Voir Dan Rather Reports, Season 7 - Episode 23

(8/14/2012) We head 450 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where warming sea ice is rapidly receding and revealing a new series of opportunities and challenges. For nearly 30 years, NASA satellite images have told the story: the ice cap that sits atop the world is shrinking rapidly. The melting ice has created an open water route that could shave thousands of miles off traditional shipping routes from Europe to Asia. Global warming is upsetting a delicate environmental balance with unpredictable results, but it is also revealing resources that had been locked beneath the ice. Geologists estimate that 25 percent of the world's untapped oil and natural gas reserves lie in the Arctic. So the Arctic is shaking off its reputation as the end of the world. After all, the earth is a globe, and the "end of the world" has always been a matter of perspective.