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We Are Contaminating Our Oceans in the Name of Progress

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The demands of the industrial nations and newly-industrializing emerging economies, particularly China and India, for energy and mineral resources led to an accumulation of quantities of goods being transported from far-distant countries via seas. The use of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) is in consideration for Russia when negotiating with Korean shippers for energy shipments. Beijing officials believe that by the end of the decade five to fifteen percent of their country’s international trade, mainly container traffic, will use the NSR (Blank, 2014). With plans to expand polar research, Beijing has strived to create better policies due to the change in climate. Moreover, according to an article last May, “Singapore’s ‘Arctic diplomacy’ is driven primarily by an ambition to exploit an emerging market niche in which it sees itself as a technological and expertise leader” (Straits Times, 2013). However, the pursuit for the Arctic’s rich resources and convenient location has caused rivalries in trade, such as that between India and China. Nonetheless, tensions between countries will continue to progress if not stabilized by national security or some sort of negotiation between these countries. Markets are increasingly becoming globalized, hence escalating shipping volumes. Trade between countries without a common border is carried mainly overseas. Due to the spectacular rise of trade vis-à-vis economic growth, world trade since the 1950s has more than trebled to 45 per cent of

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