No Antarctic Treaty

the_lyniezian

Banned
Since someone's done the outer space treaty, I thought I'd take a bash on what might happen if there was no agreement on Antarctica. I suppose one thing I can think of is the environmental and research issues- for example prospecting for oil (wasn't it the French who tried to get involved with it and Greenpeace tried to stop them,but their Rainbow Warrior ship got sunk? Or ws that to do with nuclear testing?) Also, what might happen as regards land claims, or is Antarctica just not worth claiming?
 

boredatwork

Banned
it was definitely nuclear testing that spurred the rainbow warrior bit (or so my memory claims).

Given the remoteness of the location and the harshness of the climate, I would be very surprised to see much more happening there than in OTL.
 

Mark E.

The claim lines, some overlapping, that appeared on globes before 1958 would probably still be there. As for settlement or mining, there would be very little outside of research bases and possibly military outposts oriented to tracking and surveillance. So, not much besides OTL.
 

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan

I am not sure. There are alot of resources there, but not much reason to go there, as it is cheaper to get resources from other areas. I think in the future, if there is no treaty, there could be diplomatic problems.
 

Blue Max

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan said:
I am not sure. There are alot of resources there, but not much reason to go there, as it is cheaper to get resources from other areas. I think in the future, if there is no treaty, there could be diplomatic problems.
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I for one am very curious as what all "lots of resources" means.

Human history is filled with people going to places that have no infrastructure because of the sudden discovery of gold, or silver, or other material wealth. While Antarctica is probably in a league of its own for the sheer difficulty of exploration, I would suspect that if there is a resource there that's competitively priced (and it could be something just off the wall, like Lanthanides or minerals with interesting properties), some kind of Antarctic rush would occur.

The end result of said Rush would be a small permanent population that lives off the material wealth in play.
 

Leistungsfähiger Amerikan

Blue Max said:
I for one am very curious as what all "lots of resources" means.

Human history is filled with people going to places that have no infrastructure because of the sudden discovery of gold, or silver, or other material wealth. While Antarctica is probably in a league of its own for the sheer difficulty of exploration, I would suspect that if there is a resource there that's competitively priced (and it could be something just off the wall, like Lanthanides or minerals with interesting properties), some kind of Antarctic rush would occur.

The end result of said Rush would be a small permanent population that lives off the material wealth in play.
Click to expand...



What I mean is that it's a continent; it stands to reason that it will have natural resources in the similar quantities as South America, Africa, and Australia. Lots.

And as for mining them, it is much harder to mine in Antarcitica than on any other place on Earth. 24 hours darkness, drilling through ice, all resources having to be imported, etc.
 
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