Introduction

The quotation from Charles Dickens' book may best describe the situation of the Arctic today. On the one hand, it has become a crossroads of international politics and the center of attention for the whole world, but on the other, the region is undergoing such profound changes and at such an alarming rate that fairly soon it may be altered forever and beyond repair. It is good to be famous, but it is possibly better to be prominent for all the right reasons.

It may well be true that the Arctic is still a very mythical region, but it has recently certainly come to the forefront of world affairs. The area is going through a very important if not dramatic transformation due to climate changes which always heralded some change of direction for humanity. It is the climate indeed that is the most characteristic feature of the Arctic. The impending global warming, in a way, has brought globalization to the Arctic, which does not serve well the people living there and drastically changed the environment. The region has become famous because of the rapidly changing weather patterns. The Arctic has also served another purpose: it has brought to humanity the awareness of interconnectedness of everything that is occurring on our planet. Changing weather also made other issues very visible to the global community and especially to those in the region or close to it. Solving them seems to require a concerted effort of all interested parties, or possibly the whole world, and it remains to be seen if the damage can be mitigated or reversed at all. The problems include a plethora of concerns which will be discussed throughout this book.