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arctic
Trump Adviser Admits Seizing Greenland Is About Fossil Fuels, Raw Imperialism
"It's oil and gas. It's our national security. It's critical minerals," the next national security adviser told a Fox News host.
Jan 09, 2025
Amid mounting fears over U.S. President Donald Trump's interest in purchasing or potentially even invading the Danish territory Greenland, his incoming national security adviser made the reasons why quite clear in a Wednesday interview on Fox News.
Speaking with Fox host Jesse Watters about Trump's recent comments on Greenland, Congressman Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), his incoming national security adviser, expanded on the president-elect's Tuesday declaration that Denmark should give the autonomous island northeast of Canada to the United States "because we need it for national security."
Walz said that "this is not just about Greenland. This is about the Arctic. You have Russia that is trying to become king of the Arctic with 60-plus icebreakers, some of them nuclear-powered. Do you know how many we have, Jesse? We have two, and one just caught on fire. This is about critical minerals. This is about natural resources. This is about, as the polar ice caps pull back, the Chinese are now cranking out icebreakers and pushing up there as well. So, it's oil and gas. It's our national security. It's critical minerals."
"And Denmark can be a great ally, but you can't treat Greenland—which they have operational control over—as some kind of backwater. It's in the Western Hemisphere, multiple presidents have tried to bring it into our sphere," Waltz continued, noting Donald Trump Jr.'s personal trip to the island on Tuesday. "As you just saw from Don Jr. landing up there, that people of Greenland, all 56,000 of them, are excited about the prospect of making the Western Hemisphere great again."
Rather than acknowledging Greenland residents' concerns about and opposition to Trump's recent interest—positions echoed by Danish and other European leaders—Watters expressed that, if he lived there, he would prefer to be "on the American side of things" rather than affiliated with Denmark, then refocused on the discussion of natural resources.
Waltz told him that "you're starting to see shipping lanes and shipping coming across the North side, the famous Northwest Passage. That all has to be secured, Jesse. And right now we don't have a single base in the North side of Alaska and we need the Canadians to step up. They're next to last in NATO defense spending."
The Trump adviser also tied the president-elect's desire to take over Greenland to some of his other proposals, such as designating Mexican cartels as terrorist organizations, reclaiming the Panama Canal—possibly by force—and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Waltz did not mention Trump's pitch to make Canada, whose prime minister just announced his resignation, the 51st state.
"So this is about reintroducing America in the Western Hemisphere, whether that is taking on the cartels, the Panama Canal, Greenland, the 'Gulf of America'—which I love, I'm waiting to see the maps redrawn," Waltz said. "You can call it Monroe Doctrine 2.0, but this is all part of the America First agenda and it's been ignored for far too long."
"Call It Monroe Doctrine 2.0" - Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz on Greenland and Panama Canal
Read his full comments - https://t.co/OURdqs2A3r
"The famous Northwest Passage has to be secured... taking on the Mexican cartels, the Panama Canal, Greenland... You can… pic.twitter.com/y3uyuP23Og
— RCP Video (@rcpvideo) January 9, 2025
While Trump and his allies promote a fresh wave of imperialism ahead of the January 20 inauguration, others are highlighting its connections to U.S. history—including political economist C.J. Polychroniou, who addressed how "Trump's second administration seems set on advancing a new version of Manifest Destiny" in a Thursday opinion piece for Common Dreams.
"Imperialism seems to be Trump's new theme, but his overall vision of power is reminiscent of U.S. imperialist attitudes of the 19th century. He seems to believe that territorial expansion of the boundaries of the United States would make the country safer, stronger, and more prosperous," Polychroniou wrote. "Of course, this could all just be a symptom of Trump's arrogance and ignorance, but there can be no denying that imperialism is embedded in U.S. political culture. The U.S. has been preparing for a future global conflict for quite some time now, first with Russia and then with China."
"The truth is that U.S. imperialism never died," Polychroniou stressed, pointing to the nation's massive military budget and hundreds of bases around the world. "Of course, imperialism has taken new forms in the 21st century and the dynamics of exploitation have changed. But imperialism is still about world hegemony and a struggle for the control of strategic resources."
"The U.S. continues to exercise imperial power by using all its available tools and weapons to make the world conform to its own whims and wants as it tries to shore up its declining economic dominance," he added. "But with Trump's return to the White House, and armed as he appears to be with a new version of Manifest Destiny, U.S. imperialism may become more aggressive and even more dangerous to world peace. If that turns out to be the case, the world is headed for an even more violent future."
In a Thursday piece for The Nation also exploring Greenland's "strategically significant" location and the global superpowers vying for more regional control, national affairs correspondent John Nichols highlighted that Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede of the democratic socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit party and Erik Jensen, leader of the social democratic Siumut movement, have both responded to Trump's comments by emphasizing that their territory "is not for sale."
As Nichols detailed:
Both Inuit Ataqatigiit and Siumut favor independence for the island, which is now a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Eighty percent of the votes in Greenland's 2021 election were cast for pro-independence parties. And Egede now says: "The history and current conditions have shown that our cooperation with the Kingdom of Denmark has not succeeded in creating full equality. It is now time for our country to take the next step."
The goal, explains the prime minister, is to "remove the shackles of colonialism."
"Work has already begun on creating the framework for Greenland as an independent state," according to Egede, who signaled in his New Year's address that a referendum could be held as soon as this year.
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Arctic Tundra Has Turned From 'Carbon Sink to Carbon Source' in Dangerous Flip: NOAA
"This is yet one more sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inadequately reducing fossil fuel pollution," said one scientist.
Dec 10, 2024
Permafrost in the Arctic has stored carbon dioxide for millennia, but the annual Arctic Report Card released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a concerning shift linked to planetary heating and a rising number of wildfires in the icy region: The tundra is now emitting more carbon than it is storing.
The report card revealed that over the last year, the tundra's temperature rose to its second-highest level on record, causing the frozen soil to melt.
The melting of the permafrost activates microbes in the soil which decompose the trapped carbon, causing it to be released into the atmosphere as planet-heating carbon dioxide and methane.
The release of fossil fuels from the permafrost is also being caused by increased Arctic wildfires, which have emitted an average of 207 million tons of carbon per year since 2003.
"Our observations now show that the Arctic tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfire, is now emitting more carbon than it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts," said Rick Spinrad, administrator of NOAA. "This is yet one more sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inadequately reducing fossil fuel pollution."
Sue Natali, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts and one of 97 international scientists who contributed to the Arctic Report Card, told NPR that 1.5 trillion tons of carbon are still being stored in the tundra—suggesting that the continued warming of the permafrost could make it a huge source of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.
Along with the "Arctic tundra transformation from carbon sink to carbon source," NOAA reported declines in caribou herds and increasing winter precipitation.
The report card showed that the autumn of 2023 and summer of 2024 saw the second- and third-warmest temperatures on record across the Arctic, and a heatwave in August 2024 set an all-time record for daily temperatures in several communities in northern Alaska and Canada.
The last nine years have been the nine warmest on record in the Arctic region.
"Many of the Arctic's vital signs that we track are either setting or flirting with record-high or record-low values nearly every year," said Gerald (J.J.) Frost, a senior scientist with Alaska Biological Research, Inc. and a veteran Arctic Report Card author. "This is an indication that recent extreme years are the result of long-term, persistent changes, and not the result of variability in the climate system."
Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, emphasized that the continuous release of fossil fuel emissions from oil and gas extraction and other pollution has caused the Arctic to warm at a faster rate than the Earth as a whole over the past 11 years.
"These combined changes are contributing to worsening wildfires and thawing permafrost to an extent so historic that it caused the Arctic to be a net carbon source after millennia serving as a net carbon storage region," said Ekwurzel. "If this becomes a consistent trend, it will further increase climate change globally."
The Arctic Report Card was released weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office. Trump has pledged to slash climate regulations introduced by the Biden administration and to increase oil and gas production. He has mused that sea-level rise will create "more oceanfront property" and has called the climate crisis a "hoax," while his nominee for energy secretary, Chris Wright, the CEO of the fracking company Liberty Energy, has claimed that climate warming is good for the planet.
"These sobering impacts in the Arctic are one more manifestation of how policymakers in the United States and around the world are continuing to prioritize the profits of fossil fuel polluters over the well-being of people and the planet and putting the goals of the Paris climate agreement in peril," said Ekwurzel. "All countries, but especially wealthy, high-emitting nations, need to drastically reduce heat-trapping emissions at a rapid pace in accord with the latest science and aid in efforts of climate-vulnerable communities to prepare for what's to come and help lower-resourced countries working to decrease emissions too."
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Norwegian Deep-Sea Mining Threatens Arctic Biodiversity With 'Irreversible Harm'
"Norway's plans not only directly threaten species and habitats on the seabed, but also the wider marine ecosystem, from the tiniest plankton to the great whales," one Greenpeace scientist said.
Sep 20, 2024
Norway's plans to move forward with deep-sea mining could do irreparable damage to unique Arctic ecosystems and even drive unobserved species to extinction.
That's the warning issued Friday in a Greenpeace report titled Deep Sea Mining in the Arctic: Living Treasures at Risk. The environmental group argues that Norway's mining plans contradict its previous ecological commitments, such as its 2020 pledge to manage 100% of its ocean area sustainably by 2025.
"The measure of a nation's success is not how many promises it makes, but how it honors them and how much of its ecosystem is safeguarded for present and future generations," Greenpeace Nordic campaigner Haldis Tjeldflaat Helle said in a statement. "While Norway claims to be a respectable nation with responsible policies on ocean management, it's rolling out the red carpet for deep-sea mining companies to deploy machines that will cause irreversible harm to the Arctic's unique and vulnerable biodiversity. Somehow Norway's words and ocean commitments get forgotten when profit opportunities arise. We cannot let that happen."
"Mining will cause permanent damage to those ecosystems and it will remain impossible to assess the full extent of those impacts, let alone control them."
Norway's parliament sparked global outrage when it voted to explore its Arctic seabed for minerals in January 2024. Its Ministry of Energy then released a plan for the first round of licenses in June. The country aims to extend its first licenses next year and see mining begin by 2030.
Now, the Greenpeace report details what would be at stake if it does so.
"The Arctic is a unique and vital marine environment, home to one of the world's most fragile and diverse ecosystems, crucial for global climate regulation and supporting a wide array of species found nowhere else on Earth," Greenpeace International executive director Mads Christensen wrote in the report foreword. "The recent decision by Norway to open up 281,200 square kilometers of its claim to an extended continental shelf to deep-sea mining is putting ocean life and the livelihoods of those who depend on it at grave risk."
The mining would threaten life at all levels of the ocean and all nodes in the marine food web. Norway is hoping to mine for metals in the manganese crusts around hydrothermal vents, but these vents have also enabled a diverse array of life.
"They are home to creatures such as stalked jellyfish, tube worm forests, fish that produce antifreeze, and hairy shrimps hosting colonies of bacteria that can convert toxic hydrogen sulphides and methane into energy," Christensen wrote. "These are unique habitats with endemic species that can be found nowhere else on Earth, including ones that have yet to be scientifically described."
Deep-sea species like sponges, stony corals, sea pens, sea fans, lace corals, and black corals are also particularly vulnerable because they grow slowly, mature late, reproduce infrequently, and live for a long time. The habitats they form are therefore classified as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems. Mining would disturb these ecosystems directly as "underwater robots" would both damage and remove them in the hunt for metals.
However, the impacts of deep-sea mining extend beyond the seabed and included sediment plumes, the release of toxins, the alternation of the substrate and its geochemistry, noise and light pollution, and moving some organisms from one part of the sea to another. These could harm both marine and human communities, as unique conditions in the Arctic Ocean create a spring phytoplankton bloom that feeds important fisheries like herring, mackerel, and blue whiting. The area also draws migrating seabirds and several species of marine mammals.
In particular, 12 species of marine mammals are commonly found in the area slated for mining: minke whale, humpback whale, fin whale, blue whale, bowhead whale, northern bottlenose whale, sperm whale, orca, narwhal, white-beaked dolphin, harp seal, and hooded seal.
"Although it has long been documented that whales and dolphins live in this area, we still know remarkably little about their abundance, distribution, and behaviors, including how much they rely on healthy ecosystems around seamounts," Kirsten Young, a science lead at Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter, said in a statement. "Mining will cause permanent damage to those ecosystems and it will remain impossible to assess the full extent of those impacts, let alone control them."
"What is clear is that Norway's plans not only directly threaten species and habitats on the seabed, but also the wider marine ecosystem, from the tiniest plankton to the great whales," Young concluded.
Norway's plans also come as the region is already undergoing changes due to the burning of fossil fuels and the heating of the atmosphere and oceans.
A 2023 assessment of the ecosystems of the Norwegian Sea found that both water temperatures and ocean acidification had increased.
Acidification in particular is of "grave concern" in the sea because it is moving more quickly than the global average.
"As the waters of the Nordic Seas become more acidified, there will be impacts to species, ecosystems, and ecosystem functioning as a result of changes to organisms' structure, distribution, and ability to function," Greenpeace wrote.
Greenpeace is calling on Norway to abandon its plans for deep-sea mining and add its name to a list of countries backing a moratorium on the practice.
In addition, the group urges Norway to instead facilitate more scientific research in its Arctic waters and to protect a network of 30% of them by 2030 in keeping with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and work with other nations to preserve all marine environments under the global ocean treaty.
"Now, when six of the nine planetary boundaries have been exceeded, is not the time to be opening up a new frontier to extraction, but one when we should all be doubling down on doing what is needed to safeguard the wildlife and ecosystems that we share this wonderful blue planet with," Christensen said.
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