ABSTRACT
The resource rush in the Arctic is not just one more case where extraction volumes and projects have increased, but has unique, yet globally important qualities. There are myriad opportunities to draw broader theoretical and empirical understandings on the phenomena included and related to global land grabbing due to the unique dynamics in the Arctic; including the Arctic’s natural conditions, the changes in Northern polities, the particularity of international relations, and the rapidly changing interrelations between climate, ecological crises, and ecological collapses. Permafrost melting is making extraction of minerals and fossil fuels much more difficult, risky, and even impossible, as extractive infrastructures that have been built with great sunk costs are deteriorating and spreading pollution into the Arctic areas. The rapidly advancing climate catastrophe can now be already observed, firsthand, in the Arctic. This can give insights into what kinds of dynamics can be expected globally. Rapid collapses of extractive infrastructures caused by climate catastrophes are ever more likely to dampen the forecasts for expanding resource frontiers. This chapter explores these transformations in and through the Arctic in the interface of climate crises, ecological collapses, resource extraction and global land grabbing.
