Global Warming Spurs Territory Rush, More Health Benefits from Alcohol

Global warming spurs territory rush

According to an article in the New Zealand Herald of Jan. 7, the international scramble to claim territory in the Arctic Circle has taken on a new urgency--because of global warming. In anticipation of a windfall of transit rights and resources, clashes over land and maritime claims in the area among Denmark, Canada, the U.S., and Russia have recently intensified, the article says.

At stake are large swaths of area in the Arctic Circle, which some reports indicate is warming at a significantly faster rate than the rest of the globe. Scientists and government officials are hopeful that the region contains large reserves of diamonds, natural gas, and other resources, which warming would make available for harvest. And thawing ice could finally open the Northwest Passage to regular shipping traffic, shaving large chunks off of transit routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and reaping large profits for anyone taxing the pathway.

Countries such as Canada and Russia are therefore investing in shows of force to demonstrate their ability to administer and patrol any potential claims, in accordance with international standards. Meanwhile, Denmark is rushing to map Greenland's continental socket before ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. If the socket extends far enough, Denmark might be able to lay a claim on the North Pole using the 1986 treaty.

It may all be a fool's game: Evidence for resource deposits is still scanty, and grandiose claims to vast swaths of empty, inhospitable territory are, as history has shown, tenuous at best.

Still, at least one C&EN reader is excited about the possible benefits of global warming. In a recent letter to C&EN, Oswald R. Bergmann wrote: "Suppose there is a gradual global warming effect caused by a combination of effects, say 1 to 2 ºC over 100 to 200 years. Would that necessarily be bad? I say that there is at least an even chance that the effect would actually be beneficial. Just think of Siberia or northern Canada being more like Pennsylvania or New York state. Wouldn't be so bad at all" (C&EN, Jan. 24, page 4). If he's right, perhaps residents of low-lying nations and coastal megalopolises are best off speculating on prime Siberian real estate?

More health benefits from alcohol

Cheers to two recent papers suggesting that alcoholic beverages might have health benefits for the skin and brain, in addition to the studies linking such beverages, particularly red wine, to healthier hearts.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine implies that moderate alcohol consumption might help to prevent dementia, though the study was restricted to women [352, 245 (2005)]. While it is well known that regular heavy drinking impairs cognitive abilities, the study, which looked at the effects of moderate drinking habits in more than 10,000 women over the course of several years, concluded that "in women, up to one drink per day does not impair cognitive function and may actually decrease the risk of cognitive decline." Whether the drink was beer or wine did not seem to matter.

The other paper hints that sake, a traditional Japanese beverage also known as rice wine, could have beneficial effects on skin, at least in mice [J. Agric. Food Chem., published online Jan. 25, http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/jf048893s]. Sake has been used as a skin care lotion in Japan historically, and anecdotal evidence suggests that skin complexions are smoother in areas with high traditional sake consumption. Therefore, scientists evaluated concentrated versions of sake, beer, and red wine for their ability, when ingested, to reduce epidermal permeability barrier disruption during ultraviolet irradiation in mice. (They had already shown that sake effected a reduction when applied topically.) Only sake and one of its isolated components, ethyl -D-glucoside, showed a correlation.

This week's column was written by Aalok Mehta . Please send comments and suggestions to newscripts@acs.org.