Denmark is a kingdom, it has a functioning monarchy- except if the queen disagrees with parliament, she has to resign. Greenland exists under the kingdom of Denmark, which is a way of saying “we tell Greenland what to do and think that we own this land” without making yourself feel bad.
A few weeks ago, on a field study, my class took me to GEUS- the geological study of Denmark. I thought we were going to discuss how Denmark uses satellites to monitor the Greenland ice sheet but instead we talked about how Denmark is using satellites to find economical gain within Greenland. I have not been able to stop thinking about:
- the ethical implications of these kinds of projects AND
- how we think about (or don’t) ethics within natural science disciplines
I don’t claim to be an expert in ethics, in fact I am quite the opposite, I’ve taken a singular philosophy class in high school four years ago. This is simply my opinion.
At GEUS, we spoke mostly about China’s interest in using the melting Greenland ice sheet as a source of bottling water to sell. But what are the implications of letting a country with a high carbon output create a business that depends on such? What incentive would China then have to lower its carbon production? It would be an bad business model to stop the melting in Greenland because then they would not have any bottled water to sell.
Glaciology tells us that there will most likely always be a melting zone on the glacier, called the ablation zone, so while there will almost always be melting- the supply will not be enough to sustain a water bottling plant.
We often think of the arctic as a vast lifeless tundra, neglecting to think about the native people that live there. What are the implications of this? Why do we teach it so? Greenland especially is in the privileged northern hemisphere (a quick google search of Mercator projection colonialism should give you enough info to know what I mean) but enjoys none of the same privileges as North America or western Europe.
I hope by the time I return from Greenland next Friday I have a better perspective and a better understanding of the thoughts of those who live on the island.
An American in Denmark 