Antarctica’s Weddell Sea’s shifting ice floes, numbing temperatures, and powerful ocean currents led Ernest Shackleton to describe it as “the worst part of the world’s worst ocean.” Its reputation was enhanced by the sinking of Shackleton’s ship Endurance in 1915, and the same conditions helped preserve it for over a century.
Discovered in 2022, Endurance is now more accessible due to climate change.
These same climatic factors that make it easier to reach Shackleton’s ship are also creating competition for shipping routes and for minerals and fossil fuels in the water. In fact, many people see global warming as an opportunity rather than a threat.
The Heritage Foundation, the crazy capitalist think tank in charge of Project 2025, claimed in its screed that NOAA’s activities are “detrimental to American prosperity.”
So I use Shackleton’s Endurance as my north star. As geopolitical wars rage over mineral and fossil fuel hotspots, and battles over sea and land routes intensify, the world is on the boil, and no one but Mother Nature is certain to emerge victorious.
spiral of evil
Let’s start near the opposite pole from Shackleton’s rest area. The competition for the North Pole will literally become more intense as the water flows faster.
The journey from eastern China to Britain, which typically takes 40 days via the Suez Canal and more than 50 days around the Cape of Good Hope, via the complex and expensive rail route between China and Europe, could be cut in half using the flexible Arctic route.
As The Economist puts it, “The Arctic will become more connected to the global economy.” That’s one way to say it.
Snow reflects 85 percent of the sunlight that hits it, and only 7 percent is exposed to water. So as the North Pole melts, processes in the remaining ice accelerate. The Arctic has been warming four times faster than the rest of the planet since 1979, according to multiple scientific studies. That means the route won’t be open to all ice-going vessels until the spring of 2065, and the route will be open year-round by 2100, according to a recent study published in Communications Earth & Environmental.
In these articles hyperventilating about how Arctic shipping will change the global economy, what is often left unmentioned is exactly what it means for the climate.
And it’s not a pretty picture. Simply put, there will be very little left in the global economy. Here’s what some cities look like as ships pass through the North Pole.
If we want to truly connect the Arctic to our economy, we must always consider an ice-free future.
I suspect many/most of us would look at those maps and recoil in horror. The authors of Project 2025, the most rabid supporters of capitalism, and those cheering for rapid transit through the North Pole see dollar signs.
Of course, it’s not just sea level rise; it’s the disruption of ocean circulation systems and weather patterns that will result in more severe weather, a collapse in global food production, and an inescapable loop of catastrophe.
The Arctic’s increasing connections to the global economy are already helping to accelerate the collapse. From France 24:
It’s a vicious cycle. Melting sea ice in the Arctic opens up new maritime routes, and the environmental impact caused by fossil fuel-burning ships accelerates global warming, causing more sea ice to melt.
A good example is black carbon. This is a soot-like substance emitted by gasoline and diesel engines that has not completely burned. Black carbon not only pollutes the atmosphere with particulate matter, but because of its ability to absorb light as heat, it warms the air and contributes to climate change.
When black carbon builds up on Arctic ice, it takes away its ability to reflect heat.
Sammy Buzzard, a polar scientist at Northumbria University’s Center for Polar Observation and Modeling, explains: “The accumulation of black color on white ice means that the ice absorbs more sunlight and more melting occurs.”
***
Elsewhere, similar geoeconomic battles are being waged over transport corridors that are likely to become useless, or at least unworthy of investment, due to climate change.
The Caspian Sea is now the focus of the Intermediate Corridor of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity. Geopolitical disputes over minerals in Central Asia, control of the Caucasus, and energy flows from the Caspian Sea region have heightened tensions and increased the risk of conflict.
Meanwhile, the Caspian Sea is dying. From SciTech Daily:
Water levels in the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water, are steadily declining as rising temperatures cause more evaporation than inflow. Even if global warming is kept below 2 degrees Celsius, scientists estimate that sea levels could fall by 5 to 10 meters. If temperatures rise further, the temperature difference could reach up to 21 meters by the end of the century.
In the northern Caspian Sea, the study shows that some settlements, ports and industrial facilities could become stranded tens or even hundreds of kilometers from new coastlines. An exposed, dry seabed could release industrial pollutants and salt-laden dust, posing a serious threat to human health, as has happened previously with the drying of the Aral Sea.
The findings also predict a worrying trajectory for the industry, with important ports in all bordering countries affected. The distance to the coast is expected to increase by more than 1 km in Baku (Azerbaijan), Anzali (Iran), and Aktau (Kazakhstan), and by 16 km and 115 km in Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan) and Lagan (Russia, future site), respectively.
Some cities around the Caspian Sea rely on desalination (removal of salts and minerals from seawater) to provide fresh water, and falling water levels are already impacting desalination projects in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
Water loss from the Caspian Sea can also affect the regional climate, leading to reduced rainfall and dry conditions across Central Asia, with indirect effects on agriculture.
Further east, the Great Game is unfolding again, water is becoming increasingly difficult to come by, and it won’t be long before Mackinder’s Heartland theory requires a Mad Max-style update. From IOP Science:
Ironically, the year 2025, designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Glacier Conservation, was the year in which the glacier mass balance in Central Asia was the most negative on record. Although not all individual glaciers experienced record declines, field observations revealed very strong and spatially consistent ice loss across the region. Regional simulations with a global glacier evolution model confirm these findings, showing that 64% of glaciers larger than 1 km2 (approximately 4000 glaciers) reached their most negative annual mass balance within the study period. Glaciers in Central Asia lost an estimated 30 ± 6 km3 (26 ± 9 Gt) of ice within a year. This corresponds to about 2% of the current total mass. Mass loss was strongest (-2% to -4%) in the western Tien Shan and western Pamirs, and more gradual (-1% to -1.5%) in the eastern Tien Shan and eastern Pamirs. According to the climate reanalysis, the extreme losses in 2025 are thought to be due to persistently above-average spring and summer temperatures, an unusually early snowmelt season, and a decrease in the frequency of snowfall from late spring to summer. Together, these conditions enhanced melt amplification feedbacks through accelerated snow loss, leading to early exposure of low-albedo ice surfaces. Glacier decline in 2025 is an alarming milestone for Central Asia’s glaciers and could become the new normal in the future.
To add a little more perspective, approximately 81 percent of Central Asia’s population depends on water originating from the Tien Shan Mountains and Pamir Plateau. And reduced supply increases the likelihood of internal instability and external conflict, destabilizing food systems, energy markets, and regional trade overall.
panama canal
This conundrum is at the heart of the battle between the United States and China for control of the world’s shipping infrastructure. Under pressure from Washington, Panama “regained control” of the Pacific port of Balboa and the Atlantic port of Cristobal after a court invalidated a contract that had allowed a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings to operate both ports since 1997. Beijing retaliated by seizing a Panamanian-flagged vessel, and Chinese shipping giant Cosco, which owns one of the world’s largest tanker fleets, suspended operations at two ports. The busiest port on the Panama Canal.
The battle is unfolding following an attempt by a coalition of BlackRock companies to buy dozens of ports from CK Hutchison, with support from Washington. Beijing rejected the deal over concerns that new ownership could increase prices or deny Chinese ships at the direction of the U.S. government, or allow the U.S. to militarize ports and use them to blockade China.
Whoever ultimately controls the Port of Panama, there may not be much to celebrate.
The Panama Canal Authority has already reduced the maximum navigable draft in anticipation of El Niño.
Under “normal” water level conditions, the canal can handle between 34 and 38 flows per day, but due to the last El Niño event, which was the driest on record in October 2023, water flows had to be reduced by about 30% from 2023 to 2024.
This El Niño phenomenon is expected to worsen further.
***
From where I sit, the blame for this race toward our own destruction lies almost exclusively with Washington and the multinational oligarchy it serves. Other countries have shown a willingness to cooperate and compromise, but if, for example, China emerges as a new hegemon, will it chart an effective degrowth path to combat climate change, or will it pursue growth at all costs?
Many apply the Thucydides trap to the US and China positions to explain the US elite’s determination that we all suffer in these Pyrrhic conflicts, but perhaps the term is being applied to the wrong battles.
When novelist and World War II veteran Herman Woeck popularized the Thucydides Trap to explain the Cold War in 1980, he said:
How do we escape this Thucydides trap that threatens to strangle, if not destroy, our world?
To my ears, that sounds as much like a climate catastrophe brewing as the threat of nuclear war. We are cursed to face both in a system that deems both risks acceptable (even unwelcome outcomes) in an effort to squeeze every last penny out of the planet and its inhabitants.
