Commodifying nature: The price of ice
September 10, 2013 6 min. read

A graduate student recently interviewed me for his dissertation on Russia, the Arctic, oil and gas. During the interview, he asked me what I believed was the single most important Arctic resource. The answer could have been oil, gas, minerals, fisheries, or any other number of commodities. I responded that oil and gas are probably […]

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Iron ore and fiber optics in the works for Nunavut
September 26, 2012 9 min. read

Nunavut, Canada is home to a wealth of mineral resources, yet it suffers from a dearth of high-speed internet. New developments in both of those areas could bring big changes to the territory. First, after four years of assessment and analysis, the Nunavut Impact Review Board (NIRB) approved the Mary River iron mine on Baffin Island, in […]

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Deal of the Century: Will Chinese Investment Save Congo?
July 18, 2012 9 min. read

by Nathan William Meyer   Twenty-four trillion dollars.  It is a number that beggars the imagination, almost 40% of the global economy, and it is buried in one of the world’s poorest and most violent countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Failed state, rape capital of the world, humanitarian catastrophe – the Congo personifies all […]

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Unrest in Egypt Unsettles Global Markets
January 31, 2011 4 min. read

Investors have largely shrugged off several of these unexpected developments recently, including the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, but the situation in Egypt has the potential to cause more widespread uncertainty in Global Markets, especially if oil and other commodities keep surging or the unrest spreads to more countries in the Middle East.

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Reality Check
September 10, 2009 5 min. read

I like it when things line up. Syzygy, they call it. What do Mongolia, Iraq, and Venezuela have in common? (Hint: it’s not oil.) It’s that they have all recently bumped into the sharp edge of resource reality. There is something about the discovery of  valuable resources that make people and countries take leave of […]

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