In a climate killing move, on Monday May 11, the U.S. government gave approval for European oil giant Shell to start drilling in the Chukchi Sea, at the top of the world, in the Arctic. It is estimated that 30% of the world’s undiscovered, recoverable gas and 13% of undiscovered, recoverable oil supplies are located in the Arctic. As climate change melts Arctic ice, countries are in a race to extract the fossil fuels which caused the melt in the first place. Obama has gone back on promises to address dire threats posed by climate change, and to prioritize renewable energies. While labeling Arctic oil as a necessary “transition fuel” to ensure that the U.S. is not reliant on foreign supplies, he ignores the extreme impact emissions from Arctic oil and likely accidents from Arctic drilling will have on the environment, climate change, and potentially also on peace.
NASA climate scientist, James Hansen, has said that if all the carbon stored in the Canadian tar sands is released into the Earth’s atmosphere it would mean “game over” for the planet. Recent studies by the International Energy Agency and journal, Nature, warn the same for Artic oil. To avoid a 2 degree Celcius (3.6 degree Farenheit) temperature rise – which will lead to catastrophic climate change – we need to keep most of the carbon we have already found in the ground. So, as for tar sands, drilling and using Arctic oil will mean “game over” for the planet.
The stakes cannot be overstated. In November 2008, shortly after he was elected to become the 44th President of the USA, and a two months before he took office on January 20, 2009, President Barak Obama recognized the magnitude of the problems. Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change, he said. Sea levels are rising, coast lines are shrinking, we’ve seen record drought spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season. Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all, he said. In the six and a half years since this address, his sentiments are increasingly realized from droughts in California, to scientist warning that we risk losing one in six of the planet’s species to extinction in the coming years.
In 2008, Obama had said “Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response”. But his recent decision to allow Shell into the Arctic suggests these words were meaningless. Bill McKibben, U.S. environmentalist, equates Obama’s decision with climate change denial, where climate science is not denied, but the meaning of the science – what it means for sensible policies – is. McKibben likens the decision to the U.S. government licensing tobacco companies to sell cigarettes in hospital cancer wards.
The government asserts that Shell has developed safeguards to avoid environmental catastrophe. But, there remains a 75% chance of a major spill. The unrelentingly harsh conditions of the Arctic, with 50ft waves, would make it impossible to respond effectively to an accident, even if the nearest Coast Guard station which could respond to a spill was not more than 1,000 miles away. And, the risk that Shell may cut corners, based on past practice and particularly in a climate of low oil prices is real. In 2012, Shell plead guilty to eight felony offenses and agreed to pay $12.2 million for covering up hazardous working conditions and discharging polluted water. Shell is “psychopathic” in its abstinence in addressing climate change, according to a former UK climate change envoy.
In granting Shell a licence to drill the Arctic in this context, Obama has revealed the geostrategic importance of claiming parts of the Arctic for oil drilling. 2011 cables leaked by WikiLeaks had revealed that the Arctic oil rush was threat to the environment, and our climate, but also to peace. Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, the leaders of the Arctic nations (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia, U.S. and Canada), and increasingly also European nations, are investing in military hardware to fight for the oil beneath it.
As we hurtle to yet another international meeting on climate change – this year to take place in Paris from November 30, 2015 to December 11, 2015 – the feeling that we cannot trust world leaders – political or corporate – to find sensible solutions to the most urgent problem facing civilization creates fertile ground for escalating and creative direct action, from Seattle, to the Maldives and Oxfordshire.
As Martin Luther King said on direct action:
“We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Injustice must be exposed.”
Arctic oil, exploitation of tar sands, and plans to expand fracking across the world will make a farce of any agreement reached in Paris later this year. We need to leave fossil fuels in the ground, and now – not tomorrow.
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