

Ship crosses Northwest Passage, sails into history - saalweachter
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/bulk-carrier-becomes-first-to-successfully-traverse-northwest-passage/article14516278/

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droithomme
There are only a small number of countries that consider the entire Arctic to
be national/internal waters. Most of the world, including the US
([http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/researchpublications/prb05...](http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/researchpublications/prb0561-e.htm#BRelations))
and all of the EU other than Denmark and Norway, consider the Arctic to be
international waters.

In this particular case the coal was being shipped from Canada, which benefits
Canada, who happens to claim to own much of the Arctic. Presumably ships
carrying Canadian cargo would be cleared to use this route, and legally be
required to seek such clearance in order to be cleared to leave Canadian port.
Other ships which do not leave from, refuel at, or stop on Canadian land,
would presumably be asked to seek permission to pass through what most of the
world considers international waters. There are only certain countries that
would even want to, but it would obviously be useful for China, Japan and
Korea to use this route for shipments to Europe.

Eventually someone will take the route without permission, and then Canada
will need to figure out to what extent they can assert their claimed ownership
of the Arctic.

Should Canada succeed in their claims internationally, it may be a good
opportunity for other countries to make use of the new doctrine as well. For
example Somalia has long claimed that ships going through the Suez canal are
passing through their territory, and other nations claim that these are
international waters not subject to Somalian boarding for inspection and
collection of fees (which other countries call piracy). It will be interesting
to see if Canada prevails in its Arctic claims, while maintaining Somalia has
no similar claims to control of what they consider national waters, which
don't extend anywhere nearly as far from land as Canada is claiming here.

~~~
chollida1
> Should Canada succeed in their claims internationally, it may be a good
> opportunity for other countries to make use of the new doctrine as well.

To be fair this statement is pretty inflammatory.

There is no new doctrine. Canada has always claimed they owned these island
and no other country has ever disagreed with this(1), until the past 20 years
or so when oil was found under the water and the north west passage started to
open up.

And to be clear, Canada has claimed ownership, of these islands since 1880, so
this isn't exactly a fresh land grab:)

As can be seen from this diagram, any ship going through here sails directly
through Canadian waters.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Northwest_passage.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Northwest_passage.jpg)

(1) with the exception of Denmark and hood island. However here both countries
disagree about which side of their territorial borders a small island lies on.

~~~
ubernostrum
Again: it's not about the islands, it's about the water between them.

Let's stipulate that Canada owns every island in the hemisphere. Now what? If
enough ice melts that there's a passage between them which doesn't come within
12 nautical miles of an island's coast, then there's a passage that isn't in
Canada's territorial waters, and Canada can't, under current international
law, forbid ships using the passage.

~~~
notaddicted
For the passage in the wikipedia diagram, both of the two paths after the
first bifurcation (moving westward) pass through channels less than 24
nautical miles wide. Canada would need to build observation towers but it
could be defended with "cannons" e.g. the M777.

------
chollida1
From the article.

> “The Canadian government needs to take a firm stand on shipping via the
> Northwest passage in order to safeguard the environment and to enforce
> Canada’s sovereignty,

This is a big deal in Canada right now. There have been a bunch of rumblings
from our neighbor to the south that maybe Canada doesn't really own the
islands in our north and that the Northwest passage should be considered open
water for everyone.

This is troubling for a number of reasons, specifically sovereignty, mining
and oil rights and most importantly shipping of oil and nat. gas through the
passage. There is a bid debate going on as to what sort of cargo should be
allowed to go through the passage, specifically should oil tankers be allowed.

many people want this shipping lane closed to oil tankers, some for
environmental reasons, other because they've spent billions on pipe lines. The
only consensus you can get in Canada is that we own the shipping lanes and
therefor can control what and who goes through it.

~~~
ubernostrum
As I understand it, the island ownership doesn't necessarily solve this; there
would still be a dispute over what happens if a passage wider than 24 nautical
miles opens up. Canada isn't an archipelagic state, so would not be able to
make an argument for the same sort of broad internal waters that, say, the
Philippines have, so any such passage would be outside of Canada's territorial
waters.

There would still be exclusive rights to economically exploit, of course, but
Canada would not be able to forbid international shipping through such a
passage.

~~~
otoburb
I didn't pick up on this subtlety. Really good point. Can I ask about the
significance of 24 nautical miles? Assuming that's an international boundary
condition between Canadian territorial waters vs. international waters?

~~~
ubernostrum
Territorial waters extend 12nm from the coast. So if there's a path through
that's more than 24nm wide, some part of it must lie outside of Canadian
territorial waters, regardless of the status of the islands.

~~~
ianstallings
Yes but exclusive economic zones extend much farther and are how a country can
claim parts of the sea. Canada's exclusive economic zone covers this part of
the world currently: [http://arcticecon.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-
northwest-pas...](http://arcticecon.wordpress.com/2012/01/13/the-northwest-
passage-dispute-canada-map-with-exclusive-economic-zones/)

~~~
ubernostrum
Yes, which was why my original comment distinguished between the right to bar
shipping and the right to economically exploit.

Even if Canada prevails on ownership of every single Arctic island, a passage
more than 24nm wide would mean supertankers could come through, and Canada
would not be able to forbid it.

~~~
ianstallings
But that's disputable given that Canada claims that some of the Northwest
Passage is _internal waters_.

~~~
ubernostrum
That's a claim which, from looking at a map, is unlikely to hold up; internal
waters are lakes, rivers, and inlets which come further in than the baseline
established by the coast.

The only exception I can find is for nations which are made up of an
archipelago of islands, and Canada is not one. So again, so long as there's a
wide enough route through the islands, it doesn't matter what country owns the
islands -- the sea passage between them would be open to international
shipping.

------
cbr
The important thing isn't the crossing, it's not needing to be accompanied by
an icebreaker. The oil tanker SS Manhattan [1] made the trip in 1969, but
unassisted crossing makes this economically competitive.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Manhattan_(1962)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Manhattan_\(1962\))

~~~
enupten
Yes, and that is likely going to mean that, the Arctic is never going to
freeze again (if this takes off).

Goodbye, Polar bears, we like you, but we don't think your survival is in our
"national interests". Meh.

~~~
kamjam
This is the first thing that crossed my mind when I even read the title. This
is a sad thing and I don't think it is a cause for celebration. Next up, oil
platforms in the Arctic.

~~~
VladRussian2
>Next up, oil platforms in the Arctic.

on that side. Other side is already full steam:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG0VgaMUm_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG0VgaMUm_c)

~~~
kamjam
Sad times :(

------
whyenot
Thanks in part to humanity's over use of fossil fuels, the northwest passage
is now open for commerce.

The first cargo ship to make it unaided through the passage carries a load of
coal.

It's sad _and_ funny.

------
plq
As far as I know, they could only have used Iridium satellites for
communications. All of the alternatives that I'm aware of have satellites on
geostationary orbit, which makes it impossible to cover anywhere outside 80
degrees North and South, whereas Iridium has 75 (originally 77, one failed,
another collided with a defunct Russian satellite) satellites on the polar LEO
orbit that covers literally the whole earth.

Iridium constellation consists of LEO satellites which have an orbital period
of less than two hours.

Trivia: Iridium is #77 in the periodic table.

------
saym
Can I use this as a tangible example of climate change when discussing with my
doubting f̶i̶e̶n̶d̶s̶ friends?

~~~
clarkmoody
Do your friends doubt climate change is happening at all? Or do they doubt
that it's our fault?

~~~
guelo
It's true that the more aware deniers updated their propaganda 5 to 10 years
ago with the non-anthropogenic argument. But there are still a lot of less
informed deniers that swallow the hardcore right-wing conspiracies whole. i.e.
there is no warming, it was invented by Al Gore to take away our freedoms and
establish a one world government.

~~~
vixen99
Real climate has disproved all models to date. There has been no forthcoming
explanation for the 15 year hiatus in warming. In other words the science
underlying climate is far from known. As Feynman reminds us “It doesn’t matter
how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it
doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”. Thus we have to push on and
cannot advise politicians.

Since 1979 the IPCC report has published a best estimate for the climate
sensitivity. Its latest report says "No best estimate for equilibrium climate
sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across
assessed lines of evidence and studies.".

It is not a question of denying or conspiring. It's a matter of discovering
the science behind our climate. Let's do it without the silly rhetoric.

By the way, if you believe the very worst prediction (proposed on the basis of
failed models) then you will be interested in this link which asks what the
cost of 'doing something' is. [http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-
project/](http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/)

~~~
guelo
You're proposing "discovering the science behind our climate" by ignoring what
the actual scientists are saying. For example their explanation for the 15
year pause [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-
blo...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/damian-carrington-
blog/2013/sep/27/global-warming-pause-mirage-ipcc)

~~~
pdonis
You'll note that the article carefully doesn't link to actual data showing the
amount of heat that has actually been "trapped". (No, the IPCC report is not
"data". I'm talking about actual data sets that are archived on publicly
available servers with cryptographic signatures to ensure that it's complete
and intact. You know, the sort of thing that is routine when you're
downloading a piece of code, but which the climate science community has
decided is much too difficult for data on which they want to hang the fate of
the planet.)

Reading between the lines, their numbers for "trapped heat" are based on
computer models, not on actual data; what they're basically saying is "the
only data we have doesn't show the heat, but our models say it should be
there, so we assume it went into the oceans".

~~~
guelo
Good demonstration of my point. You refuse to believe what actual scientists
are saying.

~~~
pdonis
I refuse to believe it without checking it, yes. (I noted somewhere upthread
that there was a link to a GRL paper that might shed more light on the details
in this particular case.) I take the same attitude when I read a claim about
physics. I don't accept arguments from authority, and that's what "actual
scientists are saying it" is. Actual scientists can be wrong. So can I, but
that doesn't mean they get a free pass.

------
enupten
It is very sad to see that this is the case. I'm becoming more convinced that
Humans have become, as Attenborough put it, a plague on the Earth.

------
pyrocat
Welp. Countdown until a giant oil spill in the arctic.

------
redthrowaway
I'm curious what this will mean for international shipping as a whole. Not
having to transit the Panama Canal means freighters are limited in size only
by the dimensions of their ports of call. That alone might make the Northwest
Passage attractive even for those routes where it's not the shortest path.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Keep in mind that the locks of the Panama canal are getting bigger. By 2015 a
new set of locks will increase capacity of the canal and also allow ships that
are up to 60% wider (55m), 33% longer (427m), and with 45% deeper draft (18m)
to pass through.

Granted, even that size is not large enough to accommodate a monster like a
Maersk triple-E class container ship (which is 59m wide and has too deep a
draft to dock anywhere in the Americas), but the vast majority of the largest
container ships in the world (see:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ships](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ships))
will fit (91 out of 100 by my count). Whereas none of the ships on that list
could pass through the current locks in the Panama canal.

~~~
kgermino
I realize you mentioned this, but there would be ships bigger than New
Panamax[1] and if nothing else a Northwester Passage might mean that more
larger ships get built.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamax)
Interesting, if nothing else.

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drob
Ah, fantastic. The only thing missing from the global warming "debate" was a
party that heavily benefits from a melted arctic.

