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The Looming Disaster: Oil Follies in the Arctic
Sometimes the future is filled with surprises. On other occasions, it can be painfully predictable. In the case of drilling for oil in the extreme reaches of America's Arctic seas, the latter is the case. BP's catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, growing worse by the hour, is a living lesson in what will happen, sooner or later, if America's Arctic waters are opened to the giant oil companies. If their drill rigs arrive, rest assured, despoliation will follow; and barring the sort of quick action by President Obama or Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar that Congressional representatives are increasingly calling for, rest assured as well that they will come. Despite the sobering vision of BP's collosal mess in the Gulf, Shell Oil is reportedly "moving vessels and other equipment from distant locations, in preparation for assembling its Arctic drilling fleet" in Alaskan Arctic waters this summer to bore test wells. The company apparently has no second thoughts on the subject.
Polar bear approaching Bowhead remains from a previous year's hunt, Bernard harbor outside Kaktovik, 2001. (Credit: Subhankar Banerjee) The difference between the Gulf of Mexico and those northern waters is this: the climate is far less conducive to clean-up operations. If Shell were to "BP" the Alaskan Arctic, despite its effusive claims for the safety of its drilling operations and similarly profuse promises that it's ready to cap and clean the oil spills it essentially insists can't happen, real help would be in short supply and a long way off.
If the oil company is allowed to go through with its drilling plans in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and anything goes wrong, the nearest Coast Guard base would be almost 1,000 miles distant, the nearest cleanup vessels and equipment too few and 100 miles away, the nearest airports capable of handling large cargo planes similarly at least 100 miles away, and the nearest "major potential supply city," Seattle, a couple of thousand miles away. Combine this with extreme local conditions and you have a surefire recipe for turning "drill, baby, drill" into "disaster, baby, disaster."
Subhankar Banerjee is the foremost photographer of perhaps the most beautiful, ecologically diverse, climatically extreme, and deeply desired oil drilling location in North America, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In the Bush years, he had a strange experience: an exhibit of photographs from his book Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, was to appear at a major venue in the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History, but in May 2003, the museum suddenly moved the exhibit to a more obscure spot and stripped it of its captions which -- horror of horrors -- "included statements advocating the protection of the refuge." The Arctic Refuge was never opened to the oil companies. The rest of the Arctic may not be so lucky. After years photographing there, Banerjee knows just what drilling in our Arctic waters will mean and what, if the Obama administration doesn't move with speed, will surely be lost in the process -- a world of staggering, generative richness which, distant as it may be, is our world, too.
You can see Banerjee’s remarkable photos and his views on Shell’s drilling plan here.
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. His latest book, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (Haymarket Books), will be published in June.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllMore Canadian Artic than American up there. Isn't sliming a whole whack of boreal forest in Alberta enough?
Like the increased clandestine military operations in non-war zones described in another article on CD, my take is that the ultimate reasons for new oil exploration in the Arctic are as follows:
1. There exists the possibility for profit, and
2. 'Because they can', an 'in your face' sort of muscle-flexing.
In fact, the estimated finds (undiscovered reserves) in "the Arctic may contain anywhere from a 1-3 year supply of oil and a 7-27 year supply of gas" for the world.* It's thought that the never-before-open but famous Northwest Passage could enable transportation of same. Is that cool or what - a sea route newly available due to global climate change will provide access to increased offshore drilling. :P
I mean, we can lose on this deal at least three ways: Risk of offshore drilling/oilwell accident in Arctic waters, risk of accident during transportation through Arctic and northern waters, and availability of more petro-fuel for consumer use which leads to more climate change. The mind boggles...
* http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/arctic-oil-gas/890
God has decreed that that oil should be drilled. Otherwise, he wouldn't have melted the ice cap.
God is just a projection fantasy of His followers. Small wonder God is so vindictive, destructive, and just plain evil.
Our democratic deficit (I'm Canadian myself and certainly include ourselves) means that the issue won't be well looked at. A thorough exploration and airing of the argument is needed, but our system doesn't have a space for it. I'm as involved as I can be in community building locally . . . my leaning toward an answer.
Andrew
The mind-boggling despoliation in the Gulf and ashore proves, if the earlier tragedy in California did not, that huge risks are being taken by offshore drillers all over the globe. The dangers to the environment from drilling in remote areas (like 5,000 feet under water) rank up there with global warming, and obviously demand immediate action, beginning with shutting down operations until vastly improved preventive measures are in place. Drilling in the arctic seems out of the question at this point.
Because of U.S. reliance on oil from other countries, some of which do not appreciate our foreign policies, this disaster has big implications for U.S. foreign policy. I haven't heard much about that.
Latest from the Gulf:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndKx6bkhLCc
Things get interesting/scary as hell about the four minute mark.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/50368
http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/2010/05/major-change-down-below.html
It looks like the BOP has finally eroded enough under pressure that it and the drill casing have disintegrated. Multiple sea floor vents around the main drill site were reported just before the main event.
BP is coming under wide criticism for looping the tape to conceal what is now happening.
Top kill/Junk shot is no longer an option.
Deep, Deep shit time folks...
oh shit.............
In the Yukon Territory, where I live, the issue for a long time has been the impact of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska and its impact on (for one thing) the Porcupine Caribou herd which the Vuntut G'wichin of north Yukon depend on for food. THAT was reason enough, IMO, to stop ANWR drilling. Now, with the legacy of the Gulf spill, the fragile arctic, its wildlife, and the small but environmentally dependent native people, have even more to fear with offshore drilling. Enough, greedy oil bastards - hands off the arctic.
"Enough, greedy oil bastards - hands off the arctic."
Slight modification to your last line: "Enough, greedy oil bastards - hands off the PLANET!"
Obama doesn't care about the Arctic or the planet. After wagging his finger at the oil companies, he'll let them continue doing whatever they want, just like he's doing with Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street. The MIC must go on!
How soon will the US go bankrupt in his follies? That's the only hope we can hold out for achieving peace and protecting the planet.
CARBON REDUCTION--NO OPTIONS
The current Gulf of Mexico tragedy is only another event that underscores the crucial need to reduce our carbon footprint.
Through extensive lobbying and fabricated science, the energy cartels have impeded progress in carbon reduction, as well as safety regulations. Their alligations that such measures would cripple our economy has been their classic claim for decades.
In reality, carbon reduction can only improve our economy. There are no reasons why we cannot expeditiously employ our idle work force and assembly plants here to fabricate wind turbines, solar panels, etc--rather than outsourcing this work as is the current trend. Even if subsidies were required to keep the work here, their costs would be eclipsed by the resulting benefits in employment, our security, and our environment.
Our planet cannot sustain its billions of inhabitants undercurrent trends. As the nation most responsible for global warming, we have a mandated duty to reduce our wasteful contributions of these toxins, which can only increase the divide between nations most responsible for warming and those most harmed by it.
New scientific measurement: 1 Oilbama = 4 square miles of oil covered water.
Another poster has posted a Rueters article claiming a BP Artic spill today.
BTW : The Oceans are already at least 50% decimated
And the CIA has been dealing drugs(Heroin and Cocaine) at least since Vietnam, badmouthing people for growing Poppy , legal by International Law, is hyprocritical.
Opium is benign compared to Alcohol, Cocaine and Heroin.
Spill, baby, spill!
Some of us need real CV http://cv-writing-services.org.uk/ to protect the nature.