Arctic Agonistes: Ceding Its Treasure of Oil and Gas

It's enough to turn a thoughtful reader into an uneasy and puzzled penguin. One week's newspaper headlines warn that the strikingly rapid pace of ice melting in the Arctic may be at a "tipping point," the critical juncture at which the thaw turns into a self-sustaining calamity. Meanwhile, the Southern Ocean that encircles Antarctica seems to be absorbing less carbon (not a good thing), and the ever-warming atmosphere is causing more frequent drought in the Amazon basin leading in part to such seemingly arcane side effects as causing plagues of beetles that are denuding pine forests in Alaska and parts of Canada. But before one can fully digest the scope of the potential disaster, come headlines the following week that tell of oil and gas companies cheerily gearing up to tap the newly accessible mother lodes of fossil fuels sitting at the soon-to-be ice-free top of the world -- despite the fact that these elements are the acknowledged culprit in what is shaping up as an almost unavoidable global catastrophe.

From Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Research, we learn that all the models have apparently underestimated the speed at which the Arctic ice is melting; indeed, the ice has "already tipped," the institute says. In other words, the ice has shrunk to the point where there is too little of it reflecting the sun's warming rays back into the atmosphere and too much dark ocean water absorbing the heat of those rays, thus creating a vicious circle that further speeds up the warming trend. If the German scientists are correct, the polar icecap may already be a lost cause. And, its melting will threaten indigenous Arctic populations and wildlife such as polar bears, which will drown from exhaustion as they search for a resting place on icebergs that are no longer there.

Scary? Yes. But perhaps not as scary as The New York Times piece that appeared October 9 detailing Norway's successful quest to mount "the first commercial energy production from waters north of the Arctic Circle." Typically, the Times reporter couldn't resist lending a helping hand to the oil and gas industry, making its case for rationalizing current and ever higher prices for by admiringly informing us that $200 billion was spent developing new energy projects last year. It then continues in the fawning and unquestioning fashion of The New York Times pertaining all matters related to the oil industry, informing us these $200 billion "are an amount larger than the economies of 147 countries."

No mention of course, that with the world consuming approximately 83 million barrels per day, or 30.295 billion barrels per year, at today's prices of over $80 per barrel, the world's oil companies still have something on the order of $2.23 trillion of revenue to divvy up among themselves. That is for crude oil alone and not counting the munificent margins on down stream products such a gasoline and fuel oil.

Another "point" the New York Times reporter left up in the air concerns the justification for today's $80/bbl-plus price for oil. He acknowledged that the industry's discovery and development costs add up to "nearly $15 a barrel," and that is for new sources, conveniently overlooking the fact that installed capacity is pumping away at production costs averaging significantly less then $10 a barrel, thereby leaving readers to wonder about the reasons for a more than 400 to 800 percent markup! But don't hold your breath waiting for the New York Times to go there, other than feeding us the usual oil industry pabulum that it's all due to "market forces"

But I digress. The point I wish to make is the tragedy inherent in this hell-bent rush to satisfy the world's growing appetite for fossil fuels when what we should be doing is looking for any and every way possible to rein in that appetite. Yet, as the dire predictions of global warming come into focus with ever more chilling (pun intended) accuracy and rapidity, our leadership in Washington continues to sit on their hands. No one in power calls for mandatory curbs on manufacturers' deadly emissions of carbon dioxide or initiatives to reduce Americans' use of fossil fuels or serious policies to encourage the development and distribution of alternative energy sources. Rather, the big breakthrough from this administration is its pathetic concession that there is indeed such a thing as global warming, with all its deadly consequences. But should we gear up to do something meaningful to reverse this catastrophe before it's too late? No, says our Madam Secretary of State, speaking on behalf of our president, let's just stress the need for new environmental technology and put our faith in voluntary measures to limit CO2 emissions. Sorry, folks, but faith-based initiatives won't work here. If voluntarism was a viable approach, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. After all, it's not as if this notion of global warming is an altogether new one.

So, in the face of a world besotted with oil and a U.S. president who aids and abets the industry's machinations, what can worried citizens do to focus attention on interrupting the destabilizing process that is the process of wreaking havoc around the world? Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor at the University of Toronto, writing recently in a New York Times op-ed piece entitled, "A Swiftly Melting Planet," reminds us that, in the 1960s, mothers by the tens of thousands organized a campaign that virtually halted atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. Fearing that their children risked childhood leukemia from drinking milk containing radioactive material, these women banded together to demand change and they got it. The threat global warming poses to our children and grandchildren may be even more catastrophic.

The time has passed for wishing and hoping that someone else will fix this problem. Now, anyone and everyone who wishes the only world we have well, but also to have it prosper and survive must stand up and be counted -- before it's too late. And a final thought, perhaps those 'hanging chads' in Florida did us all a favor after all. If not for them, Al Gore would have been dealing with a recalcitrant Congress, and the Nobel champion of this crucial issue would have been waylaid deep in party politics. Listening to all the presumptive candidates, we now know how compelling and constructive that happens to be.

Raymond Learsy is the author of the updated "Over a Barrel: Breaking Oil's Stranglehold on Our Future."

Comments

[NCGigi]

The Answer Come Up Every Day. We must harvest the sun that beams on our earth 24 hours a day. There has been no serious federal investment in alternative energy production. Manhattan Project for Solar Power NOW!

[dobermanmacleod]

To worry about the additional fossil fuel added to our reserves by the opening up of the Polar regions misses the point. In the next couple of decades we will undergo abrupt climate change and runaway global warming. In other words, burning that additional fossil fuel makes no difference.

Briefly, within the next couple of decades we can expect some ecosystems to quickly collapse:

"There is no linear predictability in terms of how ecosystems respond. The phenomena of collapse is one that we have under-appreciated, partly because of the feed-back mechanisms that we are still trying to understand." Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme, Oct '07

Furthermore, carbon sinks will become carbon emitters more rapidly than expected due to feedback loops not included in climate models. This occurred 55 million years ago, when a geological accident put a terraton of carbon gas into the air.

We are emitting more than 30 times faster, and thus the vicious circle we trigger will start sooner and proceed faster:

"We now have evidence from the Earth's history that a similar event happened fifty-five million years ago when a geological accident released into the air more than a terraton of gaseous carbon compounds. As a consequence the temperature in the arctic and temperate regions rose eight degree Celsius and in tropical regions about five degrees, and it took over one hundred thousand years before normality was restored. We have already put more than half this quantity of carbon gas into the air and now the Earth is weakened by the loss of land we took to feed and house ourselves. In addition, the sun is now warmer, and as a consequence the Earth is now returning to the hot state it was in before, millions of years ago, and as it warms, most living things will die." (The Revenge of Gaia)

[outnow]

In 1967, I was working for UCLA and transported visiting professors to the campus from LAX. In discussing the oil dependency and climate change, it became evident that the economy and the resistance to change would doom us. Climate change is so catastrophic for the biosphere that it is unimaginable. Water will be scarce and the food chain irreparably damaged. Those of you who do not realize these facts are 40 years behind me.

The advent of the transistor was the beginning of the communications revolution that has allowed the Arab world to unite. But the problem is ecological, not political. Our energy policy is driving the foreign policy, not the other way around.

I do not expect my children to live out their lives as events cascade. The health of the oceans reveals the real story. What happens on the surface of the planet is already determined by patterns in the oceans predicting the changes, like falling PH due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Well, they say that as the climate changes,
there'll probably be more storms and stuff,
so there's no time like the present to get
crazy with the wind power....they just have
to factor in HIGHER winds....

[LeaderofMen]

Thank you for verifying comments I made by inference about this issue in previous posts.

It is clear that once important mineral reserves are found and exploitable at the Arctic (or near it) that NO one on the planet will be able to stop global warming. After all, once the money from the sale of those minerals starts to accumulate in bank accounts NO one will be willing to stop it.

The same will be true for Antarctica as well. Mark my words. Once the melting begins there, all bets are off. Treaties will be seen as quaint. The divying up of the Antarctic will begin, probably most likely beginning with the 'wedges' that occupying nations already have. This will begin in our lifetimes.

But this is the most important issue not discussed a lot with respect to global warming vs. oil: So what how much we use right now. Attempts to stop the 'progress' of global warming are MOOT. The real issue is when the oil runs out or becomes so expensive it will be impossible to purchase it at reasonable prices. Then what will we do. That is the real issue. The changover from a carbon based civilization to renewables has far reaching implications in excess of the fact that the poles are melting. After they've finished melting and after the oil is all extracted we still will need energy. But I suspect that before we shift to renewables on a massive/global scale civilization will have faltered so badly it won't matter anymore. After all, entire economies will have tanked far before the end of Peak Oil.

[cynicaloptimist]

The most encouraging news I read recently on alternative energy development was in the Oct.15, 2007 issue of "BusinessWeek" magazine (p.68-76), "Solar's Day in the Sun" by John Carey about the brilliant John O'Donnell. I found the link to the artical online:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_42/b4054053.htm?chan=technology_technology+index+page_best+of+the+magazine

It isn't about oil, but it is about a very viable source of emissionless energy which could help in the race to slow global warming (puts 'clean coal' and nuclear's 250 million year waste to shame). This tech combined with new electric car tech could make oil dependency a less inevitable polluted future, unless the extremely greedy thwart such promising innovation.

[hopeless277]

The 'tipping point' of global warming has come and gone. There is absolutely NOTHING that humanity can do to reverse the trend. All we can do is prepare for much worse weather and sell our quaint seaside cottages before they are quaint undersea cottages. Fasten your seat belts, folks, it's gonna get weird real soon.

[UtahLiberal435]

Sorry Hopeless, but I've done a ton of interviews with leading climatologists, paleoclimatologists, foresters, glaciologists and the like, and no, the tipping point has not come and gone. Yes, there are going to be effects, but they're not at runaway global catastrophe levels quite yet.

But the time for business as usual is over, and industrial obstructionists need to be brought into line, or frogmarched to the guillotine.

[Where is Jesus?]

Does anyone really believe that the oil giants will ever stop drinking from the oil troughs? They will gleefully suck the coffers of the world dry, even if it means destroying the earth in the process. Their only vision is "how much money can we make!" That's it. They know that their children's children will vanish along with the rest of the population but they just figure, "hey, at least they will die rich!"

Amazing! We are being held captive and condemned to perish along with our earth as we know it, by simple greed. Who's really going to stop it?

We had just better start working on new technology for survival. It's already too late to save this way of life that we are accustomed to now. How about genetic modifications for growing gills and fins, special skin changes to block out the UV rays, and then a whole new set of survival gimmicks to save us from the ultimate ice age that is coming?

[Nommo]

Better start asking in earnest what--with all that money, is left to buy?

[bookish]

We're like hyenas fighting over a corpse.

[Hoelder]

Hello people, the ensuing problem from all this melting ice is water. Too much water in the oceans and too little in the icepack. When the snow pack in the mountains that stores our drinking water disappears so does the water we rely on to quench our thirst. Next we will build reservoirs to store the ever unreliable rain falls putting unnecessary pressure on tectonic plates in quake areas. The fundamentals of water do not change: freezes at 32F and boils at 212F. Global warming has all to do with the water cycles on earth and water is the key to our existence. Did you know that the Sahara desert has one of the highest concentration of water. Unfortunately, it is high in the atmosphere and the rain never hits the ground because it evaporates before it hits. The longer we wait the more we inviting social unrest and war over water. Migrations of so far unknown and unimaginatively large size will be roaming the smaller and smaller land masses.

[seawolf77]

At the end of every boom, the boomsters have a vested interest at keeping the boom going. Think Bernie Ebbers, the erstwhile CEO of WorldCom. And so here are at the end of THE greatest boom of oil, the oil age. And the boomsters are fullfilling their roles with Oscar like relish and enthusiasm, egging us on, refuting the naysayers, dispensing with truth as if it were melted ice cream. The world we are headed to is so different than the one today, it will require a telescopee to ever see it again.

[GreedyOldPsychopaths]

Ray,

Not until every remaining ounce of oil is drained and every dollar (EURO) extorted will the oil barons (and fossil fuel advocates) be satisfied. Even then, their greed will continue a destructive path of search and destroy in a mission for unending riches (profits) regardless of the consequences. Meanwhile, they will have effectively wrought the utter destruction of earth and humanity, unless¦WE stop them.

It can be done and I have personally witnessed the power of, and participated in, citizen groups in action. Citizen groups possess the very real ability to oust public officials and employees advocating irresponsible energy policies and projects. Make a difference, get educated and get involved.

[flatus]

My personal thanks goes out to all those selflessly driving Suburbans, Envoys, Hummers, Yukons and other giant, gas-slurping pigs.

[tommy slothrop]

LightningJoe,
Dead right.
And the same goes for Iraqi oil. It's no tragedy that it may not be used as fast as Cheney would like to use it. It'll still be there for the next generation or the generation after that.

[ljsfolly]

It goes to show where the administration support is going, big oil business. We are in Iraq because of the black stuff spilling American blood without any degree of concern from the white house. The bushies have laughed all the way to the bank at Al Gore and his global warming stance for years and yet here we are on the very threshold of doom full of glee at the very idea of more balck stuff to fill our tanks and kill our children and all of mankind. We are no longer watching our doom from afar. In California the wells go dry the rivers run dry and who cares? This is being repeated all over the world and who cares? Do we see media speaking to us about this impact now upon us? No. Those of us who have no voice in the world and the state of things can only watch as we hurdle on down the destuctive road and know there is an end in sight.

[BeerHolder]

"At the end of the end, is the start of a journey to a much better place." Paul McCartney

We better hope that's true because Man is well on his way to extinction. Keep pumping that oil and cutting those tress down and see where it gets you.