In Harm's Way: The Arctic Wild

Just a few weeks ago, a German ship left on a voyage seeking a sea route across the frozen top of the world -- something mariners have sought for 500 years. Because of global warming, the ship likely will succeed. Satellite images show that, for the first time in recorded history, there is an ice-free passage through the Arctic north of both Canada and Russia.

International merchants see the prospect of an Arctic shipping route as a shortcut to increased profits. But it actually is an alarming piece of the global push to exploit the once-pristine Far North. Finally unlocked by the warming effects of climate change, these waters and lands -- and the people and creatures whose survival depends on them -- are under assault by corporations and nations eager to turn them into industrial zones. And unfortunately, the United States is no exception.

In the next few weeks the Obama administration faces a series of crucial decisions that will determine whether America's Arctic will survive and thrive or be sacrificed to destructive and dangerous oil and gas drilling.

At stake are the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas -- also known as the Polar Bear Seas, home to 1 in 5 of the world's remaining polar bears -- as well as the rich fishing grounds of Bristol Bay. During the last eight years, the oil and gas industry and the Bush administration pushed hard to open these fragile waters to industrial-scale oil and gas exploration and drilling.

The rush to drill ignored the fact that the Arctic is perhaps the least-understood region on Earth, and that the most basic scientific research is lacking to guide decisions that could alter the Arctic ecosystem forever. An oil spill in icy waters, which is likely if drilling goes forward, would be a disaster we have no idea how to clean up

The Arctic is ground zero of the global warming crisis. Its seas, its wildlife and its people are already suffering the harmful effects of a warming world. Extracting more oil and gas will directly damage the Arctic ecosystem, while burning those fossil fuels will accelerate global warming -- without doing a thing to satisfy the nation's need for clean energy. The Arctic's places, species and people are too precious to allow destructive oil and gas activity without a rigorous, objective scientific review of what may be lost.

Until September 21, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is asking for Americans' opinions on a Bush-era plan for selling Arctic oil and gas leases in the coming years. At the same time, he is deciding whether to permit Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean in 2010 and whether to defend a Bush-era sale in the Chukchi Sea that offered the pristine area to oil companies without complying with environmental laws.

Secretary Salazar should throw out the Bush-era leasing plan and cancel the illegal Chukchi Sea leases. He should call a "time-out" on all new oil and gas activity in the Arctic Ocean -- including pending drilling plans -- until he develops a science-based, comprehensive approach to managing the region that will ensure a legacy of a healthy, living Arctic for future generations.

No less than the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone, the Arctic is a national treasure. Just as American leaders of previous generations had the vision and foresight to preserve national parks and wilderness areas, President Obama and Secretary Salazar can protect the Arctic as a legacy for future generations.

If they don't? Once it's gone, it's gone forever.

TAKE ACTION:
Tell Interior Secretary Salazar to throw out the Bush-era leasing plan and cancel the illegal Chukchi Sea leases.

Comments

[CelticMajic]

Intersting to read the posts below. Numerous factual accounts of navigating the route and instead of dealing with the issue, true believers chalk it up to "deniers" or impune the person posting. Very telling.

[JanBjernfalk]

Let's hope, for their sake, that this German ship has an easier time than the yacht "Fiona". Last week Fiona got stuck while trying to make a similar passage in the Arctic, and had to call in an icebreaker for rescue. Scary stuff.

"Last night, 16 Aug, we got hopelessly trapped by the ice. Despite a favorable ice report we encountered 8/10ths ice, with many old, i.e. large, bergs. We spent the night tied to one of them but had to leave this morning when another 'berg collided with us and tipped Fiona over. We got away but the space around us is shrinking. I called the Canadian Coast Guard at noon and they are sending an icebreaker, due here tomorrow."

http://www.yachtfiona.com/fnn.htm

[realpolitic]

Well, they were probably a year or two too early. As the article says, "Satellite images show that, for the first time in recorded history, there is an ice-free passage through the Arctic north of both Canada and Russia."

[JanBjernfalk]

Sorry, don't understand your comment. Fiona is up there right now, and this incident was just last week.

[realpolitic]

Here are some interesting graphs of the decline of Arctic sea ice.

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/detection-images/climate-ice-seaice-extent-trend-sep08.png

http://www.arcus.org/search/seaiceoutlook/2009_outlook/report_august.php

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/images/essays/seaice/s2-big.jpg

Also, polar bears are shrinking in size due to inability to find food and pollutants, according to a Journal of Zoology study.

"Scientists compared bear skulls from the early 20th Century with those from the latter half of the century."


"Because the ice is melting, the bears have to use much more energy to hunt their prey," explained Cino Pertoldi, professor of biology from Aarhus University and the Polish Academy of Science, and lead scientist in this study.

"Imagine you have two twins - one is well fed during its growth and one is starving. (The starving) one will be much smaller, because it will not have enough energy to allocate to growth."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8214673.stm

[friedfish2718]

And 2009 Arctic Ice is greater than 2008 which is greater than 2007 and co2 level is still increasing.

http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_ext.png

[realpolitic]

Yes, 2007 was the year of the lowest ice extent on recorded record to date. Only deniers think that some years still will not be worse than others. It just shows how misinformed you guys are about the simpliest facts!

[JanBjernfalk]

"... for the first time in recorded history, there is an ice-free passage through the Arctic ..."

Huh?

So, all that stuff about Roald Amundsen doing it in 1903, was that a hoax?

[realpolitic]

It took him two years of hugging his small boat close to the shoreline. They camped out a full winter. It is amazing how little deniers know, but how full of certitude they are!

[friedfish2718]

There may very be a clear NorthWest passage at that time but Roald Amundsen did not
have satellite imagery.

[friedfish2718]

As far as Canadian Northwest passages (a sample):

In 1944, Canadian RCMP officer Henry Larsen sailed the Northwest passage, setting the mark for having traversed it (by sail) in a single season.

On July 1, 1957, the United States Coast Guard cutter Storis became the first U.S.-registered vessel to circumnavigate North America within the same season.

In June 1977, sailor Willy de Roos left Belgium to attempt the Northwest Passage in his 13.8 m (45 ft) steel yacht Williwaw. In June 1977, sailor Willy de Roos left Belgium to attempt the Northwest Passage in his 13.8 m (45 ft) steel yacht Williwaw. He reached the Bering Strait in September and after a stopover in Victoria, British Columbia, went
on to round Cape Horn and sail back to Belgium, thus being the first sailor to circumnavigate the Americas entirely by sailboat.

[friedfish2718]

The Siberian Arctic passage is called the NorthEast passage:

Sea route from the North Atlantic, around Asia, to the North Pacific, pioneered by the Swedish explorer Nils Nordenskjöld 1878–79 and developed by the USSR in settling Northern Siberia from 1935.

It was not until 1878 when Swedish explorer Nordenskjold made the first successful attempt to completely navigate the Northeast Passage from west to east. Only in 1915 did a Russian expedition made the passage in reverse direction.

[fumes]

''Satellite images show that, for the first time in recorded history, there is an ice-free passage through the Arctic north of both Canada and Russia.''

say what? satellite images are new..

were they around throughout recorded history recorded history might well be different..

[realpolitic]

Fumes, maybe its time to bring out your Wikipedia quote on Greenland. We haven't seen it in a couple weeks.

[friedfish2718]

Fumes is correct.

Trip apparently copied (incompletely) from nyt:

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/era-of-trans-arctic-shipping-nigh/

"Last year, for the first time in the era of satellite monitoring, both Arctic passages were briefly open at the same time."

Trip kept out the expression "satellite monitoring", which started about 30 years ago.

There has been quite a few recorded Arctic crossings from Bering Strait to Europe in the 20th century. I am sure there were passages in centuries before. And Greenland had extreme melting in the mid 1940's.

In the case of the current trip of the German vessel, Beluga Fraternity, the ship left Korean in July 2009 with Holland as destination. Different from the Canadian Northwest
passage. For an objective account of the Siberian Arctic passage, Trip needs to give us
an historical account of Russian arctic maritime activities. There has been many voyages from Murmansk to the Canadian port of Churchill and Murmansk is quite to close to Finland (thus Murmansk to Holland is not a problem). During WW2, under the lend-lease program there has been many US-Soviet Arctic convoys from Iceland to Murmansk.

What is interesting is that 2007 had the lowest ice extent but the passages were not open simultaneously. Ice extent for 2009 is greater than 2008 which is in turn greater than 2007.

[Henry]

Trip,
Have we decided the sovereignty of the Artic yet? Here is a link to a map which show the buffer of states with proximity.

http://geology.com/articles/who-owns-the-arctic.shtml

Does the U.N. decide in favor of western oil corporations?