Friedrich Schiller Denkmal
Friedrich Schiller



Konferenz
25.-26. Februar 2012

Schiller-Institut
"Nichts mehr davon, ich bitt euch. Zu essen gebt ihm, zu wohnen.
Habt ihr die Blöße bedeckt, gibt sich die Würde von selbst."
Friedrich Schiller

 

Securing Mankind's Future

Die Zukunft der Menschheit sichern

International Conference
25 - 26 February, 2012 - Berlin, Germany

Ulf Sandmark
Sweden
Man in the Arctic - but how?

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Have you heard about the international research expedition into the Canadian Arctic Sea, where the Russians participants brought maps over the area, that were better than the Canadian Navy´s? Think about that! Somebody was there before.

Have you heard about nuclear ballistic missiles, polar satellites and civilian air traffic routes? They all pass the Arctic.

Have you heard about the world' s biggest icebreaker Typhoone? It was a Russian submarine designed to break up the ice from below the Arctic. The technique was a strategic flank to launch missiles from hiding places under the ice.

Why were the military, space agencies and air companies in the Arctic first? Because for them it is normal think outside the box.

Why do we normally not think about the Arctic space? Are not our dimensions formed by the land and the sea, i.e. whatever we see with our senses, as Bruce said yesterday?

We don' t normally think about this space? (Pictures of Statoil underwater oil and gas extraction, North Atlantic pipe line system) With science you can see new space.

Is the Atlantic part of the Arctic? If you look at the map from the Arctic, you can see where these parts of the Atlantic correspond to Alaska, Siberia and northern Canada. If you draw a circle from Anchorage over the southern tip of Greenland, it goes through Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki and St. Petersburg! Because of the Atlantic Golf stream a good chunk of Europe is settled in the Arctic, like Scandinavia, Ireland, Scotland, England and the North Sea and Baltic coast states. But except for shipping and fishing, we do not integrate the Arctic space in our minds.

The Norwegians, since the first oil production started in the North Sea field Ekofisk 1969, have been in a constant self feeding rush into the Arctic Sea. Why? Because, they have to invest. Thy have an economic policy that says that if the income is not used for more oil and gas development, it will just be put in the giant Norwegian oil fund. (It is like a farmer who is making too much profit, and would be investing in more and more tractors for his farm.) The Norwegian policy makes the oil and gas development into an automatic machine, working itself more and more into the Arctic. Now they have the best technological skills in how to work in the Arctic Sea. They are the first to open production in the very hostile conditions of the Barents Sea.

The Gazprom, Eni, Total and Alaskan oil companies have a similar self feeding rush into the Arctic, but more like raw material companies stuck with their business they concentrate on more exploration. These are important drivers into the Arctic.

Beside those, we have the Russian Vernadsky impulse for a colonization of the Arctic to expand the Noosphere. This is expressed in the ambitious Russian Arctic plan presented by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the International Arctic Forum in Archangelsk. The Russian nation is expressing this sovereignty with the expansion of it icebreaker capacity that will open the Northern Sea Route for all year traffic. As the only country in the world, Russia now is in production of its first floating nuclear plant that will provide electricity to the cities along the Siberian Arctic coast line. These are the necessary drivers into the Arctic: national state projects, military presence and raw material companies.

However, there are problems here which Lyndon LaRouche has foreseen long ago, when he in the book "The Earth´s Next Fifty Years" discussed the development of a true Eurasian culture. He wrote:

"Throughout this time, European civilization has been less populous, by a relatively great margin, than Asian. Yet the power expressed by he European civilization has been greater, especially since the rise of Classical Greek culture since no later then approximately the Seventh Century B.C."... "This has to do, essentially, with the special nature of man, especially the related form of induced self-image of the typical individual member of the society. This portends to a potential catastrophe in Asia, even in those nations which are emerging as relatively great new world powers, unless the image of man as reflected in the condition of the great mass of poor, is upgraded from the status of cheap labor, to an intellectually enlightened, creatively innovative mass of the population. This task becomes, obviously, a crucial problem in the context of any global discussion of the matters of a dialogue of cultures". [pages 216 and 218]

You can pose the question in another way: Where is the middle class in the Arctic development? Should the middle class transport itself and its goods through the pipe lines?

The oligarchic problem in the Arctic is just now, a brutal life and death issue. We see this now in the mining boom in Northern Sweden in the lack of housing for the new workers. Look at the new Swedish mine worker in her mobile home in Kiruna. We see it in the lack of infrastructure development, where six million tons of iron ore per year, from the new mine in Pajala will be hauled not by rail, but by 90 ton Catepillar trucks every 6th minute on the 9 meter wide main road 150 km between Pajala and Svappavaara, a 5 hours roundtrip. Even in the welfare state of Sweden the mine workers are treated like cattle and infrastructure is not developed.

Have you ever heard about a human mining company? Are you longing for a job in the salt mines?

What about the indigenous peoples in the Arctic? Do you know where Greenland is? It is in Oslo? It is the slum area close to the railway station! People are treated like cattle by the oligarchy in the Arctic.

Versus oligarchy we have the science cities. The design for the city of Umka shows what the human needs are in the Arctic also making family life possible. But the Western European unique contribution to the Arctic must be to develop the scientific mind for all in the Arctic, not only for the typical East European class of intellectuals or specialists.

How should we upgrade the poor from the status of cheap labor? Supply the population with higher energy density and science

1. Everywhere where a new mine will be started, there will be a confrontation with indigenous peoples. As the safety infrastructure defines the space for human activities, recruit all indigenous peoples by bringing them helicopters, communication and health service. Let them become the backbone for the rescue and safety service, as they are already the spearhead for populating the Arctic.

2. Moon mining - Organize the mining at the bottom of the sea or bottom of the pits with the highest technology which forces the advancement of education, welfare and salaries of the labor force. Where is the mine truck driver in the new mine? He is sitting above ground. I do not know how many hands he has, but he is actually driving five trucks.

3. Build every mining city as the model science cities with decent housing and close communication with national educational and cultural facilities.

4. Promote research and knowledge for the raw materials processing and refining as well as bioprospecting, to develop a mittelstand industry. Populate the Svalbard University Center, Arctic universities in Tromsoe, Norway; Akureyri, Iceland; Nuuk, Greenland; Umea, Sweden; Oulu, Finland and Archangel, Russia and the new Russian science city Umka.

5. Organize transport not only for bulk, but for middle class industry. For this we need high speed railways into the North. Use the national control over the raw material exploration to develop the infrastructure inroads into the Arctic, like Norway do. Break the monetarist non investment policy of Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Open up the transport links North from Continental Europe, like the Fehmarn bridge and high speed trains on the Nordic Triangle from Copenhagen to Oslo, Stockholm, Helsinki and St. Petersburg, the Rail Baltica, the Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel, the Baltic Arc, the Rovaniemi-Kirkenes railway, the high speed trains to St. Petersburg and Moscow, the Belkomur railway between Archangel and Perm, and the NEW-Cargo Transport Corridor from China to the U.S.

6. Answer the Norwegian, Russian and Greenland invitations to participate in the projects. Cooperate with the Arctic projects of China, South Korea, Japan, India, Canada and the U.S. according to the motto High North, Low tension. As Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Störe underlines, there is no race for the Arctic as all borders are settled. There is therefore no rush for resources, but a common rush for knowledge.

End: The Kara Sea is open this February for the first time! Like our forefathers 10.000 years ago followed the retreating ice. Let's get to the Arctic coast, not only the Baltic coast.