L16 + 17 - Managing cold environments economic develpoment

• animal skins and hides were used as clothing, people had to hunt to make clothes but no modern materials such as polyester are used and people buy clothes onlien
• traditional inuit games were played outside depending on the season, but now todays younger inuit generation often play online games and watch tv
• people travelled by walking, kayaking or using dogsleds but now they use modern transport
• economic development in cold environments has often had disastrous impacts for their ecosystems, hunting, whaling and fur trapping have pushed some land and marine species close to extinction
• indigenous tribes struggle to maintain their traditions and out-migration of the young in search of education and employment threatens the sustainability of some communities
• some technological advancements have made life easier and have encouraged the young to stay, especially the ICT advancements
• scandinavian countries were among the first to see the potential of ict for community survival, by the late 1980s, isolated villages in finland, sweden and norway had been provided with shared computer and internet access by their governments
• in the 1980s, wireless radio and satellite links were provided for all the main populated areas in alaska
• the little inuit village called little diomede is home to 120 people and they can have access to mobile service despite the fact that the mail only arrives once a week
• in some places, two way video conferencing is transforming how communities can access education and health services. in canada, local government has collaborated with the company Cisco to allow remote inuit schools to be taught in real time by teachers from other schools
• the university of alaska offers a range of degrees and courses which may be completed entirely online by students in isolated areas, provided they have internet access
• in 2015, work began, threading a 15,600 kilometre fibre optic cable along the arctic coastline of north america, data wilrun from tokyo to london in 154 milliseconds, bringing globalisation to the worlds remotest places
• some of the worlds largest internet companies have relocated their data centres to cold environments, these offices have a low environmental impact and provided employment opportunities
• data centres are very expensive to run, due to how many uploads are made every day, energy is used to power the computers and also to cool them down with fans or air conditioning
• more big companies are placing their data centres in arctic areas because the climate cools down the machinery
• google has a centre in finland and the site covers 30,000 m^2 and cost around $750 million to build
• the site of googles data centre offers:

  • a cold climate
  • low HEP costs
  • flat land
• international agreements and treaties can influence what happens to cold environments and their ecosystems, for instance, the number of bowhead whales in arctic waters has been growing at three percent per year since the 1970s, they were heavily exploited by whaling in the past but now population has recovered since a global ban on commercial whaling was enforced in 1986
• national governments sometimes struggle to manage their own regions, for example in alaska the state is running short of money due to low world oil prices, some of its politicians want to increase oil production to increase alaskas income
• non governmental organisations such as the Inuit circumpolar council represent indigenous people
• in 2014, the UKs greenpeace sent campaigners to russias arctic ocean to protest against oil exploitation, the russian government responded by arresting and imprisoning them
• the arctic council is an international organisation that represents 8 countries and was established in 1996 to promote cooperation.
• national governments are currently responsible for managing their own ecosystems. just over 10 percent of the arctic land has some level of special protection
• greenpeace has called for a global sanctuary to be established in the arctic
• the tundra climate zone and ecosystems has shrunk in size by about 20 percent since 1980
• temperatures in newton alaska have risen by 4% since the 1960s and by as much as 10% in the winter months
• the permafrost in the alaskan village of Newtok is melting, causing buildings to subside, tilt and sink
• the ice pack on the Bering sea has thinned by 50 percent
• over the next 100 years, the temperature in the arctic is predicted to rise by another 4-7 percent