For many, the polar regions still represent the last places where human influence has not had an impact. These are the last frontiers where you can find wilderness not cursed by human touch. For those who know these regions, and have visited them, however, this characterization is far from the reality. Even if these are still relatively clean environments, anthropogenic pollution, whether in the form of persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, or, most importantly, climate change, reaches both polar regions. Most of the environmental governance problems that we face in various regions of this planet are also confronted in the Arctic, whether these be environmental, economic, or even, allegedly, military. For those who still struggle with whether we have entered the Anthropocene, the lesson from the polar regions is clear: both ends of the Earth can nowadays be seen as dumps of environmental pollution.
There are many biophysical similarities between...