Chasing Icebergs: How Frozen Freshwater Can Save the Planet

This entertaining report by Birkhold (Characters Before Copyright), an Ohio State University humanities professor, dives into the contentious battle over harvesting icebergs. Water shortages driven by climate change could lead to a “Cold Rush” for icebergs, Birkhold contends, anticipating the legal, political, and cultural considerations that might accompany efforts to source fresh water from icebergs. The author details entrepreneurs’ techniques for harvesting icebergs, which include using a barge-mounted crane to scoop up ice, rounding up small chunks of ice in motorboats, or encircling an iceberg with high-strength rope (“lassoing”) for towing. Colorful profiles introduce the characters involved; there’s Ed Kean, one of the “cowboys” who wrangles icebergs along Canada’s “Iceberg Alley,” and Kistaaraq Abelsen, an Indigenous Greenlander who is bemused yet wary of the growing efforts to commodify and export the ice that the country’s residents treat as a public resource. Spirited explorations of the conflicting interests of entrepreneurs, glaciologists, engineers, and Indigenous people of the subarctic regions provide a far-ranging view of the challenges and possibilities involved in harvesting icebergs. This is a thought-provoking take on the hard decisions that will have to be faced in a climate-ravaged future. (Feb.)