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Greenland's Climate Impact & Economic Shift

Greenland is experiencing dramatic changes due to climate change. The warming climate is causing Greenland's glaciers and ice sheets to melt at increasing rates, raising global sea levels. This melting ice is opening opportunities for new industries like oil drilling, but also creating challenges for existing industries like fishing and concerns for traditional lifestyles. Farmers are seeing longer growing seasons but also increased risks of drought that threaten food production. As the climate changes rapidly, Greenlanders are left to adapt their society and way of life to a dramatically transforming environment.

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Daisy Jedh
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323 views2 pages

Greenland's Climate Impact & Economic Shift

Greenland is experiencing dramatic changes due to climate change. The warming climate is causing Greenland's glaciers and ice sheets to melt at increasing rates, raising global sea levels. This melting ice is opening opportunities for new industries like oil drilling, but also creating challenges for existing industries like fishing and concerns for traditional lifestyles. Farmers are seeing longer growing seasons but also increased risks of drought that threaten food production. As the climate changes rapidly, Greenlanders are left to adapt their society and way of life to a dramatically transforming environment.

Uploaded by

Daisy Jedh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Pre-Intermediate Student’s Book

Life
12c Page 147 READING TEXT

Changing Greenland
Greenland is the largest island in the world but has a small population of 56,000.
Many of these ‘Greenlanders’ live close to the coastline because a large part of the
country is covered with ice and glaciers. More than a quarter of all the people live
in the capital, Nuuk. Since the 1960s, the country has had economic difficulties and
social problems. Its traditional industry – and its biggest – is fishing but the country
still imports much more than it exports. Now, however, life is about to change
dramatically for many Greenlanders – and all because of the weather.

Most scientists agree that the world’s climate is getting warmer and you can already
see the difference in Greenland. For example, small icebergs – about the size of city
buses – are floating near to the coast. They have broken off from much larger areas
of ice further out in the ocean because of the change in temperature. Furthermore,
the huge sheet of ice which covers Greenland is shrinking by about 75 cubic
kilometres each year. If all of Greenland’s ice melted, sea levels across the world
would rise by 7.5 metres.

One industry that is benefiting from the melting ice is the oil industry. Nowadays,
the sea around the west coast of Greenland has no ice for six months of the year.
This means oil companies can explore this area. They plan to drill for oil in the next
few years. Greenlanders have mixed feelings about this modern development. The
country’s prime minister, Kuupik Kleist, explains the dilemma: ‘The Arctic people
are the ones most exposed to climate change but we need a strong economy and we
have to utilise the opportunities that oil could bring us … we don’t have any other
natural resources for the time being that hold as much potential as oil.’

Farming will also change. The growing season is longer with spring arriving earlier
and longer summers. On the one hand, if the country produced more of its own
food, it wouldn’t need to import so much. On the other hand, some farmers are
worried. They think the drier summers might create new problems. For example,
Life last year, it was so dry, farmers produced half the normal amount
of food. I spent my last night in the town of Qaqortoq with farming
families at their annual celebration before the summer begins.
Aſter dinner, everyone started singing this traditional song. The
song is about the importance of summer in a place where, in the past, the winters
were long and the summers were short. As nature and the weather changes in
Greenland, I wondered if they would still sing this song in a hundred years’ time.
They might not.

Summer, summer,

how wonderful

How incredibly

good.

The frost is gone,

The frost is gone …

dilemma (n) /dɪˈlemə/ problem or difficult choice


iceberg (n) /ˈaɪsbɜːg/ large piece of ice in the sea with a small part of
it above the water

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