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Speaker 1: Welcome to Thrilling Threads. I am so glad you were

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here because today, well today we are pulling on a

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thread that starts in the most powerful office in the world,

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stretches all the way up to the frozen tundra of

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the Arctic Circle, and it ends up right inside your pocket.

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Speaker 2: It is quite a journey, and it's one of those

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stories that you know, it sounds completely made up. It

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sounds like fiction until you realize it is the absolute,

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concrete reality of the world we live.

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Speaker 1: In now exactly. I want to start by taking you

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back a few years. Do you remember where you were

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in August twenty nineteen. It feels like, well, it feels

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like a different lifetime, pre pandemic, pre a lot of things.

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But there was this news cycle that summer that made everyone,

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and I mean everyone stop and check if they were hallucinating.

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Speaker 2: I think I know exactly what you're referring to. It

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was inescapable.

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Speaker 1: The headline was Trump wants to buy Greenland.

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Speaker 2: It was the meme of the year. I mean instantly

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it was.

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Speaker 1: It sounded like a joke. It sounded like the kind

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of thing a bored real estate mogul says when he's

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run out of skyscrapers to buy in Manhattan. You know,

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I'll take the big icy one at the top of

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the map, please.

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Speaker 2: And it was treated with so much derision. I remember

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the late night host just having an absolute field day.

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The Internet was just flooded with these images of gold

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Trump Towers photoshops right next to igloose. It was. It

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was just seen as completely.

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Speaker 1: Absurd, and the diplomatic reaction was, well, it was just

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as cold as the island itself. The Prime Minister of

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Denmark came out and officially called the idea absurd. It

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felt like the United States was treating a semi autonomous territory,

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a home to over fifty six thousand people, like a

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like a foreclosure listing or a used car.

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Speaker 2: It felt so transactional. I'm clumsy. It was from a

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public relations standpoint, a complete disaster.

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Speaker 1: But and this is the hook for our entire show today.

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What if I told you that all that laughter, all

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that mockery was misplaced. What if I told you that

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behind the bluster and the tweets and the awkward tone,

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as the locals put it, there was a cold, hard,

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strategic calculation that was actually correct.

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Speaker 2: That is the twist, isn't it. When you strip away

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the delivery, which was controversial to say the least, the

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strategic assessment underneath it all was spot on.

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Speaker 1: Wait, wait, so you're saying buying an entire island is

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a valid national security strategy for the twenty first century.

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Speaker 2: In the context of what we are about to discuss. Yes, absolutely,

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because this was never about the ice. It wasn't about

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building golf courses in the snow. It was about what

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is buried beneath the ice.

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Speaker 1: We are talking about rocks.

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Speaker 2: We are talking about the building blocks of the future,

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something called rare earth minerals.

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Speaker 1: Today on thrilling Threads, we are digging into an incredible

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investigation by sixty Minutes Australia. They went all the way

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up to a town called Narsac in southern Greenland to

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see this whole situation firsthand. And what they found is

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that Greenland isn't just a scenic backdrop for a postcard.

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It holds the largest deposits of these minerals in the

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entire world.

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Speaker 2: And we really cannot overstate the stakes here. These minerals

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are and this is a quote for the source that

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I think is perfect. They are the DNA of modern life.

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Speaker 1: I want to pause on that phrase because it's so powerful,

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the DNA of modern life. What does that actually mean?

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Because I think a lot of us, you know, we

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hear the term rare earths and we just nod along

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without really knowing what they are.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well, think of it this way. If you could

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snap your fingers and magically remove all rare earth minerals

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from the world today, we would effectively slide back to

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the technology of the nineteen seventies, maybe even earlier.

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Speaker 1: That is that's terrifying thought. No Internet, no smartphones, that's

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the reality.

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Speaker 2: If you are listening to us right now. In a smartphone,

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you are holding rare earths. The screen that makes the

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color so vibrant, the tiny speakers, the little motor that

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makes it vibrate. They all rely on elements with names

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like neodymium and dysprosium. If you drove an electric car today,

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the powerful lightweight magnets in that motor are made of

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rare earths.

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Speaker 1: So it's mostly consumer tech gadgets.

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Speaker 2: No, it's everything. It's the guidance systems and advanced missiles.

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It's the specialized magnets in the f thirty five fighter jet.

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It's our satellites that give us GPS, it's the giant

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turbines and wind farms. You literally cannot have a modern

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economy or frankly, a modern military without these specific rocks.

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Speaker 1: So suddenly the president of the United States wanting to

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buy the one place that has more of these rocks

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than anywhere else. It doesn't sound like a real estate

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fantasy anymore. It starts to sound like a survival strategy.

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Speaker 2: It is a global race, a new gold rush, as

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the investigation describes it. But instead of prospectors with pickaxes

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looking for gold, it's superpowers and multinational corporations chasing the

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ingredients for well, for the green energy transition, and for

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national defense. And right now the West is terrified because

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we are losing that race.

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Speaker 1: Badly, and that brings us to the cast of characters

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in this ge political thriller. We have Donald Trump that

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would be buyer. We have China, which currently holds the monopoly.

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We have a small Australian mining company called Energy Transition

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Minerals or ETM, caught right in the middle.

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Speaker 2: And finally, and i are most importantly, you have the

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people who actually live there. The locals of Narsak Greenland,

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the community of about thirteen hundred people who were turned

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right down the middle between the promise of economic salvation

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and the threat of total environmental destruction.

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Speaker 1: So our mission today is to unravel this incredibly complex web.

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We're going to look at why the world's superpowers are

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fighting over a frozen island and what it costs the

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people who call that island home. Are you ready to

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head to the top of the world. Let's do it, Okay,

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So let's start with this setting Segment one, the Treasure

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at the Top of the World.

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Speaker 2: The sixty minutes Australia team travels to Narsak, and honestly,

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listening to their description and seeing the visuals they captured,

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it just sounds like a movie set.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't seem real, It really doesn't. They use phrases

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like visually stunning in a mystical fantasy world. You hear

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that and you just picture something out of a Tolkien novel.

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Speaker 2: It paints quite a picture, doesn't it. Yeah, you have

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these majestic, ancient icebergs floating silently in the harbor, reflecting

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this deep blue sky. Then the town itself, these quaint,

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colorful villages were talking. Bright red, blue and yellow houses

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nestled right on the shoreline, you know, a splash of

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color against the gray rock and the white snow.

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Speaker 1: It looks pristine. It looks like a place that has

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been untouched for thousands of years, a place you'd go

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to get away from it all.

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Speaker 2: Is the kind of place you go to escape the

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industrial world, to find silence, which makes the contrast so jarring,

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so completely dark, because right next to this mystical fantasy,

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right underneath the surface of all this serene beauty, is

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an industrial behemoth just waiting to be woken up.

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Speaker 1: And that is the kavana Field Project, exactly Cavanashfield Mountain.

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And this is where the Australian company ETM comes into

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the picture. They're led by two guys, Simon Kitston and

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Daniel Mamadou. Now what I found fascinating about this part

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of the story is that they didn't just show up

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because of the recent headlines. They didn't just arrive when

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Trump sent a tweet.

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Speaker 2: Oh not at all. They've been there for a very

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long time. I heard the exploration rights to this area

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nearly twenty years ago.

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Speaker 1: Twenty years that is incredibly foresighted it is.

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Speaker 2: I mean, think about the world twenty years ago, the

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first iPhone hadn't even been released. We weren't having mainstream

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conversations about electric vehicles or supply chain decoupling from China.

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They saw the value in the geology when almost no

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one else was looking that far ahead.

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Speaker 1: And what they are sitting on is just it's mind boggling.

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I want to throw some stats at you from the

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report because the scale here is genuinely hard to grasp.

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They have discovered over one billion tons of mineralized rare

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earth or.

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Speaker 2: A billion tons. It's a number so big it almost

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loses meaning what does a billion tons of rock even

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look like? It's a mountain?

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Speaker 1: Well, let me contextualize it with another stat from the

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report that makes it even crazier. They have only explored

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one percent of the total deposit.

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Speaker 2: That is the part that gets me every time. One percent.

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Speaker 1: So you're saying there's potentially ninety nine percent more of

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the stuff that they haven't even properly mapped yet.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Yeah, they have drilled eight ty thousand

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meters of core samples. They've spent over one hundred million

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dollars and all of that effort has only given them

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a clear picture of one tiny corner of the resource.

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Speaker 1: Wow. The geologists in the report describe it as a

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freak of nature.

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Speaker 2: That's almost a technical term in geology, believe it or not.

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It means that a posit of this size and concentration

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shouldn't really exist. It's a massive outlier. The deposit is

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roughly ten kilometers by five kilometers of solid rare earth ore.

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It is, for all intents and purposes, a mountain made

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of them of valuable technological ingredients on the planet.

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Speaker 1: They say that just the one percent they've properly tested

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could provide thirty five years of continuous mining.

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Speaker 2: So if you just do some rough math on that,

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if they were to mine the whole thing, we're talking

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about a resource that could supply the entire world's needs

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for hundreds of years. It's not just a mine, it's

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a multi generational strategic asset.

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Speaker 1: The total value is estimated to exceed eleven billion dollars USD.

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Speaker 2: And that's conservative estimate that fluctuates with market prices. But honestly,

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the dollar value is almost the least interesting part. The

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real value is in the strategic independence It could offer.

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Speaker 1: And this is the so what for the listener? Right?

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Why dig up this pristine, mystical fantasy world. Why ruin

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the view for those colorful houses. Simon Kitsten, the chairman

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of BTM, is pretty blunt about it. In his interview.

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He argues that you simply cannot have a modern future

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without these rocks.

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Speaker 2: He's tapping into a very difficult, uncomfortable truth. We all

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say we want a green future. We want to stop

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burning fossil fuels. We want wind farms stretching across the planes,

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and electric vehicles in every driveway. But we often, you know,

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we conventely forget that building those things requires materials. It

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requires mining.

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Speaker 1: Right, The hardware of the green revolution isn't green.

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Speaker 2: To produce exactly, a single large wind turbine needs hundreds

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of kilograms of rare earth magnets. An EV battery is

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full of them. Kiston's argument is basically, if you want

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the green transition, you have to break some ground somewhere.

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You can't just wish it into existence.

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Speaker 1: He views his company as the key to that. He

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calls ETM a little assie babbler that's trying to unlock

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this world class deposit for the good of the West.

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But there is a very specific reason the pressure to

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mine the specific deposit is so high right now, and

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it has everything to do with who controls the.

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Speaker 2: Rest of the supply And this brings us right to

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the heart of the geopolitical stranglehold.

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Speaker 1: Segment two, the China problem.

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Speaker 2: This is the elephant in the room of this entire story,

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the reason Greenland matters so much. Currently, China control somewhere

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between ninety five percent and ninety seven percent of the

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midstream supply chain for rare earths.

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Speaker 1: Ninety seven percent that is, that's not a market share,

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that is a total, indisputable monopoly.

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Speaker 2: It is absolute dominance. And it didn't happen by accident.

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This is a deliberate, long term industrial strategy.

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Speaker 1: So how did we get here? How did the West?

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You know, the US and Europe just let this happen.

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Speaker 2: Well, while the West was you could say, asleep at

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the wheel, or maybe more accurately two, focused on short

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term profits and outsourcing industries that were considered dirty, China

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was playing the long game for forty years. They build

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a domestic industrial strategy around this. They mine a lot

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of it, but much more importantly, they process it.

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Speaker 1: Let's explain that distinction, because it's crucial mining versus processing.

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Speaker 2: Right, So upstream is the mining, literally digging the rock

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out of the ground. That's the messy physical part. But

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the midstream is the processing and refining. You see, you

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can't just shove a rock from Greenland into an iPhone.

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You have to go through a very complex chemical process

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to separate the seventeen different rare earth elements from the

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ore and from each other.

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Speaker 1: And that's difficult.

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Speaker 2: It's incredibly difficult. It's chemically intensive, it's expensive, and increase

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a lot of toxic byproducts. For decades, Western countries essentially

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decided they didn't want that in their backyards anymore because

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of stricier environmental regulations and high labor costs. So we

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offshort it and China was more than happy to take over.

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They doubled down and became the world's refinery.

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Speaker 1: So even if we found a huge deposit in say

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California or Australia, we'd probably still have to send the

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raw ore to China to have it made into something useful.

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Speaker 2: In many many cases, yes, that's the choke hold. China

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has the refineries, the patents, the expertise, and this allows

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China to weaponize the supply chain.

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Speaker 1: The source material references a potential mad Max scenario, which

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sounds dramatic.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like hyperbole, doesn't it. But the investigation gives

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a very real world example of this exact thing happening.

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It's not a hypothetical threat they do.

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Speaker 1: They mentioned an incident during a period of trade tension

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where China simply restricted the supply. They just turned off

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the tap to certain buyers.

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Speaker 2: And the consequences were immediate and severe. A Ford plant

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in the United States had to shut down production of

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one of its most popular vehicles.

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Speaker 1: Just pause on that for a second. A massive American

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car factory employing thousands of people was ground to a halt,

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not by a union strike, not by a logistics issue,

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but because of a political decision made in Beijing.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, it was a shot across the bow. It shows

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the immense fragility of the entire Western manufacturing base. And

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now you have to apply that exact same vulnerability to

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national defense.

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Speaker 1: Right the military hardware.

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Speaker 2: The US military is completely dependent on these minerals. The

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F thirty five fighter jet, Tomahawk missiles, night vision goggles,

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drone technology. All of it relies on components made with

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rare earth's processed in China. If China blocks that supply

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during a major conflict, the US military is to put

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it pluntly kneecapped. It is a direct and present threat

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to US national security.

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Speaker 1: You know, this context completely changes how we view Trump's

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by Greenland idea, doesn't it completely?

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Speaker 2: When you view it through this very serious national security lens,

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it stops being blustered and it starts looking like strategic desperation.

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The source quotes Trump directly saying we need it for

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national security, for the free world.

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Speaker 1: And they also spoke to Alex Gray, who was a

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former National Security Council assistant director. He says something really interesting.

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He said, Trump has gotten the entire world focused on

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the strategic significance of Greenland.

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Speaker 2: And that is the undeniable truth of it. Whether you

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like the delivery or not, whether you thought it was

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clumsy or brilliant, the underlying strategic assessment was accurate. The

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goal now for the entire Western world is decoupling. They

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need to build a secure supply chain that does not

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run through Beijing. They need an insurance policy, and that

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giant Mountain in Greenland is the insurance policy.

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Speaker 1: So we have the treasure, we have the urgent geopolitical need.

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Now let's look at the proposed solution. Segment three, The

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irony of the Western Savior.

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Speaker 2: Oh, this is where the story gets really twisted. I

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love this part because it just exposes the incredible complexity

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of the modern global economy. Nothing is as simple as

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it seems.

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Speaker 1: So ETM, this Australian company is positioning itself as the alternative.

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They are the white Knights of the rare earth industry.

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The Sixty Minutes crew film Simon Kiston and Daniel Mamadu

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in New York City on Fifth Avenue of all places.

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Speaker 2: A very very different backdrop to the icebergs of Narsacas.

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Speaker 1: Completely different. They've traded the heavy duty puffer jackets for

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expensive suits. They are in boardrooms pitching to US investors,

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and they are leaning heavily into this Trump era rhetoric.

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They are essentially saying, invest in US, and you are

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investing in freedom, you are investing in the non Chinese solution.

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Speaker 2: It's a fantastic pitch. I mean, it's brilliant marketing. It

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aligns perfectly with US foreign policy. And the mood of

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investors help us, help the free world break this monopoly.

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Speaker 1: And here is the Gatcha moment that the sixty minutes

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Australia investigation uncovered. There's a rather large.

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Speaker 2: Complication, the significant one.

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Speaker 1: Yes, the interviewer Tom Steinford asks some a very simple

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direct question who owns energy transition minerals?

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Speaker 2: And the answer just reveals how incredibly hard it is

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to untangle these threads. It turns out the single biggest

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shareholder in ETM is actually a Chinese company. They hold

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about nine percent, maybe a little more now of the

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company shares.

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Speaker 1: You just have to appreciate the ironed The company that

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is pitching itself as the one and only solution to

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Chinese control is itself partly on by a state link

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at Chinese company.

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Speaker 2: It really shows how pervasive and strategic China's influence is.

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The source notes that China has bought minority stakes in

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almost every significant rare earth operation globally. They've hedged their

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bets everywhere. They're playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.

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Speaker 1: So even if we dig it up in Greenland with

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an Australian company funded by American investors, China still gets

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a cut.

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Speaker 2: Of the profits and more importantly, potentially still has influence

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a seat at the table.

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Speaker 1: The interview gets a bit tense at this point. The

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ETM executives are pushed on this. They're asked if they

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would be pressured by their Chinese shareholders, you know, will

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you be coaxed into sending the raw minerals to China

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for processing, which would of course defeat the entire purpose

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of the project from a Western strategic view.

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Speaker 2: And they insist quite firmly that they will not be coaxed.

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They claim they have an independent board and will maintain

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their independence ensuring that the processing happens in Western hands.

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Speaker 1: But as an expert in the source material points out,

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it just highlights how difficult it is to truly escape

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China's web of influence in this sector. You can try

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to decouple that the money trails and the ownership structures

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often lead back to the very same place you're trying

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to escape.

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Speaker 2: It creates a real paradox. Can you have a truly

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Western supply chain if the capital financing it is in

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part Chinese? That is the billion dollar or maybe trillion

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dollar question.

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Speaker 1: But let's zoom in. Now we've been talking about global

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superpowers and billions of dollars in geopolitical chess. But this

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mine isn't happening in a vacuum. It's happening in someone's backyard.

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Speaker 2: And this is where we get to segment four, the

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Battle for the Soul of Narsak.

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Speaker 1: This is where the story becomes deeply human. We are

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talking about a town, are just thirteen hundred people, and

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the investigation introduces us to the two faces of this conflict,

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the two competing visions for the future of Greenland.

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Speaker 2: On one side, we have the opposition, a local politician

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named Marion Paven.

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Speaker 1: They call her a warrior woman, and in her interview,

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she is fierce, she is passionate. Her stance is simple

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and completely unambiguous. You cannot buy us.

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Speaker 2: Her fear is palpable, and it's very easy to understand

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when you see the geography. We have to be clear here.

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This isn't a mine that's five hundred miles away in

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the unpopulated wilderness. The proposed mine is a massive, open

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cut mine. It's planned for the top of cavnah Field Mountain,

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which sits directly above the town in the fjord.

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Speaker 1: Right above it. You'd see it from every window. She

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believes that if the mine opens, the town, as she

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knows it, will die. She talks about the dust from

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the blasting and crushing, the potential contamination of their drinking water,

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which comes from the mountain streams. She points out that

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Narsac is trying to build a sustainable tourism industry based

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on its pristine beauty. Who wants to go on a

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mystical fantasy tour If there is a giant, open pit

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mine looming over the town.

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Speaker 2: It's a fundamental threat to her way of life, to

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her culture, she says, and there's a heartbreaking quote. It

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will kill me if I stay here and look at it.

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She loves the silence, she loves the clean air, the ice.

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The mind threatens all of that.

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Speaker 1: But then we meet the other side of the argument,

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the woman named Kappanoakulsen who goes by Q and she

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is a truly fascinating character.

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Speaker 2: She really is. She is Greenland's only female mining engineer,

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and in another twist of irony, she was educated in

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Australia at the famous Kalgoorli School.

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Speaker 1: Of Minds, so she knows her stuff. She is the

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perfect person to bridge this gap between the local Greenlandic

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culture and the international mining industry.

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Speaker 2: She is and her argument is incredibly pragmatic. She says

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Greenland needs income desperately right now. Their economy relies almost

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entirely on fishing and on large financial subsidies from Denmark.

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If they ever want true independence, which is a huge

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political goal for many Greenlanders, they need a diverse economy

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and for her that means mining.

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Speaker 1: She claims she has personally reviewed the technical specifications and

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the environmental impact statements for the project, and she argues

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that the fears varian spheres are not anchored in science.

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She believes the project can be done safely.

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Speaker 2: She attributes the very vocal opposition to a lack of

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information and maybe a fear of the unknown. She says

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mining isn't part of their culture, so people are naturally

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afraid of what they don't understand. She sees it as

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her job to educate people in the realities of modern

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responsible mining.

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Speaker 1: It is a classic, classic clash of values. You have

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the traditional way of life, fishing, hunting, the connection to

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the ice and the silence versus modern economic necessity, jobs,

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revenue independence.

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Speaker 2: It is and it taps right into the broader political

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situation in Greenland. Remember Greenland is a semi autonomous territory

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of Denmark. A lot of Greenlanders want full independence, They

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want to be their own nation on the world stage.

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But you can't run a modern nation on ice and

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fish alone. You need revenue for schools, for hospitals, for infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: And here is the profound irony that the source points out.

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To gain their political independence from Denmark, they might have

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to sell the most valuable resources to foreign powers, be

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it an Australian company funded by Americans with Chinese shareholders.

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They risk swapping one master for another.

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Speaker 2: It is the classic resource curse. Having the treasure buried

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under your land doesn't always make you free. Sometimes it

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just makes you a target.

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Speaker 1: So you have this incredibly tense standoff. The locals are

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completely divided, the global superpowers are watching. But then there

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is another twist, a scientific deal breaker that changes the

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entire equation. Segment five, the radioactive twist.

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Speaker 2: This is what really complicates things from an engineering and

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a political perspective. The rare earth minerals in cavena Field

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Mountain are not alone in the rock. They're geologically mixed

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with uranium.

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Speaker 1: And you can't separate them easily, right, You can't just

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mine one and leave the other.

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Speaker 2: No, Geologically they are bound together in the same ore body.

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To get the rare earth's out, you have to dig

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up uranium. It is an unavoidable packaged deal.

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Speaker 1: Now ETM, the mining company, argues that the uranium is

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very low concentration. They say they can handle it safely,

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just like mines in Canada or Australia do every single day.

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They see it as a manageable byproduct.

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Speaker 2: And scientifically that is likely true. We do know how

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to mine and handle low grade uranium safely in many

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parts of the world. But politically the word uranium is

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a different story. It's a loaded term.

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Speaker 1: And the politics shifted right under feet. A new Greenlandic

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government was elected and a huge part of their successful

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campaign platform was their staunch opposition to this specific mine

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and to uranium mining in general.

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Speaker 2: And they didn't just talk about it once in power,

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they passed new legislation. They enacted a law that effectively

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banned uranium mining across all of Greenland.

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Speaker 1: So, because you can't mine the rare earths without also

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mining the uranium, the entire Cavan of Shelled project is

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for now effectively dead in the water.

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Speaker 2: Under the current law. Yes, the ban on uranium acts

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as a poison pill for the Rare Earth project.

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Speaker 1: I mean, just imagine being ETM for a minute. You

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have spent what nearly two decades one hundred and fifty

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million dollars.

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Speaker 2: One hundred and fifty million dollar USD. They've drilled eighty

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thousand meters of core samples, They've done all the environmental studies.

476
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,279
They spent years developing this project based on the laws

477
00:23:11,279 --> 00:23:13,599
that were in place, and then at the finish line,

478
00:23:13,599 --> 00:23:17,119
the new government says thanks, but no thanks, rules have changed,

479
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:17,640
pack it up.

480
00:23:17,799 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: And Simon Kinston's reaction in the interview is well, it's

481
00:23:20,119 --> 00:23:21,319
clear he's not packing up.

482
00:23:21,599 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 2: No, he is defiant. He says, quote, we are not

483
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,920
going away. We are funded to stay the course. They

484
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:32,279
are now suing the governments of Greenland and Denmark for

485
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:36,079
hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in damages.

486
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:39,039
Speaker 1: They feel betrayed and you can see their point. They

487
00:23:39,039 --> 00:23:41,599
were invited in by a previous government, they followed the

488
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,079
rules that were set, they invested a huge amount of

489
00:23:44,079 --> 00:23:46,200
money in good faith, and then the rules were changed

490
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:47,200
at the last minute.

491
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:51,960
Speaker 2: It's a massive legal and political mess. From etm's perspective,

492
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:55,279
this is a case of sovereign risk, a government changing

493
00:23:55,319 --> 00:23:59,039
the rules unfairly. But from the Greenland at government's perspective,

494
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:02,440
they are simply carrying out the democratic will of their

495
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:04,880
people who voted them in on this exact issue.

496
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: So we are left in a complete stalemate.

497
00:24:06,759 --> 00:24:09,880
Speaker 2: A very expensive, very high stake stalemate, with the future

498
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:12,680
of the global tech and defense industries hanging in the balance.

499
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:14,799
Speaker 1: All right, let's head to the outro and try to

500
00:24:14,839 --> 00:24:18,279
summarize where this incredibly tangled thread leaves us.

501
00:24:18,559 --> 00:24:21,799
Speaker 2: So we have the world's biggest and most accessible deposit

502
00:24:22,279 --> 00:24:24,559
of the minerals that are essential for the future of

503
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:28,400
humanity just sitting there, locked in a mountain. The United

504
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:32,160
States and its allies needed for their national security. The

505
00:24:32,240 --> 00:24:35,400
Australians want to mine it for profit, the Chinese are

506
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,519
watching from the sidelines and from inside the shareholder meetings,

507
00:24:39,079 --> 00:24:42,079
and the local people of Narsac are protected for now

508
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:44,079
by a national uranium band.

509
00:24:44,319 --> 00:24:47,839
Speaker 1: And through it all, the majestic icebergs just keep floating

510
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:49,240
silently by in the fjord.

511
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:54,319
Speaker 2: It really validates that whole great game narrative. Trump's tone

512
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:56,319
might have been off the offer to buy the island

513
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,960
was publicly mocked and rejected, but his fundamental assessment of

514
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,359
and its strategic value was one hundred percent correct. The

515
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:06,079
entire world is looking at Greenland differently now because of this.

516
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:09,839
Speaker 1: The great game for the Arctic is it seems just beginning, it.

517
00:25:09,759 --> 00:25:12,039
Speaker 2: Is, and the stakes are only going to get higher

518
00:25:12,079 --> 00:25:13,359
as the ice continues to melt.

519
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:15,319
Speaker 1: So I want to leave our listeners with a question today.

520
00:25:15,319 --> 00:25:18,079
It's something I've been wrestling with while researching this entire

521
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:21,079
story before. We want to hear from you. In the

522
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:24,119
race for a green future, a future filled with electric

523
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:27,279
cars and wind turbines. We are told we need these minerals.

524
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:31,279
It's not optional, but getting them requires digging up pristine,

525
00:25:31,759 --> 00:25:35,279
unique places like Greenland. So is it worth it? Is

526
00:25:35,319 --> 00:25:38,480
it worth sacrificing a mystical fantasy world and going against

527
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,680
the wishes of a small local community to secure the

528
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:44,920
technology and the national security of the entire Western world?

529
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:49,160
Whose rights matter more the thirteen hundred people of Narsac

530
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:52,240
or the billions of people who rely on modern technology

531
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:54,640
and live under the Western security umbrella.

532
00:25:54,759 --> 00:25:57,759
Speaker 2: It's a brutal, brutal question with no easy answer.

533
00:25:57,960 --> 00:25:59,519
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think in the comments. This

534
00:25:59,559 --> 00:26:02,359
has been a fascinating and frankly a dizzying journey to

535
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,359
the top of the world. Thanks for listening to Thrilling Threads. Goodbye,

536
00:26:05,440 --> 00:26:06,160
getch you next time.