The Arctic is melting – drill for oil
Posted on September 23, 2008
The Arctic is melting – drill for oil. That is the response from the European Commission at least if we are to believe the EUObserver, that writes:
Drilling for oil in the fragile northern environment must go ahead with European financial and political support for the sake of EU energy security, energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs declared on Friday (19 September) at a debate on the subject in Brussels.
“You cannot say [the Arctic] is a sanctuary,” said the commissioner “… otherwise, where will will we get our energy from?”
The lack of logic is of course amazing. We are doing badly, lets do worse. But is is a good example of how we have com in this predicament at all. To continue doing what we are doing is the most important thing. The lack of imagination is mindgobling.
So you say, is there really such a thing as global warming? I dare you to look closely at the graph below.
Less ice in the Arctic than before, source http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
However, the EU is not the only ones that is looking north. I have written about it here, but take a look at this quote from the same EUObserver:
In August last year, a Russian submarine planted a flag on the Arctic sea floor underneath the North Pole, while on Wednesday (17 September), during a meeting of the country’s security council, President Dmitry Medvedev set in motion plans to claim part of the Arctic shelf as national territory.
The move will “turn the Arctic into Russia’s resource base of the 21st century,” he said at the meeting.
Meanwhile, Conservative Canadian Prime Minister, whose nation also has competing claims on the north, has also pledged to assert Arctic sovereignty while campaigning ahead of the country’s 14 October federal election.
Too many people sees dollars where they should see warning flags
» Filed Under Arctic, Canada, European union
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[...] So climate change is extremely important, but we still need to drill for more oil and gas. Somehow that double standard, seen often these days, keeps amazing me. Still I guess it is a step forward the climate change actually is put first in the document. And, truth be told, no other governments are less schizophrenic. I guess there are two good reasons for actually exploiting Arctic hydrocarbons. It could possibly make the EU less dependent on Russian natural gas, and natural gas could replace coal fired electricity. I don’t believe either scenario. Read an earlies post by me on the theme here. [...]