Point Hope, Alaska is an extremely remote town in the United States. It is connected to the mainland by only one unpaved path and is surrounded by icy seas on all three other sides. Basic necessities like milk and bread are delivered by air and gas is brought in by barge during the summer. This town is a very traditional community of Inupiaq native Alaskans who are very in touch with nature and have not had access to high speed internet and so have not been disconnected from the outside world. Recently, the surrounding Arctic ice of Point Hope has started melting and receding. This has opened new underwater passageways for high-speed internet cables that Quintillion, a fund administration company, is taking advantage of to build a faster digital link between London and Tokyo. Point Hope is one of the places along this route so these Inupiaq native Alaskans will now have access to broadband speed internet.

While it is great that these people who have been long disconnected from the outside world will have means of communicating with the world, the receding Arctic ice has negative implications for the environment. The rising waters affect the sea mammals of the community and the seafood they rely on for sustenance. While these rising waters will help people communicate faster over great distances, this global warming will disrupt local ecology. Melting ice caps also change the dynamics of the planet’s temperatures, changing the global distribution of rain and causing drought.

Kang, Cecilia. “Melting Arctic Ice Makes High-Speed Internet a Reality in a Remote Town.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 2 Dec. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/technology/from-the-arctics-melting-ice-an-unexpected-digital-hub.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate&action=click&contentCollection=climate®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=13&pgtype=sectionfront.