Ostriches lead us to our doom

While a global catastrophe looms before us, one symbolically presented to us by the melting of the Arctic ice, George Monbiot exclaimed:

Our governments do nothing [about global warming and its causes]. Having abandoned any pretence of responding to the environmental crisis during the earth summit in June, now they stare stupidly as the ice on which we stand dissolves. Nothing — or worse than nothing. Their one unequivocal response to the melting has been to facilitate the capture of the oil and fish it exposes.

The companies which caused this disaster are scrambling to profit from it. On Sunday, Shell requested an extension to its exploratory drilling period in the Chukchi Sea, off the north-west coast of Alaska. This would push its operations hard against the moment when the ice re-forms and any spills they cause are locked in. The Russian oil company Gazprom is using the great melt to try to drill in the Pechora Sea, north-east of Murmansk. After turning its Arctic lands in the Komi Republic into the Niger Delta of the north (repeated oil spills are left unremediated in the tundra), Russia wants to extend this industry into one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems, where ice, storms and darkness make decontamination almost impossible.

Drill baby, drill….

Related articles

• Along with the Arctic ice, the rich world’s smugness will melt (guardian.co.uk)
• Greenpeace activists mount Arctic drilling rig (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Gazprom Arctic Oil Rig Blockaded By Greenpeace (corpwatch.org)
• LIVE BLOG: New action to stop Russian oil giant Gazprom’s oil platform in the Arctic (greenpeace.org)
• Arctic Action LIVE ! (greenpeace.org)
• Greenpeace Activists Climb Russian Oil Rig in Arctic Ocean (nytimes.com)
• Environmentalists fear spill disaster from Arctic drilling (thehimalayantimes.com)
• Greenpeace storms Arctic oil platform (guardian.co.uk)
• Environmentalists warn of risks of Arctic drilling (salon.com)
• Shell gets green light to begin Arctic drilling (seattlepi.com)