Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

Whither Greenland?

President Trump wants Greenland. He and his acolytes say that might be accomplished by military force. Or we might buy it.

The size of the real estate grab appeals to Trump. It would be large, but not as large as it appears looking at the usual maps. Mercator projections make land masses look larger the further away they are from the equator. Thus, Greenland looks to be the same size as Africa. That is misleading. It is, in fact, a fraction of the size of that continent.

But it is still large. Larger than Alaska. Much larger than Texas.

But it is also small. Only a fraction of the coastlines is not covered in ice. Little of the island is habitable.

And its population is small. About 58,000 people live in Greenland with 20,000 in the capital city Nuuk. The rest live in small, isolated places scattered mostly on the west coast.

This is a tough place to live. Two-thirds of Greenland lies above the Arctic Circle, with the cold and the long days and nights that implies.  While there is a small amount of sheep grazing, there is no arable land. Farming is non-existent. The main food source comes from the sea, including fish, seals, and whales. Fish and fish products are 90% of the exports. Seals and whales are protected and can’t be exported, but under a quota, can be eaten locally.

Inuit, who form 88% of the population, have genetic traits that help them deal with the cold and allow them to digest fats that assist them to survive without foods from plants.  However, much food as well as almost all other basics are imported. Greenland has one of the highest costs of living in the world with a corresponding high poverty level.

Trump has maintained that Greenland is essential for our national security. He has not explained why but it is assumed that is because of future shipping lanes and because of rare earth minerals. Once again, our usual maps mislead us. If we look down at the planet at the northern pole, we can recognize the importance of the shipping lanes. Going from our East Coast to Asia takes four days less through the Arctic than the present transit routes.

Arctic paths, now quite limited, will be more open with global warming. There is a contradiction here. Trump and the Trumpistas say that climate change is a hoax. On the other hand, they have maintained that global warming is inevitable and with the inevitable break-up of ice, shipping through the Arctic should become easier.

But this does not explain why America would need to own Greenland. There are many global shipping lanes vital to us where we do not own the bordering land.

Greenland’s role in an expanded rare earth trade perhaps has been exaggerated or not placed in context. With global warming more land will become available for mining. That can be overstressed. Ice melt has increased and more land exposed, but even with rising world temperatures, the estimate is that it will take 10,000 years for the ice sheet, which is 1.5 miles in some places, to melt, or even if temperatures rise much faster than they have, 1,000 years.

Greenland currently has only one operating mine. Even if receding glaciers open more mining possibilities, the mines will not be easy to operate. Infrastructure has to be built. There are no railroads in Greenland, and the longest motor vehicle road extends for only twenty-two miles. The roads stop at the edge of the towns. Travel from one settlement to another is either by boat or airplane or more likely helicopter, and weather often shuts transportation down. Twelve-foot seas are common off the west coast, and there are icebergs. Power plants would have to be built. Housing materials–there are no trees in Greenland–would have to be imported. Roads and airfields would have to be built with materials that will not be easy to get there. A workforce would have to be imported into the harsh living conditions presumably with people who do not have the genetic advantages of the Inuit for living in Greenland.

But once again, even if increased mining makes sense, we don’t need to own Greenland. Denmark and Greenlanders have made it clear that they are willing to deal with us on future mines.

Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. Denmark has possessed Greenland for 300 years.

For centuries, Denmark governed Greenland with strict oversight, regulating commerce and allowing only limited contact with the outside world, but in the 1950s Denmark tried to modernize Greenland, which meant forcing Inuit into Nuuk and destroying local cultures. Greenland finally achieved home rule in 1979, receiving sovereignty over most internal affairs.

Denmark still controls Greenland’s foreign policy, defense, and currency. Denmark subsidizes Greenland by more than $500 million a year.

We have tried to buy Greenland before. In 1946, we offered $800 million, or $1.7 billion in today’s money, but Denmark turned that down. Today it is not clear whom we would buy it from because Denmark does not appear to have the legal ability to sell Greenland. Since 2009, Greenlanders have had the right to hold a referendum on independence whenever they want. A recent poll showed that 85 percent of Greenlanders oppose an American takeover.

But Trump has not explained why we need to buy Greenland and then subsidize it. Trump and his supporters avoid talking about what this would mean for our national debt. Moreover, a 1951 agreement with Denmark basically gives the U.S. the untrammeled right to build military bases where we want in Greenland. Indeed, we used to have more than a dozen while we are now down to one.

Nor have the American legal niceties been discussed. We have bought lands before, but it has never been as simple as a president wanting to buy foreign land. We do after all have a Constitution, and the consent of Congress or the Senate has been necessary for those purchases. We may say that President Jefferson and Secretary of State Monroe made the Louisiana Purchase, but in fact Congress ratified and authorized the funds for it. The Gadsden Purchase and the acquisitions of Florida, Alaska, and other lands came via treaties together with the authorization of the funds from Congress. A treaty, of course, requires not just the consent of the Senate, but consent by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

Of course, some Americans can’t imagine why Greenlanders shun being American. However, Greenlanders, besides native pride, may see that America opposes what Greenlanders take for granted. So, for example, Greenland has universal government-funded health care. Education is free through college. Childcare is heavily subsidized from the age of six months. Gasoline is subsidized. Abortion is available and paid for by the government. The abortion rate is one of the highest in the world with abortions exceeding live births in some years. In addition, Greenlanders are environmentalists. They have prohibited offshore exploration for oil. Most of their energy comes from renewable sources.

That social safety net is the same one that exists in Denmark, and part of the reason that Denmark regularly makes the top five on lists for the happiest places in the world. That, however, is not necessarily true for Greenland. As do many other indigenous populations in the modern world, Greenlanders have a high suicide rate.

In addition, after three hundred years joined to Denmark, there has been a cultural intertwining between Greenland and the Kingdom. About 20,000 Greenlanders, more than a quarter of the population, live in Denmark. Greenlanders have the right to go there. No one has discussed Greenlanders’ status under American ownership of the land.

A sense of that cross-cultural embedding comes across Peter Høeg’s excellent book Smilla’s Sense of Snow or, alternatively translated, Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, which was made into a not overly successful streaming show. More successful has been the show Borgen, what might be called the Danish House of Cards. The third season highlights the relationships between Greenland and Denmark.

The cultural blending is demonstrated further by Inuuteq Storch, a Greenlandic photographer who was the official representative for Denmark at the prestigious Venice Biennale and who is having a showing at MOMA P.S.1 now through the end of February. You can find some of his pictures on the internet.

Whither Greenland? They seem mostly to want to be left alone.

Posted on by rjonakait

Greenland . . . Our New Manifest Destiny?

President Trump wants to buy Greenland. My first reaction: I was surprised that he would want to buy white people. But then I did some reading, and I learned that Greenland’s population is 88% Greenlandic Inuit, with 12% Danes and other Europeans. Maybe that eight-to-one ratio explains the acquisition mania.

On the other hand, I never thought that Trump would think desirable a place that does not have forests to decimate and is not dependent on coal or other fossil fuels. In what seems ironic, Greenland is one of the greenest places on the planet. According to one source, seventy percent of its power comes from renewable sources, mostly from hydropower. But perhaps this is an attraction for Trump. He can fulfill his promise to bring back jobs to the West Virginia coal fields by “ordering” the Greenlanders under some national security rationale to use coal. I can see the slogan as Trump supporters wear tee shirts proclaiming, “Make Greenland Sooty (Again).”

I wondered how Greenlanders have reacted to the proposed purchase by a world leader who does not believe in climate change. Greenland is ground zero for global warming. An ice sheet covers four-fifths of the island; it weighs so much that it has depressed the central part of island making it almost a thousand feet below sea level. The glaciers have been experiencing increased run off contributing to the rise of sea levels. Does a lessened ice mass also mean that the land will rise?

Perhaps, however, the Greenlanders favor global warming. It would not be surprising. Greenland’s capital and largest city, with a population of more than 17,000, (Quick! What is it?) Nuuk averages high temperatures below freezing for more than half the year. I assume, however, that the tourist agencies point out that the high in July is a relatively balmy fifty degrees Fahrenheit. A few degrees warmer and perhaps the residents will be able to break out bikinis and speedos. During the summer, the sun rises at 3:00 A.M. and sets at midnight, so there is a lot of daylight for any unrestrained outdoor frivolity. Of course, during the winters, the sun is above the horizon for only four hours, but those long nights perhaps call out for other appropriate activities.  

If Trump does buy Greenland, you would think he ought to make at least one visit, even though that it is unlikely since he does not own a hotel there and won’t be able to bill the American taxpayers for his stay to increase his family revenues. But perhaps those long nights appeal to him for all the dark hour tweets he can unleash. And maybe he is already watching Greenlandic porn movies to find a star for another extramarital bedding during a long night. But with Michael Cohen unavailable, who is preparing the nondisclosure agreements and assembling the hush money payments? I may not have anticipated that Trump would float the purchase idea, but surely no one should have been startled that he showed the usual pique when the nasty Danish threw ice water on the idea. Canceling a scheduled trip to Denmark seems par for his course, but, of course, he does not own a golf course in Denmark and does not apparently have a way to bill us taxpayers and increase his revenues by a Copenhagen visit.

It was expected that conservative pundits would weigh in and maintain that Trump was again showing his genius. Too often the difference between these commentators and a rubber stamp is that the latter leaves an impression, but I was surprised that Trump-is-always-right sycophants have cited climate change—yes, climate change!–as a reason why the U.S. should purchase Greenland. An article on the Fox News website states, “But what makes Greenland particularly valuable to the United States is global warming. The unavoidable receding of Arctic sea ice will open a new sea route in the Arctic that can be used for both commercial and military vessels.” What especially struck me about this contention was the use of the term unavoidable. Global warming is happening, the writer to my surprise wrote, but his position is that it is inevitable. Increasing temperatures can’t be helped, apparently. I guess the writer believes that it is God’s will, so we should just go with it and seize the opportunities. If we can keep the warming going and the ice diminishes and the seas rise, new sea routes will open allowing ships to go where they have not gone before. So, stop being so negative about climate change (which Trump says is not happening) and revel in new sea lanes.

What the writer did not make clear, however, is why the new ship routes, if they occur, mean that it is essential that we own Greenland. Aren’t there many sea lanes around the world important to us where we do not own the adjacent land? Why is this different?

This writer also said, as did others who find a way to support Trump after he makes a pronouncement no matter what it is, that Greenland has valuable minerals that should not fall into China’s hands. Why, then, don’t we try to buy the mineral rights? Indeed, those of us who believe in free enterprise and fair trade should expect American corporations to see the opportunity and seek to get all this valuable stuff. These Trump-is-amazing writers don’t give an explanation for this apparent failure of American capitalism. Where is their faith in free enterprise without government intervention? Isn’t that the point of cutting governmental regulations, which they support?

(concluded September 6)