问答题【2014年真题】（2014上）As icebergs in the Kayak Harbor pop and hiss while melting away, this remote Arctic town Narsaq (纳萨克）and its culture are also disappearing in a changing climate.

Narsaq’s largest employer，a shrimp processing plant, closed a few years ago after the crustaceans fled north to cooler water. Where once there were eight commercial fishing vessels, there is now one. As a result, the population in Narsaq, one of southern Greenland's major towns, has been halved to 1，500 in just a decade. Suicides are up. “Fishing is the heart of this town，” said Hans Kaspersen，63, a fisherman. “Lots of people have lost their livelihoods.”

But even as rising temperatures are upending traditional Greenlandic life, they are also offering up intriguing new opportunities for this island of 57,000  perhaps nowhere more so than in Narsaq. Vast new deposits of minerals and gems are being discovered as Greenland’s huge ice cap recedes, forming the basis of a potentially lucrative mining industry. One of the world's largest deposits of rare earth metals  essential for manufacturing cellphones, wind turbines and electric cars sits just outside Narsaq.

It has long been known that Greenland sat upon vast mineral lodes, and the Danish government has mapped them intermittently for decades. Niels Bohr, the Danish Nobel Prize laureate nuclear physicist and a participant in the Manhattan Project，which developed the first atomic bomb, visited Narsaq in 1957 because of its uranium deposits. But previous attempts at mining mostly failed, proving too expensive in the inclement conditions. Now, warming has altered the equation.

The Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum, charged with managing the boom, has 150 active licenses for mineral exploration, up from 20 a decade ago. Altogether, companies spent US$100 million exploring Greenland's deposits last year, and several are applying for licenses to begin construction on new mines, bearing gold, iron, zinc and rare earth. There are also foreign companies exploring for offshore oil.

The Black Angel Lead and Zinc Mine, which dosed in 1990, is applying to reopen this year, said Hammeken-Holm，who oversees licensing at the mining bureau, “because the ice is in retreat，you’re getting much more to explore.”

In Narsaq, which features a collection of brightly painted homes bordered by spectacular fjords, two foreign companies are applying to the government for permission to mine. Narsaq9s tiny airport, previously threatened with closure due to lack of traffic, could be expanded. A local landlord is contemplating converting an abandoned apartment complex into a hotel.

“There will be a lot of people coming from outside, and that will be a big challenge，since Greenlandic culture has been isolated,9, said Jasper Schroder, a student from Narsaq who attends a university in Denmark. Still, he said he supports the mine and hopes it will provide jobs and stem the rash of suicides, particularly among his peers; Greenland has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. “People in this culture don’t want to be a burden to their families if they can’t contribute，” he said.

But not all are convinced of the benefits of mining. “Of course, the mine will help the local economy and will help Greenland，but I，m not so sure if it will be good for us,” said Dorothea Rodgaard，who runs a local guesthouse. “We are worried about the loss of nature.”