Well setting aside the legal/sovereignty issue, Antarctica is freezing cold, permanently dark for 6 months and gets covered in thick layers of snow every year. And it is not accessible to sea transportation due to a lack of rivers and railways.
It’s just much worse land.
You could try to settle some of the outlying parts but the cold and dark and remoteness would still make it really bad land.
You can move your iceberg to the middle of The Atlantic Ocean and be close to Europe and America but also sovereign. That’s worth a lot more.
I don’t know why we think we can colonize Mars when we can’t even colonize Alaska. Alaska at least has oxygen. Where are the domed cities with climate control?
How does this compare to the costs of making (part of) Antarctica habitable?
Well setting aside the legal/sovereignty issue, Antarctica is freezing cold, permanently dark for 6 months and gets covered in thick layers of snow every year. And it is not accessible to sea transportation due to a lack of rivers and railways.
It’s just much worse land.
You could try to settle some of the outlying parts but the cold and dark and remoteness would still make it really bad land.
You can move your iceberg to the middle of The Atlantic Ocean and be close to Europe and America but also sovereign. That’s worth a lot more.
I don’t know why we think we can colonize Mars when we can’t even colonize Alaska. Alaska at least has oxygen. Where are the domed cities with climate control?
It’s not that we can’t colonise Alaska, it’s that it’s not economically productive to do so.
I wouldn’t expect colonising mars to be economically productive, but instead to be funded by other sources (essentially charity).
Alaska is also not politically productive because it’s controlled by the US Government and they’re definitely not going to want to hand it over.