This week, President Obama's trip to the Alaskan Arctic is fraught with questions of whether his administration will support wildlife protection efforts, or allow drilling in the region.
But the U.S is not the only country to face this type of decision. The Arctic is a vast geological area with a number of international neighbors—including Norway, and Denmark,Iceland, Russia and Canada—that are attempting to strike a fragile balance between environmental protection and energy investment.
Katarzyna Zysk, and associate professor at the Norwegian Defense University College in Oslo and a member of the Arctic Security Initiative at the Hoover Institute,discusses the global issues playing out in the region.
Edward Struzik, a journalist who's been reporting on the Arctic for three decades, and has been called a "climate change realist." Struzik,author of "Future Arctic: Field Notes from a World on the Edge," argues that global warming is already changing the arctic landscape. But he also thinks the arctic has a lot of potential for sustainable energy.
Source: wnyc.org