An eye-opening look at the winners and losers in the high-stakes story of Arctic transformation, from nations to natives to animals to the very landscape itselfThe Arctic—like the canary in the coal mine—has reacted more quickly and dramatically to global warming than many had anticipated. Hundreds of scientists are urgently trying to predict just how the Arctic will change and how those changes will in turn affect the rest of the planet. But plenty of other people, driven by profit rather than data, are interested as well. The riches of the world's last virgin territory have spurred the reawakening of old geopolitical rivalries. The United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, and the Danish territory of Greenland all control areas around the Arctic Ocean. We face a new era of oil rigs and drill ships, of tankers taking shortcuts from Yokohama to Rotterdam, as well as a potential fight over the Arctic's treasures...

It has been twenty-four years since the Peak Oil, and fourteen – since the world-wide economic collapse (and the Peak Everything.) No, there are no nuclear fall-outs and no zombies on the streets! The Civilization lives on. But: it is a very strange new world. In some ways – similar, and in some ways – totally different from our own. What does the future hold for us?