North Pole Flag

     Santa Claus has a flag now. Thanks to the "Flag for the Future" competition jointly sponsored by the Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and Greenpeace's "Save the Arctic," the North Pole, which is surrounded by high seas that no country owns, has a new flag.

     British designer, Dame Vivienne Westwood, on March 17, 2013, declared the winner of the "Flag for the Future" competition a pennant-shaped flag designed by 13-year-old Sarah Bartrisyia from Malaysia. On a white background, Ms. Bartrisyia used a circle of seven multicolored doves around Arctic starflowers to symbolize peace, hope, and global community.

     The winning design will be reproduced on a titanium flag and stuck in the Arctic ice alongside a time capsule containing a Greenpeace petition signed by those who want to preserve the Arctic from overfishing and oil drilling. Drilling noise and vibrations also could have an impact on fish behavior, while an oil spill would be difficult to contain in ice-clogged waters. When a pipeline ruptured off Santa Barbara's California coast on May 19, 2015, the 105,000 gallon oil spill showed what can happen when drilling occurs anywhere. To dramatize the under-reported perils of drilling for oil in the Arctic, six Greenpeace volunteers climbed aboard Shell's gigantic oil rig, Polar Pioneer, in April, 2015 as it was en route through the Pacific Ocean to Alaska. June, 2015 saw Greenpeace volunteers in their kayaks blocking the Shell rig from leaving port in Seattle. Later, they hung from a bridge to dramatize the need to block the rig's progress to the Arctic. For more about the need to protect the Arctic and to sign a petition asking world leaders to ban oil drilling and industrial fishing in Arctic waters, go to savethearctic.org.

     In London, you can purchase a "Save the Arctic" T-shirt designed by Vivienne Westwood at her World's End Shop at 430 Kings Road. The cost is 35 British pounds.

      BP already operates in Alaska's offshore Arctic. Operating with Rosneft, the state-owned Russian energy company with the world's highest oil output, BP has a controlling interest in British-Russian TNK-BP and is set to launch a series of big projects in Russia's Arctic. As a result of Russia's actions in Ukraine in March and April, 2014, however, BP stockholders and Rosneft were concerned about the company's Russian investments until BP signed a major shale deal with Rosneft in May, 2014. In mid-2018, BP also would purchase the US shale assets of BHP for $10.5 billion.

     Concern about Rosneft's profits was justified in 2014, when the drop in oil prices and the value of the ruble caused fourth quarter losses. By August, 2018, however, a barrel of crude was selling in the mid $60s and Rosnett''s quarterly net profit reached $3.7 billion. When a BP oil spill sent 170 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the company withdrew its bid for an exploration license to drill around Danish-owned Greenland. In 2014, BP renewed its application and, along with Statoil and other firms, won an exploration license there.  A Chinese group is bidding for a license to drill for oil off of neighboring Iceland. Although the remote Chukchi Sea area of the Arctic experiences extreme weather conditions and lacks preparation to deal with an oil spill that would endanger wild life and indigenous communities, in 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior sold oil and gas leases there.

     The 8-nation intergovernmental Arctic Council, that includes Russia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States, has failed to agree on regulations that would govern oil and gas exploration in the Arctic region. Relying on a 1953 law that allows U.S. presidents to take executive action to prevent leasing of unleased lands in the federally administered Outer Continental Shelf, President Obama, in December, 2016, placed an indefinite ban on oil and gas leases in the Alaskan Beaufort and Chukchi areas of U.S. Arctic waters. Canada took similar actions. Both counties plan to identify shipping lanes through their protected areas, where harsh conditions would hamper cleaning up oil spills.

      The Arctic region is believed to hold 30% of undiscovered gas deposits and 13% of undiscovered oil reserves. Ice melt in the area is opening a larger region for gas and oil exploration and, consequently, a larger area for border disputes and conflicting claims of sovereignty. By submarine, Russia planted a flag 2.5 miles beneath the North Pole in 2007, and according to TIME magazine (Aug. 17, 2015), the country submitted a formal claim to the United Nations for 463,000 square miles around the pole on Aug. 4, 2015. On April 30, 2017, NBC's Evening News showed Russian military men and armor training in the Arctic.  Canada and Denmark (based on its Greenland island territory) have staked claims to sovereignty on territory including the North Pole by arguing that the Lomonosov Ridge of the continental shelf extends under the pole from their countries. A U.N. panel is expected to decide the disputes.

     For information about other world flags, see my earlier blog post, "A Salute to Flags."