Arctic Oil Bonanza Worries Alaska Natives
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Modern technology and surging oil prices have suddenly made the prospect of drilling in the remote, icy Chukchi Sea irresistible to the world’s oil giants — and that is worrying the Inupiat people who have lived at the sea’s edge for centuries.
With drilling opportunities dwindling elsewhere, oil companies earlier this month bid an astonishing $2.66 billion for drilling rights in the Chukchi, a stretch of water off Alaska’s northwest coast that is frozen half the year and is a major polar bear habitat.
The Inupiat, relatives of the Inuit who inhabit other parts of the Arctic, fear oil spills or drilling activity will disrupt the endangered bowhead whales and other marine animals that they have hunted for generations.
“We want to continue to survive. Our lives are tied to subsistence. So is our culture and our religion with all the animals,” said Jack Schaefer, president of the Inupiat village of Point Hope, a settlement on the Chukchi that is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in North America.
“We don’t have anything to replace that with. The high unemployment rate here will continue even if there is offshore oil and gas development since there will only be a few jobs that will be available.”
Shell and ConocoPhillips, the two biggest bidders in the U.S. government’s sale of drilling rights in the Chukchi, insist they will take the concerns of local communities into account as they search for the 12 billion barrels of oil the government believes lie under the sea floor.
But native leaders and environmentalists say the oil companies and the U.S. government’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) have not done enough research to see if drilling in the Chukchi will be safe, especially in light of climate change, which is already transforming the Arctic environment and putting stress on delicate ecosystems.
“The MMS’s environmental impact statement did not take into account what we have learned in the last year — we are not going to see as much sea ice (in the Chukchi) and this is going to have really big ramifications for a number of species like the polar bear and walrus,” said Chris Krenz, a researcher with Oceana, a marine environment advocacy group.
The Chukchi sale comes as the U.S. government is pushing to move more acreage in other parts of the Arctic like the Beaufort Sea into the hands of oil companies.
“It’s too much, it’s too soon and it’s just going too fast,” said Edward Itta, the Inupiat mayor of the sprawling North Slope Borough, a north Alaskan area the size of Britain.
ICE AND OIL
Native groups and environmentalists most fear a serious oil spill in the Chukchi. The MMS itself estimated in the environmental impact statement authorizing the lease sale there was a 40 percent chance of a spill of at least 1,000 barrels or more over the life of any single oil development project in the Chukchi.
“If oil spills under ice in the middle of January there is absolutely nothing they can do about it,” said Rick Steiner, an oil spill expert at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
“There’s a large stretch of time when they would be producing oil and have no way of cleaning up a spill.”
A legal challenge to the validity of the MMS’s environmental impact statement is under way, and a similar suit temporarily halted Shell’s plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea last summer.
Drilling opponents are pessimistic about their chances of putting a stop to the rush into the Arctic.
“Maybe there can be something worked out, but at this time it really doesn’t look that way,” said Schaefer.
“They don’t really seem to care, and as this is a democracy they’ll tend to deal with those that are the majority.”
Additional reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage, editing by Matthew Lewis
© 2008 Reuters
“The Inupiat, relatives of the Inuit who inhabit other parts of the Arctic, fear oil spills or drilling activity will disrupt the endangered bowhead whales and other marine animals that they have hunted for generations.
“We want to continue to survive. Our lives are tied to subsistence. So is our culture and our religion with all the animals,”
**its unfortunate that these sorts of articles are always framed in terms of human value. What about the right of the whales and other animals to live free from human intervention?
If the Inupiat can attend whaling conferences in Japan, then they are able to adapt culturally. The Makah whalers were very selective in what cultural heritage they wanted to preserve, They wanted to resume whaling, but not human slavery, whihc they also practiced.
That sort of cherry picking isnt justice, its supremacy myth in action.
Humans in the arctic are not designed as natives. They need tools and artificial means to survive there. Polar bears, wolves etc are born with all the equipment to survive in the climate.
It might seem a harsh judgment but life trumps lifestyle. Political correctness should end where unnecessary killing begins–something Greenpeace hasnt figured out, unlike Sea Shepherd.
It really is time to get beyond this idea that “OIL” is our only fuel. Why aren’t we spending as much time and effort developing a “Hydrogen Economy?” Why haven’t we put “solar film” on all the buildings in the US to generate electricity? Why haven’t we insisted that all homes have roofs of solar roofing and siding the same? Where are the real electric vehicles?
Here’s some other human activity in this region that much of the corperate media isn’t reporting- from the Sierra Club:
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200803/lol.asp
Why would anyone want Artic oil? I hear from General Motors that their new cars will run on a ‘Crock Of Shit.’
Aaaah, our friendly corporate apologist, kelmer certainly jumped in with his swift-boat tactics early on this topic.
His ‘blame the victims’ corporate apologisms certainly rankle my sensibilities (granted, I don’t have many - but I hate to waste them) when I have to listen to supporters of our fascist oligarchy take on any group, no matter how small, who doesn’t subscribe to servitude to corporate excessive profiteering.
I wouldn’t think a hardcore vegan attitude endears one enough to corporations for them to bankroll one’s posts, curmudgeon99. Kelmer, will you tell us that it is futile to resist the northward crawl of the rapacious monster conjoined of gov and oil?
Unfortunately, polar bears don’t vote, and the Inupiat population is so small that their votes barely count, and the rest of the Alaska electorate is addicted to the bonus that each Alaska resident gets each year from oil revenues.
yeah! sell out basically the last remaining pristine environment to the oil corps, all for a yearly stipend of 1,200 bucks! SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT DEAL! IN ALASKA, AN APPLE COSTS 1.50$, THAT IS LIKE GIVING ANYONE STATESIDE $500, FOR THE PLUNDERING OF THE NATURAL BEAUTY THAT IS EARTH. they will all burn in fiery oilpools in hell anyways, that is what awaits those that work for the oil companies, right down to the secrataries. HEMP FOR VICTORY!!! HEMP FOR VICTORY!!! hemp for victory!! google it.
I would like to see those who are disrespecting Alaskan Natives and Alaskans try to survive without their local grocery store feeding their bellies and paved roads taking them to the doctor when they are sick.
You wouldn’t last three days.
I am sympathetic to kelmer’s plea that we go go beyond a “human-centered” ethics and recognize the rights of non-human lifeforms, like the whales and polar bears. That is a wise approach to take. But I would suggest those of us who wish to expand our consciousness beyond the “normal” “Western” individualist/consumerist mindset that dominates American thinking, should show some respect for the dignity, wisdom and self-determination of non-white, non-Western peoples, especially the indigenous peoples whose lands we have conquered and whose customs, worldviews and population we have largely destroyed.
I do not believe in romanticizing the “First Peoples”, but nor should their needs and opinions be set aside, either by transnational corporations, powerful, remote nation-states, or “local governments” comprised overwhelmingly of recent colonists. This is true in Hawaii, where I live, and certainly in Alaska, the area under discussion.
Oh, the the rights of the indigenous people should not be set aside/ignored by well-intended, self-described environmentalists either,
kelmer “accuses” the indigenous inhabitants of Alaska of of “cherry-picking” which aspects of modern society they wish to adopt. Please think about this accusation. All people, either collectively, or mostly individually, decide how to live their lives, given the narrow range of options available to them. Whether to use a traditional sled or a snowmobile is, apparently, a choice that people of European descent should be free to make, but not the traditional inhabitants of the land? Once an Inuit or Inupiat decides to buy a Polartec jacket instead of a pre-contact parka made from polar bear hide, they thereby forfeit all rights to traditional practices?
I do not pretend there are easy answers. Actually, there are “easy answers,” but they are invariably wrong. If we look at the question of drilling for oil in the ANWR, we can see a case where indigenous peoples are being pitted against each other, forcing to choose between some environmental degradation and the ability in a “market economy” to “put food on the family”, have decent social services and schools. Too many in the liberal, or even “anarchist, wing of the European settler population from the “Lower 48″ are quick to shove aside the native Alaskans and impose a “pro-environment” receivership over the native lands.
The indigenous people have aright to be parties to any planning for developments that will impact their lands and their way of life. A respect for their self-determination demands that recognition. They have a right to negotiate. And, as such, they have a right to set their price for being “bought off” bu those with whom they are negotiating. Does that mean that oil companies need ONLY buy off native peoples in order to go ahead with their plans which may have a negative impact on non-human lifeforms or the broader environment? Of course, not. The broader Alaskan people, “American” people, and people of the world have something at stake in preserving the beauty and health of many areas, regardless of the needs of the indigenous peoples. So make them a counter-offer. Buy from them the development rights and put them into a public trust. Indigenous Alaskans do not support oil drilling because it is essential to who they are. It is a means to an end. Provide them an alternative means.
Whaling is a different matter, but requires the same kind of respect. For those people in Alaska or the Pacific Northwest who have a legitimate claim for catching whale as a core activity of their traditional culture, western “environmentalists should show some humility. It is not your place to claim that you “speak for the whales.” I do believe non-indigenous people have a right to ensure that this native claim does not become a cover for industrial harvesting of the whales, or salmon, so I do not recognize it as an absolute right.
White Americans, I see your cable system devotes an entire channel to the “entertainment” of white men taking the lives of deer, ducks, geese and other life forms with steel-barreled rifles. The descendants of the European settlers who have come to dominate the North American land mass are engaged in a comprehensive system of extensive resource extraction and pollutant discharge which is poisoning the air, the rivers, the aquifers, the soil, as well as throwing out of balance the climate of the entire world. It is obviously well-intended that some of the younger members of the dominant culture are trying to grapple with their responsibilities towards the planet and the future generations. It is good that you have taken on responsibilities as “citizens” of the world. But please recognize that it is not a new idea that white people believe they have a right to dictate what goes on in other countries, other lands, in the lives of other people. This is a longstanding conceit of white people, which non-white people have had to withstand, in various forms, for centuries. Please develop some humility, some respect and approach non-white, especially First People populations as equals. In fact, if you truly believe that the Western approach to “development” is threatening the destruction of Mother Earth and nonhuman life forms, please come willing to learn from traditional cultures.
I have lectured enough.
Aloha
The Inuits fears are well founded. They do not want to become the Ogoni of North America.
“We want to continue to survive. Our lives are tied to subsistence.-Inupiat
With drilling opportunities dwindling elsewhere, oil companies earlier this month bid an astonishing $2.66 billion
the U.S. government’s sale of drilling rights
2.66 Billion dollars going to the people of the United States! It’s OUR MONEY!
What’s that, 9 dollars per/MW&child?
I say leave it! But since our government gets it, I think 2.66 billion will go to pay for the occupation of other countries.
For an authentic look at human (and animal) life in a contemporary Chukchi Sea Inupiat village, see award winning and timely novel “Flight of the Goose” by Lesley Thomas. One of the characters is a scientist studying the effects of oil spills on the local ecology; the other is a traditional hunter. Anchorage Daily News columnist Heather Lende writes: “Should be required reading by Congress!” Endorsed by Alaska Natives.
http://www.lesleythomas.alaskawriters.com
Give the petrol giants an inch and they’ll take a mile. Let’s eliminate the fossil fuels from our energy diet. We’ve had the technology since the late ’60’s to get all the energy we need from alternative sources, but we’ve not had (or our politicians have not had) the guts to defy the greed-heads of the fossil fuel corporatizers to deny their tax breaks and subsidies or to stimulate continued development of technologies that could wean us away from these very limited and toxic sources of energy, to say nothing of political slavery - - if not yet, just around the corner. Leave Alaska’s wilderness areas alone!
Kelmer wrote: “**its unfortunate that these sorts of articles are always framed in terms of human value. What about the right of the whales and other animals to live free from human intervention?”
Indigenous lifeways involve taking only what one needs to live, and showing deep respect through ritual and ceremony for the whale whose life was given. Western thought does not comprehend the meaning of respect, reciprocity, and balance in the same ways that Indigenous peoples do. The Christian belief in dominion is a hellish and disruptive belief system, and improperly applied violates the fundamental core belief of all religions, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Unrestricted capitalism is deeply flawed and morally unacceptable. It will be changed.
Natives and environment vs oil companies.
There is no competition
Brilliant idea! If cars can run on a ‘crock of shit’…as long as politicians the world over are around, the supply should be endless.
The corporate media isn’t telling us what we need to know. We need to know the volume of resources expended in oil exploration, production, transport, refining. Until the corporate media starts delivering the “goods”, we progressives are boycotting all capitalist production.
George C. Brown: We’ve had the technology since the late ’60’s to get all the energy we need from alternative sources
We had renewable carbon-neutral and high-efficiency energy technology (biofuels, series diesel-electric motive power, solar-thermal, wind) one hundred years ago to produce all energy consumed THEN. As the decades progressed so would have the efficiency of the technology to keep up with increased consumption.
Properly bound by the government, the capitalist would have been unable to plot their mega-racket to addict Americans to the massive fossil over-consumption over the past fifty years. Today we would be consuming 1/5th if the capitalists were properly bound. And we’d have averted global warming, the oil wars, and we’d have fossil reserves for a dozen generations.
But the capitalists have proven themselves the great catastrophe-makers. The capitalists have to be caged at night and shackled in chains during the day if we want progress. Until we cage the capitalists, forget about progress.