Melting Arctic ice opens shorter shipping routes, stokes worries about climate change-induced destruction

Shipping activity has surged in the Arctic in the last decade. With that rise comes a new environmental threat. More ships in the Arctic mean more fossil fuel emissions, and more pollution means more warming read more The village of Kaktovik is seen at the edge of Barter Island in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, near Kaktovik, Alaska. AP Four years ago, a Russian gas tanker, Christophe de Margerie, travelled from eastern China through the Bering Sea before docking at a remote Arctic port in Siberia. For the first time a commercial vessel had crossed the frozen Arctic Ocean in…