Canada will be Major World Power by 2050

[Aemma]

Global warming to benefit 'Northern Rim Countries,' top US geographer says.

A top US geographer says Canada will emerge as a major world power within 40 years as part of a climate-driven transformation of global tarde, agriculture and geopolitics highlighted by the rise of the "Northern Rim" nations.

UCLA scientist Laurence Smith, whose previosu studies have documented the toll climate change is taking on Arctic ecosystems and communities, examines the full range of effects of global warming--many of them positive for places such as Canada--in his new book The Wordl in 2050: Four Forces Shapring Civilization's Northenr Future, to be released next week.

Along with climate change, Smith identifies population growth, looming resource scarcity and global economic integration as the key forces shaping the planet's immediate future.

"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," states Smith, who describes in a UCLA-issued summary of his book how climate field research in Arctic communities exposed him to both the costs and benefits of a rapidly changing northern environment.

"I kept badgering people for stories about climate change," Smith says.

"They'd sigh and oblige me, but then say, 'There's also this oil plant going up behind me,' or 'All these Filipino immigrants are pouring in.' Within about two months, I realised there is a lot more going on up there besides climate change. Climate change is a critical threat to many people, but it isn't the sole development in their lives."

The book suggests Canada and other "NORCs"--Northern Rim Countries--are poised to become polar tigers similar to how several smaller Asian countries emerged in recent decades as powerhouse Pacific Rim economies.

Arctic oil and gas deposits are seen as key to catapulting Canada into a higher income bracket in the global community. Projected population growth--expected to be proportionally greater in northern latitudes than elsewhere, according to Smith--is also seen as central to the rise of his "New North" world stage.

"As worldwide population increases by 40 per cent over the next 40 years, sparsely populated Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets," states the UCLA summary of Smith's vision. "While wreaking havoc on the environment, global warming will liberate a treasure trove of oil, gas, water and other resources previously locked in the frozen North, enriching residents and attracting newcomers."

Those resources will become available "precisely at a time when natural resources elsewhere are becoming critically depleted, making them all the more valuable."

Smith's book includes a list of northern cities--in Canada, the Northern US., Scandinavia and elsewhere--that will "increase in size and prominence" as climate changes drive the Northern Rim phenomenon over the next four decades: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton, Minneapolis-St Paul, Ottawa, Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Northern countries stand to benefit significantly from the opening of Arctic shipping lanes during summer months, Smith predicts. And residents of nothern communities--many of them populated by indigenous peoples--will gain new economic and social status in the coming decades, the book argues.

"NORCs will be among the few places on earth where crop production will likely increase due to climate change," the UCLA summary states, and "NORCs will become the envy of the world for their reserves of fresh water--which may be sold and transported to other regions."

Source: Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 2010

[Guapo]

Global warming doesn't exist.

[Beorn]

Some predict we are entering into a new ice age, so I can't imagine Canada doing much if that were to occur.

[Lithium]

I hope it will be still white power! ;]

[The Lawspeaker]

Global warming doesn't exist.
Anthropogenic global warming doesn't but I think that natural global warming does. I think I read this article somewhere about Greenland the other day (I think National Geographic) that it could become independent and an industrial power (with it's natural resources at it's disposal) if global warming persisted.

That would be a nice way for Denmark of getting rid of Greenland as now it forms a mayor drain on the Danish economy -permanently as they can already grow some crops like potatoes, cabbages and spruce in the southern areas and with the oil and gas reserves Greenland could become a functioning economy. The centre and the north of the country would remain covered under the ice-sheet though.

[anonymaus]

Anthropogenic global warming doesn't but I think that natural global warming does.

:thumb001:

[Atlas]

America best be prepared to it's invasion from the Great White North people. ;)

[Wölfin]

America's hat no more!

[Wulfhere]

I hope this is true. As a Briton I have great affection for Canada.

[The Lawspeaker]

About Greenland (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/world/europe/28greenland.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1) -2007 article.

[Albion]

I hope this is true. As a Briton I have great affection for Canada.

I agree,


many of them populated by indigenous peoples--will gain new economic and social status in the coming decades, the book argues.

My arse. :rolleyes:


About Greenland -2007 article.

Yeah, notice how whites are spearheading the farming and productivity movements, the people establishing forests and farming in Greenland are all Danes, yet again the other race sits there doing nothing. :rolleyes:

There's a problem though. Whilst global warming would warm the Northern latitudes significantly, it would only be temporary since it might cause the Ice Caps to melt more, releasing cold water into the Gulf Stream and effectively stopping it.
The Gulf Stream passes past New England and close to the maritimes in Canada, for this to stop would not only be disastrous for Europe, but also for Canada. Canada and Europe would probably get a colder climate or even a full blown Ice Age. Technically Northern Europe and Canada are meant to be in the Arctic, the only thing that stops that are the temporary and occasional warm spells in the earth's climate.


NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in a report to be published in November's edition of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate, reports that "The summer ice cover in the Arctic has been declining at a rate of nine per cent a decade and is very close to the record low set last year." It warns that "If the high latitudes continue to warm, and ice cover continues to decline, the whole planet will be affected."

At the same time, Dr Seymour Laxon, from the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling at University College London reported in the 30th. October edition of Nature magazine that "Global warming and climate change has caused a 40% thinning of the Arctic ice fields since the 1960's. Continued decrease in the Arctic's ice cover," says Dr. Laxon, "would also act to increase the effects of global warming in the northern hemisphere by decreasing the amount of sunlight reflected by the ice."

Here in the British Isles, far from being disturbed by the effects of global warming, most have welcomed this predicted climate change as having a beneficial effect on the UK weather, giving us warmer winters and hotter summers, much like the Mediterranean climate.

However, startling new evidence suggests that global warming could have a very different affect on the UK's climate. As Dr. Laxon says, "Arctic ice plays a role in the operation of the Gulf Stream, and this could be disrupted by continued thinning of the ice. It could shut down the Gulf Stream, and if that happens, the United Kingdom would be plunged into an Arctic winter within a few years."

Currently Britain enjoys remarkably mild weather for a land mass so far north. Other areas parallel to Britain, such as parts of Siberia, Alaska and Canada, are inhospitable, sparsely populated and devoid of agriculture. In Churchill, Manitoba, on the same latitude as Inverness, the winter is long, the snow is deep, the sea freezes far and wide as the thermometer falls to minus 50C. There are only two months a year without snow. When the polar bears emerge from hibernation, they gnaw the dustbins in Churchill in search of scraps.

The factor that keeps Britain's climate temperate is the Gulf Stream, an ocean current that brings five trillion tons of warm water from the tropics to Europe every day. This warms the air, and keeps our winters mild.

However, this may not last. For over 30 years, climate researchers working for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been analysing samples from Greenland,s polar ice caps. These tell a story of wildly fluctuating weather, with sudden and drastic changes in climate. The last 11,000 years have seen a remarkably stable period, which has enabled the growth of settlements, agriculture, and civilisation itself. But alarming new reports suggest that this period might be coming to an end.

The thick polar ice of the north Atlantic forces the warm, saline currents of the Gulf Stream deep underwater, creating an effect scientists call a "conveyor belt". As the polar water sinks, the warmer water is drawn in from the south to take its place, creating a current flowing across the Atlantic from south to north.

If the ice caps " which are composed of fresh water " start melting in sufficient quantities it could dilute the Gulf Stream, making it less saline, less dense and preventing it from sinking. It will simply stay on the surface of the Arctic Ocean and freeze. If there is no water sinking, there will be nothing to draw the warm replacement water in from the south, causing the "conveyor belt" effect to stop.

According to James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, "It would take no more than a quarter of 1 per cent more fresh water flowing into the North Atlantic from melting glaciers to bring the northwards flow of the Gulf Stream to a halt."

This cataclysmic event would force temperatures in Great Britain down by as much as 15 degrees Celsius, equivalent to almost 60 degrees Fahrenheit, in a very short period of time, and according to some IPCC researchers, such a catastrophe could be imminent.

The effects of this catastrophe are hard to comprehend. The farming industry of the British Isles will be completely destroyed, as the drop in temperature halts agricultural growth completely, making animal husbandry and food production virtually impossible. Britain's infrastructure, designed over centuries for a temperate climate, will collapse, forcing manufacturers, businesses and services into terminal decline, with the consequent massive rise in unemployment sending consumer spending on anything but winter clothing and food spiralling downwards. The British economy, financial institutions, major businesses and services and the British people will be in deep trouble.

It would appear that far from creating an idyllic Mediterranean climate, global warming could send the British Isles back into the Ice Age.