Arctic notes (and other stuff)

It’s just some of the stuff I need to take a look at in the nearest time.

Nuclear physics on Wikipedia. In our environmental law class today, we were talking about whether it’s possible to use nuclear waste to produce dirty nuclear bombs. I really doubt it; I do think the science is pretty different between the two and I just want to recap some of the basic school physics to be able to argue in the debate. 

The BBC is now covering the Arctic issues almost every day. Here’s another BBC article on the climate change/Arctic change thing. This time someone in the US Coast Guard thinks there may well be a conflict over the unresolved Arctic border disputes. Now are we talking World War Three I wonder?

Environmental ethics, also from Wikpedia. How green should we be, and where does sustainable development really fit in? 

Space law, interesting stuff too

And here it comes – the major scandal. Now Mrs Palin can consider herself a full-fledged member of the big party. She’s got her very own, significant scandal which perfectly suits her personalty

Hello everyone. This is the first entry of a new blog, and you are very welcome to celebrate this significant event. 

I don’t expect a large audience here; actually what I want to do is to make this like an e-library for all that stuff that I find on polar law on the internet. I am doing an LLM in Polar Law at the University of Akureyri; we’ve just finished the introductory course and there’s an take home exam waiting for me out there… 

There is one thing to be said. I’ll tell you a great secret. Not only that I am doing the polar law LLM, I am also doing the last third year of my BA in Law studies at the same school so don’t fret if you find, amongst the arctic stuff, notes on the Icelandic administrative law, or Chinese trade law, or some sociology of law or whatever other knowledge our teachers want us to absorb  

So, just to fuel it up a bit, I’m giving you three links that are in one or another way connected to the polar law. Just to say, polar law is not just about law; but also climate change and environment, policy making and governance, risk management and hydrocarbon exploitation… As we have been told, polar law deals with whatever challenges the thawing Arctic bumps into. There are many resources out there, telling you seriously, and the media has already been eager to talk about ‘cold rush’ (I like the term though ) 

Anyway, judge for yourself. 

The Economist, Of ice and men. It’s not even an article, just a graph showing how fast the Arctic ice has been melting, and a sad cute polar bear to make us all aware of its cuteness… cutility… cutability?.. and the melting Arctic too, apparently.

BBC (I like them, I read them and I’m going to reference them a lot), Major ice-shelf loss for Canada. The story which kinda made me scary, these changes are happening so much faster than we can even think of.

BBC (I told you!), Arctic ice is at ‘tipping point’. For those who haven’t yet realised what it is all about.