Melting Arctic Ice Clears Way for Shipping, Fishing, Oil Drilling … and Major Problems

According to onearth.org, summer sea ice is melting in the Arctic, exposing for the first time the fabled Northwest Passage that Europeans sought for centuries. That creates a new frontier for human endeavors … and potentially a new world of trouble, scientists said this weekend at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Diego. An Arctic largely free of ice during the summer will mean new opportunities for fishing, oil and gas production, and shipping, in an area that is both extremely sensitive ecologically and highly unregulated.