Anyway, since it has an Arctic focus, it does seem worth a thread here. Perhaps others can make more of it than I can right now? What are the best insights? What dots aren't being connected here?
I don't see really what it adds of value, though a lot of it is stating the obvious.
So, it could be said that the emergence of the “Arctic environmental power” announces a powerful return of political power, certainly in new forms.
To me the above is rubbish. The Arctic is a key driver of northern hemisphere climate, and will likely introduce major geopolitical problems (and the illusion of opportunities) in the near future - but it is not a political player. It's physics. It beyond our control, to ascribe any sense of power or politics to it is to anthropomorphize it - which I cannot agree with. There is no negotiation with it, only an attempt to respond to it.
Furthermore I don't think it is even an accurate view. It is a pivotal region - but the conflicts for resources will be fought in many places and over many fronts. The planet is populated globally by people (and that region relatively lightly populated). There are an awful lot of other things that will happen in an awful lot of other places - and while the Arctic is looking like a pretty good candidate for the domino that knocks down the rest, nothing assures that it will be. The pre-existing condition - diminishing resource availability per capita (I include both resource depletion and population in that metric) - stands quite independently as an issue from the Arctic (which isn't to say the confluence of the two won't bring problems faster and worse than just one alone).
