Modern Issues Canada is trying to figure out how to best develop its natural resources But not all developed because of harsh climate Gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, iron ore, uranium, oil, natural gas, etc. A rich supply of natural resources is also believed to lie under the region, though methods of access are difficult Keystone pipeline On November 10, 2011 four days after twelve thousand people encircled the White House, the culmination of months of protests, President Obama announced "the decision on the pipeline permit would be delayed until at least 2013, pending further environmental review".[74] TransCanada stated they have been in conversation with the U.S. Department of State (DOS) and fourteen different routes were being studied, including eight impacting Nebraska. They included one potential alternative route in Nebraska that would have avoided the entire Sandhills region and Ogallala aquifer and six alternatives that would have reduced pipeline mileage crossing the Sandhills or the aquifer.[24]

The Greenland ice sheet has contributed more than any other ice mass to sea-level rise over the past two decades. It accounts for an increase in average levels around the world of 0.5mm per year, out of a total increase of 3.2mm per year. If completely melted, the ice sheet has the potential to raise global sea level by more than seven meters. The world is getting warmer. Whether the cause is human activity or natural variability—and the preponderance of evidence says it’s humans—thermometer readings all around the world have risen steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. (Click on dates above to step through the decades.) According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and shown in this series of maps, the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8°Celsius (1.4°Fahrenheit) since 1880. Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20°C per decade. But why should we care about one degree of warming? After all, the temperature fluctuates by many degrees every day where we live. The global temperature record represents an average over the entire surface of the planet. The temperatures we experience locally and in short periods can fluctuate significantly due to predictable cyclical events (night and day, summer and winter) and hard-to-predict wind and precipitation patterns. But the global temperature mainly depends on how much energy the planet receives from the Sun and how much it radiates back into space—quantities that change very little. The amount of energy radiated by the Earth depends significantly on the chemical composition of the atmosphere, particularly the amount of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all the oceans, atmosphere, and land by that much. In the past, a one- to two-degree drop was all it took to plunge the Earth into the Little Ice Age. A five-degree drop was enough to bury a large part of North America under a towering mass of ice 20,000 years ago. The largest issue for Greenland is the effect of global warming on its shrinking ice sheet

If completely melted, the ice sheet could raise the global sea level by more than seven meters