Up in the frozen arctic, where polar bears rule over a biogem world, massive oil drilling plans threaten the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Shell, the oil behemoth that made $4.8 billion in profits last quarter, intends to boost those numbers by drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off Alaska. And the Obama Administration appears eager to help them.
Last year Shell was granted approval to conduct exploratory deepwater drilling operations in one of the most fragile ecosystems -- and most hazardous environments -- on the planet. This month, federal regulators may approve Shell’s cleanup response plan in this remote area that is a thousand miles from modern ports and oil industry infrastructure. If approved, Shell could send its drilling fleet out into the arctic this summer to bore into the seabed, searching for the black gold oil industry execs have been salivating over for decades. The problem is, drilling in these remote, harsh arctic environments involve huge risks and threatens all forms of life, including the arctic's most iconic creature, the polar bear.
Check out the hazards oil drilling will pose to unique polar bear birthing grounds in this new NRDC video, narrated by Robert Redford. Go to www.StopShell.org to find out how you can help tell the Obama Administration to deny Shell its final drilling permit.
As the ice slowly thaws in these pristine Alaskan waters and the snow retreats with the warming winds of spring, pregnant polar bears will begin an annual trek to birthing grounds this summer. But for the first time, a massive oil drilling operation and a flotilla of support ships may also join their arctic habitat. Some wonder if this is just the beginning of an oil platform invasion that could turn this immaculate seascape into an oil-rig studded Gulf of Mexico.
Let’s hope not. We all have pretty short memories if we don’t remember the horrendous consequences of oil drilling operations off our more hospitable southern shores, where a disaster still unfolds and impacts to fisheries, wildlife and human health have yet to be counted or fully known.
But in the frozen north, an oil disaster could be far worse -- and irreparable. As we know from the Exxon Valdez fiasco, the ecology of Alaska's northern seas is even more sensitive to the assault of toxic petroleum compounds, assaults that are continuing more than two decades later. NRDC President Frances Beinecke, a member of the presidential commission that investigated the Deepwater Horizon, blogged about it this way;
By allowing drilling into the Arctic Ocean before the government and the industry have addressed the failures that led to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement is taking a dangerous gamble. Residents, fishermen, business owners and all the people who love the Gulf of Mexico can tell us who pays the price for such recklessness.
We have seen the price of drilling in the Gulf and witnessed hollow oil industry promises that catastrophic accidents will not happen. The sad truth is that nearly two years after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, we still are no closer to passing crucial federal laws to protect us from increasingly dangerous drilling practices that push further into more hazardous offshore environments.
So should we believe the industry that brought us Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon that oil blowouts can be contained and controlled in the frigid oceans of the arctic? The video sums it up best; if the oil industry couldn’t stop and clean up its cataclysm in the Gulf of Mexico, then how will it clean up an arctic blowout faced with 20-foot surging seas, gale force winds and subzero temperatures?
Let’s hope we don’t leave it to the polar bears to figure that out.
Follow Rocky Kistner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rockyatnrdc
Damien Clarkson: The Responsible Capitalism Agenda Needs to End Shell Hell
Mason Inman: The Climate Post: Obama Calls for "All of the Above" Energy Strategy for America
Bill Chameides: Take Your Pick from the Energy Subsidies Tree: Apples, Oranges, or Blossoms
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d6c6d346-802a-23ad-436f-40eb31233026
This is a very old species that has survived warming trends in the past. A great many live on land, in Canada. We need to at least see some real evidence of declining polar bear population before we start worrying about them and shutting down oil worker jobs for Americans and Canadiens.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d6c6d346-802a-23ad-436f-40eb31233026
STUDY: Himalayas, nearby peaks lost no ice in past 10 years...
Scientists 'stunned'...
Please cite your source for that golden nugget of information. Fox news?
dealing with
the impending
perish situation.
or find ANY less inviting climate to get AWAY from US...
lets leave the polar bears alone...
for goodness sakes.
I found myself picking through my poinsettia plant today...
and had a sudden urge to save the dead leaves...
God was wondering if we've discovered a
"man-made" machine with intense enough pressure...
or intense enough pressure over time...
to begin to turn our own organic compost into fuel?
DUH.
BUT I don't advocate violence like davie does. Violence has gotten us where we are today, and I, for one, have had enough of violent rhetoric and actions. Voting is easier, quicker, and much more satisfying.
"...most fragile ecosystems..."
You mean like the Gulf, where microorganisms consume ALL OF THE OIL and it is nowhere to be found?
The only thing worse than the HP are the psuedo environment scientists who have a degree in coffee making from Starbucks and claim to know their rear end parts from a hole in the ground.....
Your new handle hasn't helped your thinking abilities one bit.