NATO is mulling a joint operation to defend the Arctic from future Russian and Chinese aggression and neutralize U.S. ambition. The hope is that the proposed Arctic Sentry could placate President Donald Trump, who has used the threat of Russian and Chinese ships to justify his desire to take control of Greenland. 

What did the commentators say?
The Arctic is the “gateway for Russia’s Northern Fleet to be able to threaten” NATO, said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper to the BBC. NATO must “double down” on security in the region. Cooper is calling for “coordinated exercises, operations and intelligence sharing,” covering “the high north,” including Greenland, Iceland, Finland and the increasingly busy shipping lanes. 

Although the waters around Greenland “aren’t full of Russian and Chinese ships right now,” that could “change as Arctic ice melts and new sea lanes open up,” said Radio Free Europe. But there are “many practical obstacles.” NATO has only about 40 ice-breaker vessels in total — fewer than Russia. Hundreds of such ships would be needed to “cover such a vast area.” And aside from in Nordic countries and Canada, few Nato troops have experience of operating in “harsh Arctic conditions.” 

NATO’s Baltic Sentry and Eastern Sentry operations were “formulated to tackle specific threats,” but in the case of Greenland, the goals are “not as clear-cut,” said The Telegraph. A mass deployment would also “suck vast resources away from other priorities,” such as a potential peacekeeping force in Ukraine or protecting NATO’s eastern flank from Russia. It would “simply be seen as a costly public relations project” designed to placate Trump. 

What next?
One potential Arctic Sentry scenario could be Europeans “handling air and sea surveillance” of what’s known as the GIUK gap — the area between Greenland and Ireland / the U.K. — while the U.S. “increases its troop presence in Greenland,” said Radio Free Europe. But the mission will most likely “focus on the intelligence aspect of security,” which is seen as a “vital way of securing the Arctic,” said The Telegraph.

The planet has incurred a watery debt. Society is using far more water than is ecologically sustainable, leading us to what’s called water bankruptcy. The problem is only going to worsen with climate change, population growth and technological expansion that continuously increase water demand. And while some water sources can still be protected, many places have already reached a point of no return.

What’s happening?
We are using up water sources faster than they can be replenished, essentially putting us in water debt. In “many basins and aquifers, long-term water use has exceeded renewable inflows and safe depletion limits,” said a U.N. report. Other water sources, including rivers, lakes, wetlands, soils and glaciers, have been “damaged beyond realistic prospects of full recovery.”

Like financial bankruptcy, water bankruptcy happens gradually. We “pull a little more groundwater during dry years. We use bigger pumps and deeper wells. We transfer water from one basin to another,” said Kaveh Madani, the author of the report, at The Conversation. After that, the costs begin to pile up. “Lakes shrink year after year. Wells need to go deeper. Rivers that once flowed year-round turn seasonal.” And more cities are experiencing Day Zero events in which their municipal water systems are unable to provide for the entire population.

Before using the word “bankruptcy,” scientists used “water stress” or “water crisis,” both of which imply the possibility of recovery. But if you “keep calling this situation a crisis, you are implying that it’s temporary,” said Madani to CNN. By acknowledging water bankruptcy, we acknowledge a “need to adapt to a new reality.”

What does the future look like?
More than 2 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water, said the U.N. And climate change is only exacerbating the problem by “reducing precipitation in many areas of the world,” said Madani. Global warming also “increases the water demand of crops and the need for electricity to pump more water” and “melts glaciers that store fresh water.” 

Even in places that do receive adequate rainfall, “more water is being sucked up by data centers or polluted by industry, sewage, fertilizers or manure,” said New Scientist. The expansion of AI is a particular risk to water sources as data centers can “consume up to 5 million gallons per day,” said the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.

A tourist enjoys the winter scenery on a frozen lake at the foot of Qiongmu Gangga Mountain in Lhasa, China. The pristine natural spectacle appears each winter, with blue ice several meters thick and views of the 7,000-meter snow-capped peak.
Li Lin / China News Service / VCG / Getty Images

Horror television has swung and missed much more often than it has connected — we’re looking at you, “Welcome to Derry.” But when a great concept meets a skilled showrunner, the results can be magnetic, as with these outstanding spooky series.

‘Les Revenants’ (2012-15)
The eerie, atmospheric “Les Revenants” has been frequently imitated, including an American remake, and raises uncomfortable questions about what we might be willing to tolerate to be reunited with lost loved ones. A show about “how death, while awful, is also a baseline fact of life,” it’s also an “expertly suspenseful thriller,” said James Poniewozik at Time. (Prime)

‘The Haunting of Hill House’ (2018)
This series (pictured above) is one of the jewels in showrunner Mike Flanagan’s run of horror smashes for Netflix. An adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s pioneering 1959 gothic horror novel, it’s the “first great horror TV show ever,” because it “isn’t just scary but a seriously well-structured and well-considered story about the persistent insidiousness of trauma,” said Tom Philip at GQ. (Netflix)

‘Evil’ (2019-24)
Part of what makes “Evil” so refreshing is its network-style, case-of-the-week structure that’s a throwback to an earlier era of television that doesn’t sacrifice modern quality or ingenuity. A “rare show that operates with style and intelligence on every level” across its four seasons, it achieves a “level of profundity, even genuine intellectual insight, that most shows don’t even try for,” said Philip Maciak at The New Republic. (Paramount+)