Having lived my entire life above the 41st parallel (the latitude of Chicago) and much of it at 46° and 47° N (the latitudes of Ironwood and Hancock, Michigan), I was fascinated by this admittedly speculative Wall Street Journal article on the “New North”. According to the piece, the northerly regions of North America (Alaska and the upper tier of states in the U.S., plus Canada), Europe (the Nordic nations plus Russia), and Asia (Russia again) are
poised to undergo tremendous transformation over the next century. As a booming population increases the demand for the Earth’s natural resources, and as lands closer to the equator face the prospect of rising water demand, droughts and other likely changes, the prominence of northern countries will rise along with their projected milder winters.
Moreover, due to its vast territory, the relatively untapped state of its natural resource base, the lawfulness and orderliness of its constitutive states, and to the existence of some sizable cities,
the New North is well positioned for the coming century even as its unique polar ecosystem is threatened by some of the most extreme climate changes on Earth. But in a globally integrated 2050 world of over nine billion people, with mounting issues of water stress, heat waves and coastal flooding, what might this mean for motivating renewed human settlement of the region? To what extent might a wet, underpopulated, resource-rich, less bitterly cold North promise refuge from these broader global pressures?
Interesting and worrisome questions.