Out of sight and out of mind for most of the world, Antarctica has long been out of bounds to oil drillers and mining companies. That isolation may soon end, however, if the U.S. Senate and 15 other legislatures around the world ratify a treaty that opens the continent to "mineral resource activities." Critics say, in no kind words, that the treaty would sacrifice Antarctic wilderness and wildlife to the shortsighted interests of individual developers.
The Antarctic and Southern Oceans Coalition (ASOC), which represents more than 200 conservation and environmental organizations in 35 nations, champions the idea of an Antarctic World Park that would safeguard the continent's ecological integrity by banning all mineral exploitation, including fossil fuel exploitation. Since fossil fuel consumption is known to contribute to global warming, such a ban pragmatically goes beyond environmentalist idealism to confront inexorable realities.
Blanketed almost entirely by a mile-thick, permanent sheet of ice, Antarctica holds 70 percent of the earth's fresh water. Plant life is virtually nonexistent in the continent's interior, but some lichens and mosses cling to coastal rocks. They are so fragile, and grow so slowly, that footprints have been known to last a decade. Commercial harvesting has reduced some fish populations to the brink of extinction, but the continent still boasts large populations of whales, fur seals, penguins, and seafowl, all of which live along its narrow unfrozen periphery.
Scientists' Paradise
Antarctica is larger than both the United States and Mexico combined, but its human population never surpasses 10,000. Most are scientists and their support personnel, although the number of tourists has been growing.
Because of that minimal human impact, the continent has long been a scientists' paradise, the last truly pristine natural laboratory on earth. Core samples of inland ice provide an untainted history of atmospheric composition, which may lead scientists to a better understanding of the "greenhouse effect." The forbidding climate provides an otherworldly training ground for astronauts. And a sky uncluttered by smog was crucial in the discovery of an ozone hole over the South Pole.
Ironically, though, the scientists' very presence has jeopardized the purity that makes Antarctica uniquely valuable to them. A 1971 Associated Press (AP) story datelined McMurdo Station (site of a U.S. base, Antarctica's largest) began: "Where man goes, man pollutes, and this pristine white continent has not escaped the consequences of human exploration. But now an anti-pollution conscience is greatly diminishing the insults that man has been wreaking on this environment."
Those insults included high radioactivity from an experimental miniature nuclear reactor that was dismantled and removed in 1972; sediment in McMurdo Sound so contaminated with diesel fuel additive that it appeared almost combustible; and mountains of refuse, including truck tires, batteries, and beer cans. By most accounts, the McMurdo base is the continent's worst polluter due to its size alone.
While the "conscience" described by AP may have been strong, it was
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