Even though it is
impossible for anyone to stay in Antarctica
permanently, it is owned by many other countries, in other words, it is distributed into many different territories. It is owned by 9 countries, and a part of it is even unclaimed. Look at the diagram below to see which part if the continent is claimed by which country.
The SouthWest part of Antarctica is still unclaimed, most likely because it is almost completely barren and has just about no wildlife. Antarctica has no government and no indigenous population. Nonetheless, many countries want a claim over it because scientists think there is lots of oil underneath the ice. 200 billion barrels of oil. That's more oil in that continent than any other place on Earth. Antarctica's oil is extremely expensive to extract, however, a few decades later, the whole Earth could be desperate for it. We are using up fossil fuels to quickly to replace them and soon we will have none left, so we are going to need Antarctica at that time. Many countries are fighting for that little piece of unclaimed Antarctica, so they all act like they claim it. That is one way Antarctica is beneficial to humans, it provides oil. Go to the link below for more information on this topic.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27910375
Sources: bbc.com, wikipedia.org, antarctica.gov.au
No comments:
Post a Comment