But let’s teleport ourselves back to 1959 and get hypothetical. If Antarctica had been more accessible then, and mining tech sufficiently developed, would this wilderness and its irreplaceable ...

China in 2023 announced plans to build new satellite stations in Antarctica, another project with potential military applications. The treaty bans mining in the region, protecting small reserves ...

Human beings typically do our worst environmental damage in the places we live and work—clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains. Antarctica, however, was more or less out of reach.