Current ads
Jobs
Tenders
Notices
General

Click below

August 18, 2006

Hot summer means more drownings, dry lakes and fewer berries

Northern Europe has experienced higher than average temperatures this summer — 47 people drowned in Sweden in July, as boaters and swimmers flocked to the country’s lakes and coasts seeking relief.

In Norway, waterways fell to their lowest levels in 30 years or more after a hot July.

The lower part of the river Glomma system reached the lowest levels it’s seen in more than 100 years.

With an unusually dry summer in most of Finland, water levels in Finnish lakes also dropped 60 centimetres lower than normal.

Wells have dried up, riverbeds are running low, piers are on dry land, and row boats are more difficult than usual to get on shore, reports the Helsingin Sanomat.

Many of the Ukrainian who traveled to Finland in the hope of earning money picking berries now want to go home. That’s because dry summer nearly wiped out the berry crop in Finnish Lapland.

FOR CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS EVERY DAY, GO TO http://www.sikunews.com

August 11, 2006

GG names two Inuit to Order of Canada

Sheila Watt-Cloutier and Kooneeloosee Nutarak honoured

NUNATSIAQ NEWS

Governor General Michaëlle Jean announced 77 appointments to the Order of Canada last month — including two Inuit: Sheila Watt-Cloutier and Kooneeloosee (Cornelius) Nutarak.

Nutarak of Pond Inlet, who is now in his 80s, was appointed for his lifetime of contributions to maintaining Inuit heritage and, according to Jean’s office at Rideau Hall, for being “a guardian of Inuit customs.”

Nutarak has contributed to many studies on Nunavut wildlife, and he’s shared his traditional knowledge with students, in meetings and on the local radio.

Nutarak helped many Qallunaat who came to Pond Inlet as missionaries, scientists and police, and worked closely with the late priest and archeologist, Fr. Guy Mary-Rousselière.

Watt-Cloutier’s nomination to the order was in the social service category. Until last month, Watt-Cloutier, who now lives in Iqaluit, was chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (now the Inuit Circumpolar Council).

Rideau Hall says Watt-Cloutier is a “passionate and untiring leader,” who has lobbied, with success, to raise awareness internationally about the impact of climate change and contaminants on the Arctic region and its residents.

“Both are excellent announcements,” said Mary Simon, the president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

Simon cited Nutarak’s dedication to promoting and preserving Inuit culture and language, his sharing of his extensive knowledge with Inuit via the radio, and his importance as an elder role model for Pond Inlet.

“As an officer of the Order of Canada, and on behalf of the Inuit of Canada, it is an honour to congratulate both Sheila and Kooneeloosee on their appointments to the Order of Canada,” Simon said.

August 11, 2006

Nuuk fighting suicide

The city of Nuuk is trying to offer help to people in crisis, by a special telephone line for relatives of those who have committed suicide, and for anyone grappling with suicidal thoughts.

The service has received more than 50 calls since it was set up in May.

The crisis line is open 24-hours a day, and users can also receive face-to-face counseling during the Nuup Kommunea’s regular daytime hours.

The crisis line was set up after six people committed suicide in Nuuk during the month of May.

Nuuk is planning to cut off the special line at the end of this month. However, at the end of August, there will be an evaluation about the crisis line’s success and whether it should continue, writes the Nuuk newspaper, AG.

“During the first 14 days, we had 30 enquiries, primarily from relatives of those who had committed suicide. Now we receive three or four enquiries from persons who have suicidal thoughts, and our task is to listen and advise,” said Aviaaja Rohmann Pedersen, a minister with the local Lutheran church in Nuuk.

August 11, 2006

Arctic parliamentarians meet in Sweden

Last week, the Swedish Parliament hosted the Seventh Conference of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region in Kiruna, Sweden, with more than 150 participants from 11 nations in attendance.

The Arctic Parliamentarian Conference was previously held in Greenland, Iceland, Russia and Canada.

The conference discussed Arctic transportation, climate change, the environment, research, education, communications and activities during the International Polar Year, 2007-2008.

FOR CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS EVERY DAY, GO TO http://www.sikunews.com

August 4, 2006

Undersea methane could speed up warming

Methane, found in natural gas, is one of the cleanest fossil fuels to burn.

But when methane escapes to the atmosphere without being burned, it can trap heat rapidly. That’s because methane is at least 20 times stronger than carbon dioxide.

A new study says if the world continues to get warmer, vast amounts of methane gas trapped in ice under the sea could belch up and worsen climate change.

“We may have less time than we think to do something (about the prospect of global warming),” said Dr. Ira Leifer, a marine scientist at University of California Santa Barbara.

Leifer has studied how “peak blowouts” of melting undersea formations called methane hydrates could release methane into the atmosphere.

The study was published last week in Global Biogeochemical Cycles, a climate science publication.

Hydrate formations exist under the surface in permafrost areas of the Arctic.

The study measured the amount of methane that escaped to the atmosphere from a peak blowout from small volcanoes on the ocean floor off California. It found that methane escaping from the deep water reached the atmosphere, countering theories that methane seeps out in tiny bubbles that dissolve in the ocean.

Deep ocean temperatures are stable, but rising sea-surface temperatures could eventually warm the ocean’s depths and release gas.

“If you expose a hydrate to water that’s warmer than normal it starts destabilizing,” he said.

August 4, 2006

Greenlandair confirms U.S. route bypassing Canada

Greenland’s main airline has confirmed that it will start a connection to Baltimore, its first to the United States.

In May 2007, the airline, owned by the Greenland government, will start flying once a week from Kangerlussuaq to Baltimore-Washington’s International Thurgood Marshall Airport.

A Boeing 757 will fly the route from May to September.

“We also know that Americans seek peaceful places with no terror threat and Greenland is the spot for that,” the airline told Associated Press.

About 30,000 tourists visit Greenland every year, 90 percent of them coming from Denmark and elsewhere in Europe.

Last month, the Greenland and Nunavut governments signed a trade agreement, but without an air link between Nunavut and Greenland, it’s not clear how the deal will be carried out.

August 4, 2006

Greenland’s first premier struck by serious illness

Greenland’s former premier and current parliamentary chairman, Jonathan Motzfeldt, is recovering in an Icelandic hospital after being taken to a Reykjavik hospital last week with pneumonia and kidney failure.

By the end of last week, Motzfeldt, 67, had been taken off a respirator, anesthetist Hildur Thomasdottir of the Landspitali University Hospital told KNR radio. But KNR said Motzfeldt was still on dialysis.

Motzfeldt was transferred last Thursday from Nuuk’s Queen Ingrid hospital to Reykjavik, which has better medical facilities.

Motzfeldt, a member of the Siumut party, became Greenland’s first premier in 1979. He left politics for six years in the 1990s because of his problems with alcohol. Motzfeldt returned in 1997 when he won a seat in parliament and was elected premier again.

Motzfeldt was premier until 2002, when he lost to fellow Siumut member Hans Enoksen, Greenland’s current prime minister.

Motzfeldt was then named chairman of the 27-seat parliament.

August 4, 2006

Bidding opens for West Greenland offshore oil and gas

Jorgen Waever Johansen, Greenland’s minister of housing, infrastructure and minerals and petroleum, recently opened a new round of bidding for oil and gas exploration licenses in areas offshore from west Greenland.

The event in Ilulissat attracted a number of international oil companies from Europe and North America.

In 2005, new seismic data from offshore Disko and Nuussuaq confirmed that very large oil deposits are in that area.

A Greenland government news release says there is “a good chance that large amounts of oil and gas have been formed and accumulated in the areas offshore West Greenland between 67 N and 71 N.”

The release also says Greenland’s Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum and the National Environmental Research Institute have conducted “thorough environmental investigations to ensure that oil activities in the area are carried out in an environmentally secure manner.”

The environmentally sensitive Disko Bay near Ilulissat, a World Heritage site, is not included in the current licensing round.

The Calgary-based oil and gas company, EnCana Corp., already holds the Atammik licence offshore from west Greenland. This licence, granted during a licensing round in 2002, is for an area northeast of the new licence area.

August 4, 2006

Shipping emissions may pollute Arctic

Global warming will open new Arctic shipping routes, but ship traffic on new northern sea lanes may increase levels of low-lying ozone, as exhaust from ships spew pollutants into the environment.

Claire Granier, from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, says ozone emissions associated with the opening of these new sea routes, assuming that the routes would be accessible for six months of the year, could triple ozone levels, making them comparable to those in industrialized regions today.

These very high ozone levels are likely to have a serious impact on plant life.

Smog from cruise ships is already settling over Norway’s scenic Geiranger Fiord, which recently won a spot on the United Nations’ World Heritage” list, reports the Aftenposten.

The smog has been forming “like a grey-blue lid,” says the Aftenposten.

According to the Norwegian Institute for Air Research, the fiord’s air quality is similar to London’s.

“Our calculations show levels no one would expect to find in otherwise virtually untouched wilderness,” the institute’s Dag Tønnesen told the newspaper.

Some days, when as many as five cruise ships have sailed into the fiord, the concentration of nitrogen dioxide has reached 180 micrograms per cubic meter, about the same level found in London.

Tourism officials say they are concerned.

“If tourists’ experience in the fiord is the opposite of what we’ve been marketing, we have a problem,” Terje Devold of marketing firm Fjord Norge told Aftenposten.

Norwegian tourism officials and authorities want stricter international rules on allowable emissions from cruise ships. Starting in November, cruise ships will be required to present a certificate proving they comply with emissions requirements.

TOP

Advertising
Specs, rates,
& maps
Multi-paper
buying services
About the market
E-mail ad dept

More Information