Environmental Concern In Navigating The Polar Regions
Introduction
Polar waters have long been the remote territory where nobody could obtain authority. Moreover, the Arctic and Antarctic regions remained uninhibited even after their official exploration because of the severe climate and the considerable threat level. However, the further our society reaches in its development, the more resources humankind needs to survive. As a result, polar waters move towards the peak of its popularity among both trade, tourist, and industrial ships. As a result, their operation in the Polar Regions has become the issue of the essential concern because there are some regulations to keep the course of actions in order (Ruddiman and McIntyre, 1973). One of such concerns about the ships’ operation in the waters of Arctic and Antarctic is the environmental problem and the ways of establishing the harmonic relations between the nature and the nautical activity of the human beings.
The Environmental Concerns
The significance of the environmental concerns find its embodiment in numerous aspects of the nautical activity. For example, creating the route for the ships to follow in the Northern waters is a common practice as it guarantees the safety of the vessels and its crews (Woo and Young, 1998). Additionally, it limits the human activity, which can optimize the external influence on the Arctic and Antarctic regions. However, the state of the Polar environment changes annually, which means that it is difficult to hold the fairway as efficient as possible.
The Northern Sea Route is a wide-known illustration of such a path, which is frequently used as a fairway among the Northern waters. Cargo ships from such continents as Asia, Europe, and America use this way to save time and resources (Georgescu, 2014). However, the Northern Sea Route concerns the environment of the Northern Pole through the threat of the cargo ships and the load they transport. Oils, gas, and minerals, which are the common cargo of the ships in the Northern Sea Route, are extremely dangerous to the environmental safety. Therefore, the crew of these ships ought to pay a vital attention towards all the safety regulations.
Consequently, there is a number of factors, which make navigating in the Polar waters dangerous for both the ships and the environment. The issue of this area, which appears to be famous worldwide, is the shrinkage of the ice at the Northern pole. Extremely visible during the last decades, the decrease in the ice-levels of the Arctic water reservoir forces humankind to think of the impacts of their activity (Holland et al. 2006). Nevertheless, in the opposite to the world’s society, which suffers the influence of the greenhouse effect indirectly, the participants of the nautical activities need to correct and regulate their operation according to the environmental conditions.
One of the consequences of such an environmental change is the concerns about the types of the vessels. According to the data, introduced by the National Geographic, icebreakers are one of the most common types of transport, which is active in the Polar Regions …
