Friday, March 29, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: It’s not as big as appears to be

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The fine line between fact and satire became increasingly blurred with news last week United States President Donald Trump wants to buy Greenland.
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Before dismissing it as the idea of a complete lunatic let’s give the matter the benefit of some research and thought.

Greenland is the world’s largest island because Australia and Antarctic are considered continental land masses.

It’s big. Three times bigger than Texas, for example.

But don’t be fooled by the many maps that make Greenland look massive. It is impossible to project a spherical earth onto a flat map without significant distortion.

Mercator maps keep lines of longitude and latitude straight but must expand the polar regions to make it possible. That makes Greenland look bigger than it is.

And for you flat earthers, it’s decent proof the Earth isn’t flat because drawing a flat earth onto a flat map would be a piece of cake. Sorry to burst your bubble. Or globe.

Greenland has been occupied by humans on and off for 4500 years, the first being Eskimo cultures who went there from Canada.

In 986 the Norsemen and Icelanders arrived, led by Erik the Red. He and his father were exiled from Norway for a bit of killing then Erik was exiled again from Iceland for killing Eyiolf the Foul. Who had it coming.

Erik was the first merchant of spin. Determined not to fall into the trap of calling your country Iceland or another turn-off for tourists and settlers he decided Greenland had a nice ring to it.

Hi son, Leif Erickson, was the first European to visit North America some 500 years before Columbus.

With the coming of the Little Ice Age, the Norse presence disappeared and was replaced by the Thules, who had migrated from Alaska around 1000.

Denmark later claimed ownership of Greenland. In 2009 Greenland gained self-rule with Denmark still in control of defence and foreign affairs.

The Americans occupied Greenland during World War II and, showing history does repeat, offered to buy the island from Denmark for US$100 million, an idea first floated by Secretary of State Harry Seward way back in 1867. But the Danes rejected the offer.

Seward had better luck buying Alaska off the Russians in 1867. The purchase was known as Seward’s Folly and Alaska as Siberia’s Siberia.

But he got it for a song at $7.2m or 2 cents/acre. No one knew about the gold, oil and gas, to name a few resources all that ice hid.

The States has shown a knack of picking up large tracts of land for bugger all. Earlier the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 off the French doubled the size of the US and included 15 current states and cost just $15m ($18/square mile).

The US has maintained several air bases on Greenland including Thule. In 1968 a B52 bomber crashed near there with four nuclear bombs on board. One has never been recovered.

So, Trump’s seemingly random offer to buy a continent sized island is not without precedent.

He might be a climate change denier but maybe he’s covering his bets and a bit of decent global warming could make Greenland the food basket of a fried US.

Certainly, owning a big chunk of the planet has strategic value and the Chinese and Russians have been getting friendly with the Greenlanders of late.

Or perhaps he is just throwing in a diversion to take the focus away from his self-inflicted crises. And why not? It’s worked well over the last three years.

He has just cancelled his upcoming visit to Denmark because Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said his offer to buy Greenland is absurd. He said she was being nasty.

Looking at a map of New Zealand there are a few islands we don’t use much that we could possible offer Trump.

Maquarie, Campbell, Auckland and The Pyramid are all islands that come to mind.

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