Greenland Welcomes or at Least Embraces Global Warming

Sofus Frederiksen lives in a small river valley above a sheltered stretch of Greenlandic fjord, where in the winter slabs of floating ice fuse into a pale blue sheet. Frederiksen, a 49-year-old farmer of Danish and Inuit descent, built his house himself, and his 10 horses, 95 cows, and about 500 sheep make his farm one of the most productive businesses in the small town of Narsaq. From his kitchen, where pictures of his grandchildren cover the refrigerator, a window frames a 2,300-foot mountain, a steep slope of black rock and white snow. There, an Australian company called Greenland Minerals & Energy (GDLNF) hopes to build an open-pit mine, extracting uranium and what it says is one of the largest deposits of rare earth metals in the world. Like many in Greenland, the Frederiksen family thinks it’s a great idea. “We know that we have to move, and we have accepted it,” says Frederiksen’s wife, Suka. “We are only two people here against hundreds of jobs working in the mine. We tell ourselves that we have to give something for the Greenlandic people.”

The mountain is a reminder of the choices Greenland faces as its government scrambles to energize an economy heavily dependent on Denmark, the country that colonized it in the early 1700s. Narsaq also happens to be the birthplace of the country’s prime minister, and she is a strident supporter of mining. A native Greenlander with a broad face, bright eyes, and a smile that breaks like sunlight, Aleqa Hammond, 48, is the first woman to occupy the island’s highest office. Elected just over a year ago, she came to power on promises to mine the country and put it on the path to independence. “We have mountains with uranium content,” she says. “We have mountains with gold. We have mountains with iron. We have mountains with zinc and lead. We have mountains with diamonds. We have mountains that are there for us to use and bring prosperity to our people.”

Greenland is one of the few countries cheering global warming, or at least openly making the most of it. The melting of its ice cap, which covers 80 percent of the island, is a major contributor to a rise in global sea levels. By the end of the century, these levels may climb as much as 2 meters—enough to drown island nations such as Kiribati and the Maldives and flood coastal cities around the world. The Arctic, where a few degrees of temperature can mean the difference between frozen and flowing, is one of the areas where the impacts of global greenhouse gas emissions are most evident. Traditional Inuit hunters are finding it increasingly difficult to carry out their trade. The whale migration has shifted. The ice on which they ride their dog sleds is often thin or absent. Storms and waves once held back by slabs of ice are eroding the coastline, pulling houses into the sea.

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