What Does the Arctic’s Unstable Past Say about a Sustainable Future?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript is a well-written and interesting short essay regarding the sustainability of the Arctic.

I recommend the publication as is (a rare case in my review history).

Author Response

Thank you for your kind and encouraging comments!

Reviewer 2 Report

What, precisely, is the contribution that the article is making? It is not clear.

"What can the Arctic’s unstable past tell us about a sustainable future?" - which past (or duration) is being referred to here? Holocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene etc. Which future: short term, long term?

 

Therein, the article must be improved by greater critical rigour – especially by interrogating notions of 'sustainability' and 'ecology' viz-a-viz the self-evident nature that the climate crisis has shown up how completely unsustainable all aspects of any industrial society are. Earth is technically in a 'no-analogue state' i.e. there is literally no analogue the rate and scale of biophysical change currently occurring. Therefore, any futures have literally no analogue with past states of the earth system.

The author fails to acknowledge this, as demonstrated in statements such as "The Arctic is today the home of intact ecosystems"

 

A disproportionate amount of the article is spent on recounting very prosaic 'facts-and-figures' history (A happened in year B, then C happened in year D and so on). And, conversely, far too little is spent extrapolating on how and why this reconstruction of the past is relevant to plausible futures.

 

Some of the statements are also highly misleading, such as "Major financial companies worldwide are reducing their investments in fossil fuels, threatening Arctic oil and gas production." Some companies are reducing fossil fuel investments, but, overall, investment is increasing. Also, such language is inflammatory: "threating....production." Whereas, what is being threatened is the livelihoods of the more-than-human world which are detrimentally affected by the proximal and distal causes of fossil fuel combustion. This latter point barely gets a mention, yet it should feature prominently in the article. Yet, the author makes spurious arguments that have no fidelity to the baked-in climatic change from historical emissions: "As long as the Arctic is sparsely populated and subject to modest levels of human activity, these visions can co- exist to at least some degree." This is simply not true - existing carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere has already irreversibly destabilised the entire Arctic (where is the mention of melting permafrost and methane emissions?).

 

The article is very short, which means that is reads as being overly-compressed. For instance: "Trade goods, traders, and explorers gradually made their way to the Arctic"  - no time period is even offered for when this occurred.

 

It is not a revelatory analysis of the topic, and overall, the article will require substantial revisions and rewriting in order to attend to the above points.

Author Response

I am sorry that this reviewer finds little of value in my essay. Apparently the reviewer would like an essay about the perils that climate change poses in the Arctic, which is not what my essay is about. Four other reviewers found the original submission to have value, with three of them essentially recommending publication as-is. I will therefore follow the guidance of the other reviewers in making minor changes to improve the manuscript. In doing so, I will also adopt some of the suggestions made in this review that are relevant to my actual essay and will also make clearer what my essay is and is not about.

The reviewer's statement that we are in a "no-analogue state" suggests that we have nothing to learn from history, and thus that the entire premise of my essay is fatally flawed. I categorically reject this notion. The Arctic will continue to exist in one form or another, perhaps a very different form than we are used to today. But humans will still make decisions about the region, and those decisions will have big effects on what happens to ecosystems and cultures there. An ice-free Arctic could be a relatively productive area with cultures that have adapted to new conditions, or it could be a post-industrial wasteland. What humans have done elsewhere in the world and in the Arctic to date can tell us what may happen depending on our choices, and ideally can help us make better choices than we have in the past and elsewhere. That is my point, but apparently not one the reviewer is interested in.

Reviewer 3 Report

I would like to congratulate the author for the effort and scope of the article. It presents an interesting topic and has high readability and interest to readers. Regarding the manuscript, the current form accepted for publication 

Author Response

Thank you for your kind and encouraging comments!

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

Your paper looks intresting. It is logic and uses a sufficient number of sources. It was interesting for me to read this essay. I am sure it will be of interest to the readers of the journal - a good chronology and the author's opinion on the current topic of sustainability in the Arctic. 

I just have a remark:

Please, clarift the statement "An alternative path is to focus on principles rather than specific policies or actions". Line 21

 

Author Response

Thank you for your kind words. I have revised the sentence you mention (at line 214) to say:

"An alternative path is to focus on basic principles, specifically a commitment to living equitably within the social and ecological bounds of the Arctic, from which specific policies and actions can be developed and adjusted as needed. "

I hope this is clearer.

Reviewer 5 Report

This essay provides an overview over eventful Arctic history, focusing on colonial history in North America, in order to argue that Arctic sustainability cannot be achieved by devising fixed pathways. Instead the “unstable” past suggests a management for the future that hinges on openness and flexibility to deal with uncertain transformations. The short and poignant essay is well written and resonates with recent work that emphasizes the “disequilibrium” (Veldhuis, D. et al. (2019) ‘Arctic Disequilibrium: Shifting Human-Environmental Systems’, Cross-Cultural Research, 53(3), pp. 243–251. doi: 10.1177/1069397118815132.) or “volatility” (Krause, Franz (2021) ‘Economy, identity and hydrology: toward a holistic approach to intersecting volatilities in the Mackenzie Delta, Canada.’ In: Krause, Franz and Harris, Mark (eds) Delta Life: Exploring Dynamic Environments Where Rivers Meet the Sea. Oxford: Berghahn.) of Arctic social and ecological life.

The notion of “dependence” seems crucial for the argument and should be elaborated a little: if many of the historic shifts in the Arctic revolved around creating dependencies in the region and among its inhabitants, as the author clearly lays out, what does that imply for its prospects towards a flexible and open future? How does this dependence jar with the insight that “shaping tomorrow’s Arctic should be re-framed as creating the conditions that will allow tomorrow’s Arctic the greatest scope for shaping itself” and what ways are there to overcome this contradiction? Furthermore, the implications of this recommendation for could be specified more clearly: how can the Arctic remain flexible on its own terms and within its “social and ecological bounds” (l. 215) without falling into the trap of neoliberalization?

The major issue with this text, in the reading of this reviewer, is the perspective. On the one hand, it is unclear whose perspective the author takes. Statements like “we as a society” (l.38) are problematically undifferentiated, and an invocation of “those with an interest in the Arctic will have to make choices about which pathways to follow” (l.119-20) has a neocolonial ring to it which suggests that, on the other hand, this is once more an account of the Arctic and its destiny in terms of settler ideas, experiences and practices. This suggestion is further strengthened on page 2, lines 47-55, which make some debatable statements about precolonial life in the Arctic and the role of Indigenous lifeways in forging a sustainable future. For instance, many Indigenous scholars would likely disagree with the claim that precolonial ways of life would not provide valuable insights for viable futures (e.g. Whyte, Kyle 2018. ‘Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice’. Environment and Society 9 (1): 125–44. https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2018.090109.)  This reviewer strongly encourages the author to make their own perspective more explicit and to engage with voices of Arctic Indigenous scholars and activists on the region’s past and future.  

And, finally, a tiny remark: on page 3, line 144, it is unclear what “expectations” means here. Please elaborate or rephrase.

Thanks for this opportunity. This essay should definitely be published once the questions raised above have been addressed.

Author Response

Thank you for your careful reading of the manuscript and your constructive comments.

1. Regarding the idea of dependence, I appreciate the reviewer's thoughtful discussion. This is exactly the kind of reaction I am hoping for, that the essay will make readers think in ways like this. I have added a sentence to the final section to say:

"A long-term outlook could help counterbalance the appeal of the quick payoff and support investments that promote economic diversification and a greater degree of self-sufficiency."

I realize that does not address the various points the reviewer makes about neoliberalization and such, but a detailed economic assessment and recommendations are beyond the scope of the essay. My aim is mainly to convince readers to look carefully at Arctic history as they think about the Arctic future. I cannot pretend to have the answers, nor would it be my place to propose that I know what the Arctic and its peoples should do. But I very much hope that other readers will approach my essay as thoughtfully as this reviewer has done.

2. Good point about perspective and voice. I have removed all first-person-plural pronouns from the essay, including the title, and I have added a sentence to the Introduction to state my perspective:

"I write as a scientist of European descent who has worked in the Arctic for all of my professional career, though of course I cannot and do not claim to speak from an Arctic, much less an Arctic Indigenous, perspective."

3. Regarding the statement about those with an interest in the Arctic making choices, I agree that it was poorly phrased. I haven changed it to read:

"Sooner or later, those with an interest in the Arctic will have to determine who should have a say in the region's future and those making the choices will have to decide which pathways to follow and which to abandon."

I realize this still leaves open the possibility of settlers and outsiders making the decisions, but that unfortunately remains a distinct (and, alas, perhaps likely) possibility.

4. Regarding the description of pre-contact life in the Arctic, my statement was intended to refer only to material ways of life. I have heard many Arctic Indigenous peoples state very clearly that they have no interest in returning to a pre-industrial way of life. That said, I agree that my phrasing was dismissive of much more. I have thus modified the sentence, with the addition IN CAPS:

"Although many of the early peoples doubtless found their lives satisfying and meaningful, and their deep-rooted respect for nature continues in Indigenous worldviews [12] AND OFFERS MUCH IN THE WAY OF VALUES AND EXPERIENCES TO GUIDE THE FUTURE [13], their material ways of life are not a particularly useful model for tomorrow’s Arctic."

The new reference 13 is to a recent piece by Eduard Zdor (Chukchi) and myself about tradition, past, present, and future in the Arctic.

5. With regard to line 144, thank you for pointing out the lack of clarity. I have added an explanation (IN CAPS) to that sentence, as follows:

"Cumulatively, the course is all too well known from other parts of the world, as lowered expectations FOR WHAT CONSTITUTES A HEALTHY AND PRODUCTIVE ECOSYSTEM lead to altered local cultures and impoverished ecosystems."