Global Climate Change: As Arctic Melts, Bering Strait Is Next Panama Canal

[amborin]

Melting Arctic: Bering Strait is the next Panama Canal

"As Arctic sea ice melts at unprecedented rates, opening new shipping routes, it is time for Alaskans to demand a seat at the table for planning coastal infrastructure. It is no longer a question of if but when the increasing marine traffic will affect our lives. … The world’s ships are already sailing past Western and Northern Alaska. On the western coast, cargo ship traffic is accelerating. Last fall, two container ships made it north through the Bering Strait, turned left at the top of Russia and continued on to northern Europe, escorted by Russian icebreakers.

Coast Guard experts today predict that in my lifetime, the volume of shipping passing through or near Dutch Harbor will be as large as it is in Singapore today. Yet we haven’t even decided where a single U.S. deepwater port will be located in Western Alaska, let alone started to plan for its construction. … The U.S. Department of Defense is about to launch a two-year process to designate the best location for Alaska’s Bering Sea deepwater port."

http://www.longshoreshippingnews.com/

[pscot]

1. dogs fighting over

what's left of the feast.

[tom_paine]

3. The Fable of Phaemon's Dog

Phaemon the philosopher had a little dog whom he had trained to go to the butcher every bring back a lump of meat in a basket. This virtuous creature, who would never dare to touch a scrap until Phaemon gave it permission, was one day set upon by a pack of mongrels who snatched the basket from its mouth and began to tear the meat to pieces and bolt it greedily down.

Phaemon, watching from an upper window, saw the dog deliberate for a moment just what to do. It was clearly no use trying to rescue the meat from the other dogs: they wouild kill it for its pains. So it rushed in among them and itself ate as much of the meat as it could get hold of. In fact it ate more than any of the other dogs, because it was both braver and cleverer.

– from Claudius the God, by Robert Graves, 1935

[HillbillyBob]

2. I know there are deep water ports at Seattle

and Victora Island BC and Vancouver BC, but never really thought about deep wate ports in Alaska.
I would think they had deep water access since the tankers and cruise ships stop there. I take it you are speaking of fueling and cargo ?
To add:

http://arctic.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2009/12/09/senator-murkowski-introduces-bill-on-alaskan-deep-water-port/

"Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has introduced a bill into the Senate Armed Forces Committee proposing to study the feasibility of creating a deep water sea port in the Arctic. The port, which as a deep water port would be able to receive Panamax ships, would “protect and advance strategic United States interests within the evolving and ever more important region.” Interestingly, the so-called Arctic Deep Water Sea Port Act (S. 2849) would enable the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to conduct the report, demonstrating that the port is more an issue of national security rather than economics. The report would take two years and would study the best places to locate such a port and what strategic value such a port would have."
Snip