anti-fracking activists, Democracy Now! reports.

With the bulk of Riverdale’s residents working low-wage jobs, relocating at a cost of as much as $10,000 up front wasn’t something many of them could do.Deb Eck, 50, tells the website that it was near impossible to find a way to move her 76-foot long trailer — and her two 10-year-old twin daughters — and that of the few options she could afford, one new park was affordable but also rampant with registered sex offenders.

“The company is taking advantage of economically vulnerable people … This would not have happened in a middle class neighborhood,” Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Professor Wendy Lynee Lee tells the CMD. “This is just the beginning. It was an example of real engagement of the activist community protecting those, and working with those, who are affected. The anti-fracking movement is continually growing stronger.”

Even so, it is also a beginning for the former residents of 32 Riverdale mobile homes who have mostly opted for a small incentive to start anew.