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Last week as Shell was getting ready to poke the first hole in the Chukchi Sea floor in Arctic Alaska to begin exploratory drilling, I was getting ready to give two talks in Alaska--the concluding lecture of the Next North Symposium at the Anchorage Museum on 9/8, and one at the Noel Wien Library in Fairbanks on 9/11 as part of the Northern Voices Speaker Series hosted by Northern Alaska Environmental Center in partnership with the Gwich'in Steering Committee. While there something remarkable happened over the weekend--perhaps the shortest-lived "beginning" of drilling anywhere. "Only a day after Shell Alaska began drilling a landmark offshore oil well in the Arctic, the company was forced on Monday to pull off the well in the face of an approaching ice pack. With the ice floe about 10 miles away, the Noble Discoverer drilling rig was disconnecting from its seafloor anchor Monday afternoon in the Chukchi Sea, about 70 miles from the northwest coast of Alaska," the Los Angeles Times reported. There is much more to this story of ice and Shell.
This is very bad news for Shell as it will likely threaten their drilling operation, again and again, with large ice floes, but it's very good news for Arctic marine life struggling to survive in a melting north. In a recent article, "Arctic ice: Floes impeding Shell Oil hold promise for Pacific walrus," Jill Burke wrote in Alaska Dispatch, "that floe and others are a welcome change for thousands of Pacific walrus, which made long and treacherous journeys to reach Alaska shores in recent autumns.... For the last three years in a row, and in 2007, the massive mammals blanketed beaches, sometimes with fatal consequences.... in 2009, when more than 100 walrus, mostly juveniles, were found dead after a large haul-out at Icy Cape, on the Arctic Ocean shore southwest of Barrow. And it's thought that walrus have come ashore in increasingly large numbers recently after exhausting themselves in the search for sea ice on which they can rest and launch feeding forays into the rich waters of the Continental Shelf. A 2010 haul-out at Point Lay, not far from Icy Cape, was estimated to contain at least 10,000 animals." Following year dead baby walruses were found on barrier islands off of Point Lay, along the Chukchi Sea. The federal government is currently evaluating whether walruses should be put on the Endangered Species List, but a decision is not expected till 2017. A decision on walrus should be higher priority than Shell poking holes in the Arctic seabed now.
Marine mammals are not the only ones struggling to survive in a warming Arctic Ocean, but also the coastal indigenous communities, due to erosion and more severe and frequent storms--all due to climate change. The second day of the Next North Symposium at the Anchorage Museum was devoted almost entirely to discuss the severe coastal erosion and potential relocation that the Inupiat community of Kivalina along the Chukchi Sea coast is facing. The webpage of "Sea Grant: Living on Alaska's Changing Coast," a project of the University of Alaska states, "Six Alaska communities are planning partial or total relocation, and 160 have been identified as threatened by climate-related erosion by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers."
Why are we now sending Shell to get more oil that we will burn and send more CO2 in the air that will cause more arctic warming? In light of all the recent developments the Obama administration has an unique opportunity, a turning point--not grant Shell the final permit, but instead start work on a thorough Environmental Impact Statement, a requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act and something the administration has avoided so far. Such an extensive study could help us understand all aspects of both the melting of Arctic sea ice and the regional PDO, and the impacts these have on marine life and on the cultures of the indigenous communities. Before Shell kills the Arctic Ocean, the minimum we expect from our government is to delay Shell's operations so that we have a better understanding of the rapidly changing northern habitat that our human and nonhuman neighbors call home.
After my talk at the Anchorage Museum, the symposium ended with a magical performance by young Inupiaq artist Allison Warden. Her words, her voice, her performance transported us not to a romantic north, but the north now, a political north, in which caribou and polar bears are struggling to survive, in which we have an obligation to resist industrial destruction. As she was finishing, still part of the performance, she kept saying, "thank you," "thank you," to us in the audience for our part in helping to protect the north. Now, I'm relaying her message to you with the hope that you too will join in stopping Shell and industrial destruction of the Arctic.
Last week as Shell was getting ready to poke the first hole in the Chukchi Sea floor in Arctic Alaska to begin exploratory drilling, I was getting ready to give two talks in Alaska--the concluding lecture of the Next North Symposium at the Anchorage Museum on 9/8, and one at the Noel Wien Library in Fairbanks on 9/11 as part of the Northern Voices Speaker Series hosted by Northern Alaska Environmental Center in partnership with the Gwich'in Steering Committee. While there something remarkable happened over the weekend--perhaps the shortest-lived "beginning" of drilling anywhere. "Only a day after Shell Alaska began drilling a landmark offshore oil well in the Arctic, the company was forced on Monday to pull off the well in the face of an approaching ice pack. With the ice floe about 10 miles away, the Noble Discoverer drilling rig was disconnecting from its seafloor anchor Monday afternoon in the Chukchi Sea, about 70 miles from the northwest coast of Alaska," the Los Angeles Times reported. There is much more to this story of ice and Shell.
This is very bad news for Shell as it will likely threaten their drilling operation, again and again, with large ice floes, but it's very good news for Arctic marine life struggling to survive in a melting north. In a recent article, "Arctic ice: Floes impeding Shell Oil hold promise for Pacific walrus," Jill Burke wrote in Alaska Dispatch, "that floe and others are a welcome change for thousands of Pacific walrus, which made long and treacherous journeys to reach Alaska shores in recent autumns.... For the last three years in a row, and in 2007, the massive mammals blanketed beaches, sometimes with fatal consequences.... in 2009, when more than 100 walrus, mostly juveniles, were found dead after a large haul-out at Icy Cape, on the Arctic Ocean shore southwest of Barrow. And it's thought that walrus have come ashore in increasingly large numbers recently after exhausting themselves in the search for sea ice on which they can rest and launch feeding forays into the rich waters of the Continental Shelf. A 2010 haul-out at Point Lay, not far from Icy Cape, was estimated to contain at least 10,000 animals." Following year dead baby walruses were found on barrier islands off of Point Lay, along the Chukchi Sea. The federal government is currently evaluating whether walruses should be put on the Endangered Species List, but a decision is not expected till 2017. A decision on walrus should be higher priority than Shell poking holes in the Arctic seabed now.
Marine mammals are not the only ones struggling to survive in a warming Arctic Ocean, but also the coastal indigenous communities, due to erosion and more severe and frequent storms--all due to climate change. The second day of the Next North Symposium at the Anchorage Museum was devoted almost entirely to discuss the severe coastal erosion and potential relocation that the Inupiat community of Kivalina along the Chukchi Sea coast is facing. The webpage of "Sea Grant: Living on Alaska's Changing Coast," a project of the University of Alaska states, "Six Alaska communities are planning partial or total relocation, and 160 have been identified as threatened by climate-related erosion by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers."
Why are we now sending Shell to get more oil that we will burn and send more CO2 in the air that will cause more arctic warming? In light of all the recent developments the Obama administration has an unique opportunity, a turning point--not grant Shell the final permit, but instead start work on a thorough Environmental Impact Statement, a requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act and something the administration has avoided so far. Such an extensive study could help us understand all aspects of both the melting of Arctic sea ice and the regional PDO, and the impacts these have on marine life and on the cultures of the indigenous communities. Before Shell kills the Arctic Ocean, the minimum we expect from our government is to delay Shell's operations so that we have a better understanding of the rapidly changing northern habitat that our human and nonhuman neighbors call home.
After my talk at the Anchorage Museum, the symposium ended with a magical performance by young Inupiaq artist Allison Warden. Her words, her voice, her performance transported us not to a romantic north, but the north now, a political north, in which caribou and polar bears are struggling to survive, in which we have an obligation to resist industrial destruction. As she was finishing, still part of the performance, she kept saying, "thank you," "thank you," to us in the audience for our part in helping to protect the north. Now, I'm relaying her message to you with the hope that you too will join in stopping Shell and industrial destruction of the Arctic.
Last week as Shell was getting ready to poke the first hole in the Chukchi Sea floor in Arctic Alaska to begin exploratory drilling, I was getting ready to give two talks in Alaska--the concluding lecture of the Next North Symposium at the Anchorage Museum on 9/8, and one at the Noel Wien Library in Fairbanks on 9/11 as part of the Northern Voices Speaker Series hosted by Northern Alaska Environmental Center in partnership with the Gwich'in Steering Committee. While there something remarkable happened over the weekend--perhaps the shortest-lived "beginning" of drilling anywhere. "Only a day after Shell Alaska began drilling a landmark offshore oil well in the Arctic, the company was forced on Monday to pull off the well in the face of an approaching ice pack. With the ice floe about 10 miles away, the Noble Discoverer drilling rig was disconnecting from its seafloor anchor Monday afternoon in the Chukchi Sea, about 70 miles from the northwest coast of Alaska," the Los Angeles Times reported. There is much more to this story of ice and Shell.
This is very bad news for Shell as it will likely threaten their drilling operation, again and again, with large ice floes, but it's very good news for Arctic marine life struggling to survive in a melting north. In a recent article, "Arctic ice: Floes impeding Shell Oil hold promise for Pacific walrus," Jill Burke wrote in Alaska Dispatch, "that floe and others are a welcome change for thousands of Pacific walrus, which made long and treacherous journeys to reach Alaska shores in recent autumns.... For the last three years in a row, and in 2007, the massive mammals blanketed beaches, sometimes with fatal consequences.... in 2009, when more than 100 walrus, mostly juveniles, were found dead after a large haul-out at Icy Cape, on the Arctic Ocean shore southwest of Barrow. And it's thought that walrus have come ashore in increasingly large numbers recently after exhausting themselves in the search for sea ice on which they can rest and launch feeding forays into the rich waters of the Continental Shelf. A 2010 haul-out at Point Lay, not far from Icy Cape, was estimated to contain at least 10,000 animals." Following year dead baby walruses were found on barrier islands off of Point Lay, along the Chukchi Sea. The federal government is currently evaluating whether walruses should be put on the Endangered Species List, but a decision is not expected till 2017. A decision on walrus should be higher priority than Shell poking holes in the Arctic seabed now.
Marine mammals are not the only ones struggling to survive in a warming Arctic Ocean, but also the coastal indigenous communities, due to erosion and more severe and frequent storms--all due to climate change. The second day of the Next North Symposium at the Anchorage Museum was devoted almost entirely to discuss the severe coastal erosion and potential relocation that the Inupiat community of Kivalina along the Chukchi Sea coast is facing. The webpage of "Sea Grant: Living on Alaska's Changing Coast," a project of the University of Alaska states, "Six Alaska communities are planning partial or total relocation, and 160 have been identified as threatened by climate-related erosion by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers."
Why are we now sending Shell to get more oil that we will burn and send more CO2 in the air that will cause more arctic warming? In light of all the recent developments the Obama administration has an unique opportunity, a turning point--not grant Shell the final permit, but instead start work on a thorough Environmental Impact Statement, a requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act and something the administration has avoided so far. Such an extensive study could help us understand all aspects of both the melting of Arctic sea ice and the regional PDO, and the impacts these have on marine life and on the cultures of the indigenous communities. Before Shell kills the Arctic Ocean, the minimum we expect from our government is to delay Shell's operations so that we have a better understanding of the rapidly changing northern habitat that our human and nonhuman neighbors call home.
After my talk at the Anchorage Museum, the symposium ended with a magical performance by young Inupiaq artist Allison Warden. Her words, her voice, her performance transported us not to a romantic north, but the north now, a political north, in which caribou and polar bears are struggling to survive, in which we have an obligation to resist industrial destruction. As she was finishing, still part of the performance, she kept saying, "thank you," "thank you," to us in the audience for our part in helping to protect the north. Now, I'm relaying her message to you with the hope that you too will join in stopping Shell and industrial destruction of the Arctic.