What’s the deal with Greenland? (2025)

From the May 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Six months ago nobody would have imagined Greenland making headlines. Almost the only things most people know about the place is that it’s not as big as it looks on maps, and it is covered in ice that’s melting due to global warming.

Then came US Vice-President Vance’s unwelcome and controversial visit to the island in late March. The ensuing furore fortuitously diverted media attention from ‘Signalgate’, the disastrous security blunder which made Trump’s senior appointees look like fools. Democrats furiously demanded the resignation of Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor, who inadvertently included a journalist in top-secret discussions about bombing the Houthis in Yemen, and Pete Hegseth, the Defense Secretary, who blithely joined in the chat from his – possibly monitored – hotel room in Moscow. Russia, be it noted, is friends with Iran, who are friends with the Houthis. Republicans too must have been quietly alarmed at such blithering incompetence on the part of people put in charge of US national security. Trump’s self-estimation as a genius clearly depends on him surrounding himself with loud-mouthed buffoons. His protégés duly followed Trump protocol – lie, deny, and go on the offensive – but he probably realised that he ought to sack them and hand the Democrats a big win, because covering for them would undermine his own credibility. But as we later saw with his astounding tariffs and subsequent craven roll-back, he believes his credibility is indestructible.

A handy diversion

In the event, Vance’s impromptu and perhaps calculated excursion to the Pituffik airbase in Greenland provided a useful distraction from the Signalgate fiasco. Vance publicly hectored Denmark for its supposedly poor stewardship of the island, reinforcing Trump’s claim that a US takeover was not just desirable but inevitable. Not surprisingly the Danes were politely enraged, saying ‘this is not how you talk to your allies’ and calling the move Trump’s ‘Crimea script’. Even Pituffik’s own commander tried to distance herself from Vance’s remarks, promptly earning herself the sack. The Greenlanders were also not best pleased. In polls, 80 percent of them want independence from Denmark, but 85 percent of them do not want to be annexed by the USA. What they do want, one can only imagine, is some sort of unworldly solution in which they no longer have to scrape by on Danish subsidies yet somehow manage to prosper as a lone island state the size of western Europe, with no industry or infrastructure, or even roads, and a population only one third the size of the Isle of Wight’s.

There is zero chance of that happening, because Greenland is just too important to major powers. Trump has been wanting Greenland since his first Presidency in 2016, and the US, for various reasons, has been wanting it since 1867. That was the year the US bought Alaska off the Russians for $7m. The US Secretary of State William H Seward, who oversaw the Alaska purchase, was also keen on buying Greenland and Iceland at the same time, in order to wedge Canada in on three sides and force it eventually to become part of the US. Trump may well be aware of this Seward plan, which would add context to his comments about annexing Canada. In 1868 Seward began negotiations with Denmark to buy Greenland. But Congress failed to ratify his similar plan to purchase the Danish West Indies (now the US Virgin Islands), and the Greenland plan was dropped.

Following a wartime occupation from 1941 to 1945 to stop a German invasion of Greenland, in 1946 the US secretly offered to buy it. Denmark refused, but did allow the US to build air bases there, as both countries were in the process of founding NATO. US interest in Greenland was now mainly military, as the island sits in the middle of the shortest missile flight path to Russia. It’s also part of a crucial choke point in the North Atlantic called the GIUK Gap, between Greenland, Iceland and the UK. Were Russia inclined to attack the US east coast using its Northern Fleet, based at Murmansk on the Barents Sea, its forces would have to pass through the gap. At the same time, a good reason not to press the Danes too heavily on the issue would have been that Denmark sits across the mouth of the Baltic Sea, meaning it could potentially bottle up the Russian Baltic Fleet at Kaliningrad.

Cold war refreezes

US interest cooled somewhat after the Berlin Wall fell and relations with Russia temporarily became less frosty. But now Russia has remilitarised all its old Soviet naval bases in the Arctic, heavily outnumbering equivalent NATO bases, with increasing Russian submarine patrols around the GIUK Gap. The global internet has also intensified concerns over this gap, as critically important undersea data cables pass right through it, or just south of it, making them vulnerable to submarine sabotage. This could potentially blind the USA and cripple its ability to respond in the event of any future Russian incursion into, say, the Baltic States or Finland.

In addition, the US needs ground stations for its military satellites, including in the Arctic Circle. Two of these are in Alaska and Svalbard, but the main base is Pituffik, scene of Vance’s recent outburst against Denmark. And the US very likely wants many more such bases on the island. As things stand, Greenland is terra incognita, a ‘security black hole‘ that’s impossible for Denmark’s meagre forces – mostly one aeroplane and some dogsled teams – to effectively monitor.

Not just wargames

There are also pressing non-military considerations. As the Arctic melts and the sea lanes open up permanently, Greenland could come to dominate global shipping, due to the fact that the two trans-Arctic routes, the Canada-hugging Northwest Passage (NWP) and Russia-adjacent Northern Sea Route (NSR) have the potential to cut 4,000 km off the Panama route and make the Suez Canal largely redundant. Just as the US wants back control of the Panama Canal, it will also be keen to control this polar traffic. Annoyingly for the US, in 1985 Canada claimed sovereignty over the NWP, while the US insists it is an international waterway. That might be another reason why Trump wants to annex Canada.

Then there are the untapped resources. Greenland could be the key to breaking China’s near global monopoly on producing rare earth elements (REEs) and critical minerals, as the biggest deposits of these outside China are in, you guessed it, Greenland. It is thought to have the 6th largest deposit of uranium in the world, and to be very rich in lithium, REEs, graphite, iron, nickel and copper. There is also gold, along with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and a host of other quartzes and gemstones. It has 43 out of the 50 critical minerals needed for the US economy, in particular green tech and electric vehicles. Elon Musk and the other tech bros have declared an interest for this and other reasons, including the fact that the vast territory and freezing temperatures are ideal for server farms, of which an order of magnitude more may be required to enable the AI revolution. And then there are the estimated reserves of oil and gas, which put Greenland on a par with Nigeria and Kazakhstan, and superior to Qatar.

What’s in it for the Inuit?

Almost certainly nothing. The local population doesn’t have the people, money, skills or infrastructure to exploit any of this stuff themselves, so Greenland is a sitting duck for whichever major power acquires it, either through a business deal or by military action. What could very well happen if these resources are exploited in an unregulated way by a ruthless foreign power is that Greenlanders could suffer the notorious ‘resource curse’ of places like the Congo, with the country becoming a corrupt rentier state whose ruling elite siphon off the wealth and defend their position by becoming more repressive and authoritarian (youtu.be/x8j2uWw3WfU). Faced with this awful prospect, the idealistic islanders may realise that their best chance is to do some kind of mutual back-scratching deal with the US, while retaining a fig-leaf of independence.

Deals under the table

After the Vance visit, Russia’s Vladimir Putin told journalists that relations between the US and Greenland were nothing to do with Russia, and that he had no interest in the place. This blithe response strains credulity, given Russia and China’s keen interest in the NSR, and given that a US takeover of Greenland would be as much of a strategic threat to Russia as Ukraine being in NATO, if not more so. Missiles based in Greenland, especially hypersonics, could take out Moscow, St Petersburg and Murmansk before the Russians could even react. And that’s beside the fact that Russia is – since the Ukraine invasion – now hemmed in with the addition of two new NATO members, Finland and Sweden, as well as NATO Norway.

One possible explanation for Putin’s professed indifference is that Transactional Trump has offered a private deal in which Trump takes Greenland and Russia gets to keep its captured territory (and the largest European gas reserves outside Norway) in Ukraine.

Is a similar Trumpian quid-pro-quo over Taiwan possible, making for a three-way neo-colonial carve-up? On the face of it, no. Hegseth continues to sabre-rattle at China by reiterating US backing of Taiwan, and Vance is also waving his stick at China for wanting to expand operations in Greenland. But China has operations almost everywhere, and anyway rejects any comparison with Taiwan, arguing that Greenland is a sovereign foreign state whereas Taiwan is China’s intrinsic territory. Why would they do a deal over what they see as already theirs?

Even so, TSMC and other Taipei chipmakers are racing to set up shop in Texas, California and Arizona in an energetic US bid to make Taiwan less of an Achilles heel for western tech industries. Should this attempt succeed – and there are wage-rate, skill-set and supply-chain reasons why it might not – US support for Taiwan could evaporate.

Take the money and run?

It seems hard to believe that the US would actually invade Greenland by force. But given its tiny population of around 56,000, one intriguing possibility is that the US could wait until the expected declaration of independence from Denmark, and then offer to pay the entire Greenland population $1m each to buy the place. $56bn might sound like a lot but it’s approximately what the place is valued at in potential revenues, and it’s only 1/15th of the planned 2025 US military budget, or about 1/8th of the US annual debt-servicing bill. That way, Greenlanders could all be millionaires and retire to beach houses in Bali. But would they take the payout and emigrate, or opt to stay poor for the sake of patriotism? It’s hard to say. Nationalism is powerfully embedded in capitalism’s ideology, and objective logic often plays very little part.

Paddy Shannon

Material World: The ‘Polar Silk Road’ (2021)

The Material World Column from the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, and has a Gross Domestic Product of around $3 billion – similar to the Faroe Islands, another semi-autonomous Danish possession. That GDP is about to change if the multinational mining corporations have their way.

Various mining companies are vying for mining rights. Greenland’s royalties expect to be around 1.5 billion Danish crowns ($245 million) each year from a Chinese-linked corporation – equivalent to roughly 15 percent of Greenland’s public spending, and such revenues could give it leverage over politics in Greenland. Already disputes on policies towards mining have caused ructions within Greenland’s government.

Greenland possesses vast resources of metals known as ‘rare earths,’ the world’s biggest undeveloped deposits, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). They are crucial in modern technology manufacturing and the renewable energy industry. The prices of many rare earth elements have jumped in anticipation of rising demand for electric vehicles. China accounts for about 90 percent of global supply and back in 2010 China threatened to cut off its sale of rare earth metals to Japan so there exist concerns about the need to reduce reliance upon China. Other states require a counterbalance to any market control that could be exerted by a single large producer and Greenland’s huge deposits could secure a solution for many years to come. Always with an eye for valuable real estate, Trump in 2019 offered to buy the island (in 1946 Harry S. Truman offered Denmark $100 million for it.) A year after Trump’s failed bid, the United States announced a $12.1 million economic aid package for Greenland to increase its influence.

Apart from its potential assets another reason for American renewed interest is that China is expanding its interests in Greenland. China views Greenland as a part of what they call the ‘Polar Silk Road’ and one of the interested mining companies happens to be partly-Chinese owned. China may be a thousand miles away but as the second largest economy in the world, it has no intention of being left out in the cold. Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, explained ‘The Chinese have made no secret that they have their eyes on the Arctic’s fish and minerals.’

In 2016, Denmark reversed plans to sell a former naval command centre after a Hong Kong-based company, General Nice Group, emerged as a bidder. Later in 2018, the then US Defense Secretary James Mattis successfully pressured Denmark not to allow China to finance three commercial airports on Greenland, over fears they could give Beijing a military foothold.

‘China can access Arctic resources through foreign investment,’ Michael Byers, an Arctic expert at the University of British Columbia said. ‘And foreign investment is a lot cheaper than trying to conquer something.’

Whereas environmentalists fear large-scale mining could harm the remote island’s pristine eco-system, many of the 56,000 Greenlanders, while worried about pollution, see mining as the key to developing their economy which will end the economic dependence upon Denmark and set Greenland on the road to full sovereignty. Long before the UK’s Brexit, Greenland held a referendum and subsequently withdrew from the EU in 1985.

‘An independent Greenland could, for example, offer basing rights to either Russia or China or both,’ said Fen Hampson, head of the international security programme at the Canadian Centre for International Governance Innovation think tank, noting the desire by some to fully secede from Denmark. ‘I am not saying this would happen, but it is a scenario that would have major geo-strategic implications, especially if the Northwest Passage becomes a transit route for shipping, which is what is happening in the Russian Arctic.’

The melting ice means long-distance sea passages, such as the Northern Sea Route (NSR) from eastern Siberia to the North Atlantic, are increasingly navigable. Sailing a container ship from China to northern Europe via the NSR can substantially shorten the journey time via the Indian Ocean and Suez canal.

All this competition over territory, trade routes, resources and mining rights are disputes about the division of spoils between our masters. It is they and not us who exercise power. Our Greenland fellow-workers will eventually come to comprehend that their ‘independence’ will be in name only and should not be fooled by extravagant promises and lucrative pledges.

ALJO

Material World: Greenland – A New Field for Capitalist Exploitation (2012)

The Material World Column from the September 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Observations from three satellites showed that between July 8 and July 12 of this year the proportion of the Greenland ice sheet with melting surface ice shot up from 40 percent to 97 percent. After making sure that these astonishing data were correct, scientists attributed the melt, which continued for about two weeks, to a ridge of warm air or “heat dome” that passed over Greenland for the seventh summer in a row.

Then on July 15 or 16 – no one noticed exactly when it happened – a chunk of ice 130 km2 (50 square miles) in area toppled off the Petermann glacier in Greenland’s far north-west into the Nares Strait. Less than two years had passed since August 2010, when the same glacier lost another chunk, twice as large in area.

For anyone concerned about conditions on our planet as a whole in the decades and centuries ahead, these events might be seen as yet more evidence of the worrying acceleration in the speed of global heating (atmospheric carbon dioxide has now, according to some measures, passed the 400 parts per million mark). In particular, they could herald a tens-of-metres’rise in sea level that would inundate the world’s lowlands if the Arctic and Antarctic ice melted away.

Yet it can hardly be denied that climatic warming is producing immediate benefits in Greenland itself, especially for farmers and fishermen. The country is turning once more into the “green land” that attracted Viking settlers during the Medieval Warm Period of the 9th to 13th century. The season for growing grass and grazing sheep is becoming longer. Dairy cattle have been reintroduced. Vegetables like broccoli, which never grew before at these latitudes, are now cultivated. Cod and halibut are migrating north into Greenland waters.

Greedy eyes

The big mining and hydrocarbon companies are moving into Greenland, buying up broad swathes of territory and preparing to exploit rich and newly accessible mineral resources. In the Kranefjeld area, for example, the Australian-based Greenland Minerals and Energy owns deposits estimated at 861 million tonnes of uranium, zinc and rare earth elements (REEs). Another Australian firm, Hudson Resources, is drilling for REEs at Sarfartoq. These developments seem likely to play a key role in breaking up China’s monopoly in the extraction of REEs, which are coveted for diverse high-tech applications (see Material World, May 2011).

Other companies have their greedy eyes on nickel, aluminium, precious stones –and, of course, oil and natural gas, which they have no intention of leaving in the ground for as trivial a purpose as averting environmental catastrophe.

On the basis of experience in many other parts of the world, there is ample reason to doubt whether on balance ordinary people in Greenland will derive much benefit from exploitation of the island’s mineral resources. Some of them will get jobs that will seem to them relatively well-paid, but they will pay a heavy price in pollution and ill health. Uranium mining poses special dangers. So does the toxic sludge generated by the extraction of REEs, as the people of Inner Mongolia have discovered to their cost.  

At present Canadian, American and Australian mining companies appear to be in the lead, but the business press assures us that European and Asian firms are raring to get a piece of the action. European firms might derive some advantage from Greenland’s continuing status as a colony of Denmark with ties to the EU. (Greenland now enjoys “autonomy” or home rule and has withdrawn from the EU but still receives substantial aid from the EU through a partnership agreement that expires at the end of 2013.)

Independence for Greenland?

The issue of political independence for Greenland must be considered in this context. Commentators argue that the tax revenues generated by mining will enable the Greenlandic government to manage without the subsidies it now receives from Denmark and the EU, making independence possible. But whose interests would independence serve?

It is plausible to suppose that the North American and Australian companies already involved in Greenland are encouraging (bribing?) the country’s politicians and officials to go in this direction. They know full well that greater independence from Denmark and the EU means greater dependence on them.

Political independence would eliminate any competitive advantage that the link with the EU might give their European rivals. It would also free them of any constraints that Danish or EU regulations might place on mining in the name of protecting the environment or the way of life of indigenous groups. Observers note that home rule has made it easier for companies to obtain licenses. Presumably, independence would make it easier still.

Stefan

Material World: Greenland - To Modernize or Not? (2015)

The Material World Column from the February 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

For much of human history, capitalism was not humanity's economic system. For 95 percent of human history, primitive communism was the economic system, hunter-gatherer communities without classes, sharing wealth communally. Various pockets of primitive communism still live on around the world and one example is the traditional Inuit communalism. We should, however, think twice about using such a pejorative term as ‘primitive’. How could people last for thousands of years in the most inhospitable climate on Earth if they aren’t geniuses? The Inuit figured out how to turn bones into tools, how to turn skin into warm clothing, how to feed their families for generations. They have learned to adapt to nature which has allowed them to thrive for centuries.

In American Nations, Colin Woodard describes the Inuit culture and lifestyle. Most tribal land in the far north is owned in common under a form of title that prevents it from ever being sold to an individual or exploited in such a way that diminishes its value to future generations. There is no private property, although an individual family has three personal possessions: a tent, coverings and a sled. Everyone is allowed to responsibly use the people’s shared land, but it is thought the height of absurdity that any one person should ‘own’ it. Inuits still hunt, fish and gather and the food plus the implements associated with them are generally regarded as common property. If a hunter kills a seal, it’s handed over to whoever needs it. Villages have communal larders that anyone can access — free of charge or accounting — because food cannot belong to one person. It is the Inuit custom that you should never thank someone for food ‘Up in our country we are human!’ said the hunter. ‘And since we are human we help each other. We don't like to hear anybody say thanks for that. What I get today you may get tomorrow.’

Alliances between non-relatives are formed and maintained through gift giving and the showing of respect. An example of this is the often repeated but rarely understood offering of a man’s wife. It is a form of gift giving where a head of household offers the opportunity of sex with the most valued adult woman of his household. The woman has the power to refuse, in which case respect will be through a different gift. Community ties are strengthened during the winter months, because individuals would not be able to survive the long harsh winter without the help of others. Throughout the winter, there is a continuous series of communal feasts. After large animals are caught, such as whales and walrus, the entire district is invited to the feast. In Labrador, Greenland and throughout the central regions, when the resources of a house have surpassed the ‘normal’ living standards, this wealth must be re-distributed to poorer individuals. If the tribe engages in a commercial enterprise, the proceeds belong to everyone.

Modernisation

Today global warming is unlocking potentially lucrative revenues from natural resources under Greenland's seabed and icecap, which according to international experts is home to large oil and gas deposits as well as other minerals. Do you go on trying to preserve what is left of the old Arctic hunting and fishing culture, although it’s already so damaged and discouraged that it has contributed to the highest suicide rate on the planet (one in five Greenlanders tries to commit suicide at some point in their lives)? Or do you seek salvation in modernisation and economic growth (while keeping your language and what you can of your culture)?

One of the party founders of Inuit Ataqatigiit (Community of the People) has opted for the former. ‘If you want to become rich, it comes at a price,’ says Aqqaluk Lynge who didn't want to pay that price, and under the Inuit Ataqatigiit administration (2009-2013) all mining was banned in Greenland. Apart from the environmental costs of large-scale mining operations, Lynge said, the many thousands of foreign workers they would bring in would have a devastating impact on what is already a very fragile Greenlandic culture.

The Prime Minister who took over in April 2013, Aleqa Hammond of the Siumut (Forward) party, chooses the latter. She thinks modernisation has gone too far to turn back and it is better to gamble on solving the current social problems (like suicide) by enabling everybody to live modern, prosperous lives. The Siumut government has issued more than 120 licences for mining and petro-chemical projects including a huge $2.5 billion open-cast iron-ore mine that would produce 15 million tonnes a year.

Few Greenlandic Inuit have the skills or inclination to acquire senior jobs in all these enterprises, and most will not want the hard, dirty, dangerous jobs of the workers in the mines and on the rigs. The rampant alcoholism and drug use, and the suicides that plague the Greenlanders are unlikely to be cured by throwing money at them as compensation for a life without meaning and the eventual extinction of their communal traditions.

ALJO

Pathfinders Column: High and Dry (2006)

The Pathfinders column from the October 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Water World 1

"We were just standing around in our shorts, stunned and amazed, trying to make sense of it". Thus spoke one Inuit villager, on describing winter temperatures of 9 degress celsius that should have been -30 degrees celsius (Independent on Sunday, 27 August). As the Arctic warms up twice as fast as the rest of the world, and sea ice has shrunk in area by a quarter and in thickness by a half, its inhabitants are discovering that their igloos are heat traps, their water supply needs wells and their workplaces need air-conditioning. Meanwhile Greenland farmers - for they do exist - are starting to grow broccoli, cauliflower and Chinese cabbage, while having to make up, among their thousand words for reindeer, some new words for the salmon which are appearing in their rivers, and the barn owls, hornets and robins which are now adventuring to the far north. What the Inuit think of global warming can be surmised by the number of their houses and snowmobiles that have started falling through the ice, and one can easily see why they think "the world is slowly disintegrating." Meanwhile in Siberia, roads and buildings built on the permafrost are starting to collapse, and the Permafrost Institute in Yakutsk has recently suffered a major flood (BBC Online, 12 September).

Greenland is the second biggest ice mass after Antarctica, with glaciers as large as Manhattan and as high as the Empire State Building, and it is now melting at a rate that has alarmed even the alarmists. Evidence from NASA satellites and ground-based researchers concluded in February 2006 that Greenland's glaciers are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago. If the ice cap were to completely disappear, which it is quite likely to do by the end of 2100 at this rate, global sea levels would rise by 6.5m (21 feet) (BBC Online, 11 August). If this happens, New York, New Orleans and half of Florida including Miami, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale will be underwater.

Not surprisingly perhaps, Washington is facing rebellion from state governors all over the country to stop stalling over Kyoto and do something, not least because their own oil and gas companies are already one jump ahead with 'greener' technology and need the relevant legislation to be enacted so they can capitalize on it. Leading the way is Da Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who when not terminating crooks by state execution is so keen to display his green credentials he sided with the Democrats against his own party in order to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act, which aims to cap emissions in California, the world's 12th largest CO2 emitter, by 25 percent by 2020 (BBC Online, 1 September). But even Arnie is unlikely to hold back the Arctic flood, because capitalism just doesn't sit down and listen to reason, as his Republican ex-buddies know perfectly well. The reason they opposed his cosy Californian carbon-capping caper was because they knew perfectly well that unless such a plan was federal, so that nobody could get out of it, all the investment would leak out of the state into neighbouring ones which were not required under their state law to worry so energetically about the problem.

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Water World 2

While the Inuit are fast running out of ice, a third of the world's population are faced with a shortage of any water at all. The situation has arisen twenty years earlier than projections forecasted, according to a report by the International Water Management Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka (New Scientist, 26 August). The report states that while in some places physical shortage of water is to blame, in others it is a question of lack of financial investment. So are they talking billion-dollar pipelines from the water sources to the dry interiors in Africa, Asia and parts of China? Not a bit. The state-of-the-art technology is, wait for it, plastic buckets and bags, lots of big ones, to catch the stuff as it falls out of the sky. Storing roof and road run-off, they argue, could double or triple food production in sub-Saharan Africa and south-east Asia. Not only that, but saving water for 'unrainy days' in this way could slow the expansion of rain-fed agriculture into virgin habitats from 60 per cent by 2050 down to 10 per cent.

The predictable response of most people reading this would be a Homer Simpson-like 'Duh'. You don't need to be an engineering genius to figure out that water butts are a good way of saving water, so why in hell aren't they doing it already, you cannot resist asking? Presumably because in the capitalist scheme of things, poor Africans, Indians and Chinese peasants don't have the price and don't rate the price even of a plastic bucket.

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Water World 3

Socialists always welcome any sincere attempt to solve the world's problems, even if some of these attempts are inevitably misguided. One doesn't in all honesty expect a great contribution to be made by new-age mystics so it is no surprise that when Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie approached the UK government with a scheme to clean up nuclear waste, using a deeply mystical Kabbalah water which they claimed had received extensive testing in a Ukrainian lake, the government didn't show much interest in the Ritchies' esoteric knowledge of Jewish mystical liquids and in fact showed them the door (New Scientist, 26 August). One might expect however that the government official who recounted this story would show the appropriate respect for such eminent celebrities, or at least a cool and precise scientific detachment. Instead, the official described the encounter as follows: "It was like a crank call . . . The scientific mechanisms and principles were just bollocks." Lovely to see scientists descend to plain English occasionally.

Paddy Shannon