Cold Front
Cold Front: Conflict Ahead in Arctic Waters by David Fairhall NY: Counterpoint, $26.00 Reviewed by Russell A. Potter In the wake of a new near-record ice minimum in the summer of 2011, there is likely to be an increased flow of portentious, dramatically-titled books warning us about the future of the Arctic -- too many for even the most voracious of concerned readers. Some, such as Shelagh Grant's excellent Polar Imperative , will focus on questions of sovereignty; others, such as Roman Shumenko's Arctic Oil and Gas , will look at these resources (and the environmental hazards of retrieving them); still others will address the impact of warming on indigenous peoples, wildlife, or coastlines. So it is quite natural to feel overwhelmed, the more so at a point where the troubled economies of so many nations around the world have added to the list of urgent concerns already facing us in the more populated temperate zones. But the problem at the top of the world is very unlikely