My fear is that trump's goal is to leave sufficiently damaged planet to be visible from space - preferably in a pattern delineating his name. He is not even satisfied with Earth. He is now targeting the Moon and Mars for desecration.
18
Suisun marsh in Bay Area. Same thing.
2
There’s any easy fix for this. Tomorrow everybody stop driving and walk everywhere. See how easy that was.
4
Alaska has large areas that are already available for oil extraction, and discoveries continue to be made in those areas. Attacking ANWR is simply unnecessary, especially given the expected long-term lower price for petroleum that experts predict. Alaska is a state-level example of an economy that becomes addicted to a commodity, and dreams the golden goose will live forever. The lands they have that are open to extraction should be exploited while they wean themselves from the dream of easy money.
"A Spanish oil company working with a small explorer in Alaska announced Thursday what it's calling the largest onshore U.S. oil discovery in three decades.
The discovery is near the northeastern edge of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska on leased state land."
And: "In October, closely held Caelus Energy said it had found at least 2 billion barrels of recoverable oil about 120 miles to the west of Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Coast. ConocoPhillips, the state's biggest oil producer, said in January that it was developing a new field that may hold as much as 300,000 barrels.."
https://www.adn.com/business-economy/energy/2017/03/09/a-north-slope-oil...
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2017/03/09/a-father-of-fracking-seeks-t...
2
Our population has doubled since 1950. It goes up ~2 million/year. The economy is based on oil, not the Internet. Obama increased our production to the highest levels since the early 70s, yet we still must import oil. Where do all the "environmentalist", open immigration, pro growth, but no nukes, nyts readers think our lifestyle is fueled from? You can't have it both ways. The third most populous, and fastest growing western nation, can't go on like we are and complain that we are destroying the earth living the way we do. As Ed Abbey said, nothing that is wild or free or beautiful will survive this tsunami of present and coming Americans.
7
The current administration wants to decimate our natural heritage, pollute our air and water all in the name of corporate profits!
13
So let's so an image of another man-made feature on the perma-frost. Is it gone? Doubt it.
We here is south east Louisiana would know something of the long term effects of oil drilling operations in a natural environment, indeed we do. Folks, nobody needs oil that bad.
20
I worked on an oil exploration crew west of Prudoe Bay in the early 80's. I can testify to the damage done to the tundra by human occupation/ drilling. Even if care is taken it is the human waste that can be damaging; urine from not using facilities, trash blown away over the tundra and especially oil & engine leaks from the machines used to explore and drill. Any mark left on the tundra from machines and humans will be there for centuries. The oil is unnecessary, unneeded and ultimately harmful to the delicate arctic environment. No matter how careful workers and techs are there will be permanent destructive ramifications to exploring and drilling for unnecessary oil.
23
Unlike minute parts of Alaska, vast areas of the California desert have been industrialized in the past five years for wind and solar farms.
Dozens of square miles of fragile desert grasslands in the Antelope Valley and in the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains are the far Southern Sierra Nevada — all in the Mojave Desert — have been ruined. This is happening all over California.
When you see what’s been done to the environment here, there is no way you can call wind and solar energy ‘green.’ And who is going to pay to clean all this up in 30years?
2
I am struck by the closing quote of this article, which ends "it takes sometimes nearly forever for the mark to go away."
I get that this is a quote, but beyond simple inelegance, it is truly logic-defying and remarkably unintelligible. For a scientist to say something takes forever to happen seems a pretty sloppy use of language. Forever is more an expression or abstract notion that it is a unit of time. Things don't take forever to happen in the world of science. And then to qualify that by saying it takes "sometimes nearly forever." I am sorely dumbfounded. Nearly forever? Sometimes forever? Sometimes nearly forever?
Without dissecting that further, I just need to say that is not a useful quote whatsoever, and for it to close the article really detracts from what was otherwise an interesting piece.
9
Arctic drilling is in the tax bill. Perhaps some environmental groups can go to court to stop this until We the People can give control of Congress to the Democrats in 2018 and send Trump home in 2020.
We get the government we deserve.
12
Problematic is that so very few Americans have ever visited Alaska and its astonishing varied biomes. As long as it's unknown to people experientially, they can consume petroleum products from there in their bourgeois complacency, not troubling their shallow brains with issues like environmental consequences. Just take the next call on your cellphone, even if you're driving with the other hand, and forget about it. Gas is cheap, cars are huge again, and we're all loving life in the lower 48...
6
Excellent research Henry; good information on the long-term footprint of drilling in the tundra.....it is troubling how long such impacts last in the arctic.
This data should be part of Congressional testimony as decisions are made by Congress on the acceptability of this practice.
3
The immediate real danger is possible damage to water the sea life & all that revolves around this ecosystem. Water quality impacts everyone everywhere.
The long term damage & cost us always high & always paid by us tax payers While the companies & a few become wealthier.
There's nothing wrong with building wealth but it is criminal to walk away & leave the landscape damaged and local economies hurting. Just look at Kentucky, West Virginia etc... The politicians get paid, and the people are left no better off in the long run. All the coal states are a perfect living example.
4
The one thing that retains environmental damage over a much longer period is housing development. The landscape is permanently changed and wildlife habitat destruction forces the animals to leave forever.
4
Trying to compare 1980's drilling technology with 2017 is laughable. Just take a trip to North Dakota and look how all the frackers do it. Micro-footprints that are very nice and tidy and every one of them has a environmental group come on to the pad to ensure standards are met. ANWR is huge, inhabitable, and will NEVER be a popular tourist destination. It is, however, a great resource to be managed and one that Alaskan's are overwhelmingly in favor of.
2
You miss a few points, bfree. North Dakota isn't frozen tundra, and you don't mention future impact of thousands of abandoned drill sites in the Bakken fracking fields, or the impact from water consumption in a fairly arid region, or the spills.
As the article points out, the melted tundra under a pad doesn't recover - restoring tundra surface life is as slow as restoring the biological crust in dry desert environments - damage can remain for hundreds of years or longer.
But ANWR is a wildlife refuge - it's for animals, not for aesthetic enjoyment by humans. Believe it or not, there are non-human species on the planet that do far better without humans around.
The great resource being managed on ANWR is life. It's inhabitable by the creatures that thrive there. Leave it be.
16
When it comes to the proposed drilling, my concern is the wildlife and the fishing, not the tundra itself. There are 3.3 million sq. mis. of tundra, and less than14,000 of them are in the refuge. Barren land covered with permafrost is high in supply and low in demand. It serves no particular purpose in climate change, and having seen such land in Alaska its beauty escapes me. When you're hiking, it's time to turn around, because there's nothing interesting ahead.
If you want to preserve tundra, then you want to preserve everything. Let's talk about the endangered wildlife and migratory birds. That's what matters to most of us.
2
Seeing in these photos the long-term consequences to the National Wildlife Refuge Refuge of drilling in the refuge should cause us all alarm. Millions of birds from over 200 species depend on the Arctic Refuge. On the coastal plain polar bears den, migratory birds nest, and the nearly 200,000 animals in the Porcupine caribou herd give birth to their calves. The musk oxen, wolves, brown bears all call this home. The refuge has sustained the Gwich'in people for thousands of years. Handing our nation's public lands over for oil and gas development will do permanent damage to an ecosystem that has been protected up until now with a few exceptions and that damage is clear in this article. We owe it to our children and grand children to protect this national treasure.
19
What's not seen is all of the infrastructure needed to make this viable. Pipelines, housing, transport, marine terminals, tankers, &c. And a measurable amount of the cost goes to taxpayers. We in California are paying right now for removal of old infrastructure. Where are the companies now? LLC'd away into obscurity.
32
In this type of photos, we can see remains that are 2,000 years old (e.g., Roman villas in Britain). It takes a long time for the contours of things to disappear. Does not mean that much. In my view. Focus on what matters: real impact on the environment.
5
Sorry, wrong analogy.
2
to dumb it down.
Snow reflects sunlight and the heat.
More water, more heat absorption more global warming, Smaller ice caps, more methane released into the atmosphere.
More global warming.
22
Why don't these ecological rapists care? They callously believe that by the time the earth begins to erode from this indifferent abuse of our planet, they'll all be dead. It'll be someone else's problem.
18
It is wrong to drill and explore in this last American wilderness. There is no actual need, and no actual reason. it would be far better to allow the region to stay wild and free of our presence. I am so sad that we are not able to save even on small part of the wild from development.
32
This is one test well. I personally worked on the slope and saw and experienced first hand the infrastructure required to drill in that remote area. This picture doesn't show the man camps with living quarters, shops, waste water systems, etc. It doesn't show the drilling pads where many of the "directional drilling" wells are located. Each has a a well house with piping from each and is controlled by a large central motor control center. There are roads all over between all the pads and all the different units. All the trucks run diesel that they refine on the slope. All trucks run 24/7 or they'll freeze up. Talk about choking smog. Everything is built on gravel pads. There are air strips.......it goes on and on. This small "test well" doesn't even come close to representing what would take place in ANWR if the oil companies were allowed to drill there. On person remarked that the arctic is a whole lot of nothing. They've obviously never been there in summer (or obviously ever) to see the vast amounts of wildlife and breeding birds that populate the tundra. It's an amazing spectacle and is something that needs to be preserved.
89
This newspaper never states the size of ANWR. It is the size of South Carolina.
Do nothing, and you have nothing, Mr. Whip.
1
Yes, amen.
3
I would rather our country moved faster at eliminating fossil fuels from our diet. Either way, the day will come when this form of energy will be looked upon as ridiculous as the tobacco industries denial of its products cancer effects.
To argue that there is no consequences to our unnatural way of living is just plain selfishness.
23
Renewable energy is the future. Fossil fuels here should stay where they are. Greed not need , are the driving force behind this in Alaska. Money for renewables should replace this so Alaska's economy is not ignored.
14
Amazing to see the impact of just a test well. If this had been an active drill site, you'd need a pipeline or a road to get the oil out.
8
Some question the need to drill in the Arctic because we are "awash" in fossil fuels. Incorrect in two ways. First, although we export a lot of refined products, we are a net importer of crude oil. Second, oil is traded in international markets; Asia represents a market for Alaska natural gas, for example.
Given the nature of fossil fuel markets, and our rabid consumption at home, I think what is needed is a grand bargain: open the refuge to drilling in exchange for a comprehensive, steep carbon tax, phased in over a few years, and returning dividends to citizens. The net result would be more protection for the area in question, because climate change is the main threat. Because allowing drilling without such a measure would just be business (CO2) as usual, except a little more business as usual, it must be fought against with everything we've got.
5
Fossil fuel companies never clean up their messes. They are a web of holding companies, which can easily go out of business at the first sign of trouble. The end result is taxpayers being on the hook yet again to deal with the aftermath. Superfund sites, polluted soil, water, air, deforestation, climate change, and people dying from black lung. If Republicans want to stop people from suckling at the teat of public welfare, maybe they should start with these guys.
53
Now look at tar sands mining in Alberta Canada.
Then call you congressperson and say no to arctic refuge drilling and no to tar sands pipelines like the KXL.
https://www.fuelfreedom.org/canada-oh-canada-will-your-tar-sands-oil-hel...
22
No we don't control Canada, and if we won't allow a pipeline they will transport oil by rail, or not use our refineries. Of course all drilling has some impact, and in these areas the impact might be forever. How about you stop using fossil fuels and all the things that use them if you don't want development of resources?
2
We do control Canada. The tar sands are being developed to feed the 20 ton/yr co2 producing Americans. All 325 million of us. We are at least 1-200 million Americans beyond a sustainable population. Until we face the numbers, none of this will get better.
1
If those tar sands were in US, we likely wouldn't be converting them to fuel. The Canadians consume most of the BTU's into making the sludge transport-ready. It looks like a messy jobs program, for Canadians, with a high price for THEM, while we just pipe it south to the refineries (until they stop creating that pipe-ready content). Just imagine piping it down from ANWR...
Money talks. Big money talks loudest.
The tundra can't talk at all...
24
We all talk. Every time we fill our tank up or import another potential American.
2
The pictures clearly show that drilling had very little impact on the terrain and fauna. In a few more years, you won't be able to discern that anything happened at all. I'm sure that's not the impression the writer is trying to leave, but that's what happens where an article promotes a view that has no context whatsoever. In other words, fake news.
3
You mean very little impact besides killing all the vegetation and fundamentally altering the site such that 30 years later it is completely different from the tundra around it? Any biologist would instantly recognize the dramatic impacts that likely will never be restored for the foreseeable future or perhaps never.
The article is correct, but your comment is basically scientific illiteracy in action.
33
His comment is right. An acre or two, of mild impact, in a "vast wilderness". Small potatoes, but he's also right that this single site doesn't begin to tell the whole story, and so is fake news.
1
No need to be insulting, Doug. The man is making a good point. When infrared images are presented, a choice has to be made about assigning color. Here, the intention is clear: to make the impact look as damaging as possible. If you look at the natural color photo, it looks like photosynthesis is back. Also, the polygonal patterns are returning. Furthermore, there isn't a trace of the road that once led to the drilling site. Look - I'm not in favor of drilling in this area, but we need to have a rational, respectful debate, no?
1
Dear NYT:
This article has some nice satellite pictures, but the author neglects to mention the potential use of a CIDS rig to drill just offshore the Refuge ... I toured this structure in 1988, and was aboard when the drillers hit something (oil?) at approximately 10,800 feet. In any event, CIDS or not, the drilling footprint can be dramatically minimized and is not the problem -- building out a pipeline to connect to the existing TAPS system is much more challenging... the author also fails to mention potential impacts on a large migratory caribou herd that is protected by treaty with Canada ... Here is the CIDS rig: http://precastdesign.com/projects/platforms-barges/1_CIDS/CIDS_More_Phot...
8
Hey who needs pristine land inhabited by other living creatures? Let those oil companies get in there and despoil it forever
7
No Henry, that’s not what tundra drilling “looks like” in the Arctic.
The first three are infrared satellite images. Because infrared imaging would be invisible if reproduced at the actual radiated wavelengths, invisible “colors” are replaced by arbitrary optical ones to help scientists determine what they’ve looking at.
KIC-1 has not left behind a seething red cauldron of toxicity, but the same green tundra visible in the 1988 image. If anything, it’s greener after 29 years of recovery from any spills which may have occurred there originally.
Disappointing that the Times here discards accuracy in order to make a valid political, and environmental, point.
8
Yep, science isn't your strong point. The photos of the site show very clearly that there's an entirely different flora there, and the physical structure is entirely different with the melt ponds rather than intact tundra. Sure it looks greener, BECAUSE IT IS FUNDAMENTALLY ALTERED. Once you disturb tundra it will not be coming back in your lifetime.
Does no one study ecology in their high school biology classes anymore?
34
Doug, “ecology” has never had very much to do with spectral analysis of hi-res satellite infrared imaging, a subject with which I’m quite familiar.
Based on your familiarity with vegetation index monitoring, what flora does the image suggest has taken the place of native Arctic tundra? I breathlessly await your analysis.
This comments illustrates that you have not even a basic knowledge of the common use of infrared imagery to identify healthy, live vegetation on a landscape. This is an extremely common practice in remote sensing and your comment illustrates your ignorance of remote sensing science and your uninformed attempt to discredit the author and the Times. Do yourself a favor and google "infrared vegetation health" and get some facts.
3
So the oil development there will permanently ruin and scar the region. We already have plenty of oil, the future indicates we will need less of it as other technologies develop, and its expensive to drill there. So I suspect the reason the oil batons and their lackeys insist on oil development here is those that count in that industry relish to power to despoil land wherever they want and hold in contempt the feeble efforts of those that care about beauty, wildlife, conservation.
8
Just one little question: WHY is there ANY need to allow drilling in this area when we are literally awash in fossil fuels here in the lower 48 due to fracking?
One could ask exactly the same question about the tax "reform" we HAVE to have to make American business competitive....even as the stock market soars and American business sits on Mt. Everests of cash....much of it parked overseas where it can't be taxed or hidden in carefully crafted offshore accounts.
We literally live in bizarro land and it is increasingly ruled by fewer and fewer, but larger and larger and richer and richer corporations granted status as "citizens" and free to spend millions and even billions on "free speech" to get what they want.
They have told Congress what they want....and they get very angry if they don't. Hence the mantra..."We have to pass something"...even when we have no real idea what we are passing and what it will do to us long term.
44
The need is pure greed.
Actually, we don't need to drill in Arctic, it is a desire for to squeeze another dollar of profit without regard to the effect.
9
"Just one little question: WHY is there ANY need to allow drilling in this area when we are literally awash in fossil fuels here in the lower 48 due to fracking?"
Because the GOP need Senator Lisa Murkowski's (Alaska) vote to pass the corrupt Tax Reform bill. Senator Murkowski has seen oil revenues drop in Alaska due to global price declines for oil.
So to get her vote, the GOP said "Drill Baby, Drill" in ANWR
10
Knowing where valuable, strategic assets are stored by nature is a valuble bit of information.
Someday those assets may be needed.
2
Were these photos shown to the Ways and Means committee when Murkowski was insisting that newest drilling methods would not harm the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? And, if not, why not?
20
Are you aware how infinitesimally small this footprint is in terms of the totality of space we are talking about?
2
Sorry, that is not the issue for me. Corporations in this country do, and will do, what they can get away with. THAT is why federal regulations are necessary. I've seen what drilling has done in SE and NW NM. The permafrost is even more fragile than the desert SW. And, do we really need the oil for economic and security reasons? I don't think so.
You are aware about what they want to do up there, no?
It looks like CANCER that nature is unable heal.
9
more fake news, a pimple on a landscape of hundreds of thousands of miles
2
So you are saying no more pimples?
3
Now try imagining what happens when that pimple grows into an abscess.
Here's a NASA photo showing the lights of Prudhoe Bay at night: "with the North Slope industrial complex centered at Prudhoe Bay producing a larger display than Anchorage or Fairbanks."
Be sure to scroll out to see all of the drilling pads and roads on this one:
http://www.maphill.com/united-states/alaska/north-slope-borough/prudhoe-...
1
While the Alaskans may get their dividends, this land will not regenerate itself. It is home to huge migrations of birds, and other animals. This is one place on earth, that when it is gone, it is gone for good.
21
Exactly what percentage of the Alaskan/artic tundra did this very small pad occupy. And my point being, so what?
4
So, in this case we're talking about a relatively tiny (600 ft. on one side) rectangle of property out of a parcel of 1.5 million acres of a whole lot of nothing. What is really harmed here? There is nothing more special about the tundra than any other type of physical geography. Somehow a lot of folks have been hoodwinked into thinking that it's a delicate terrain that needs to be tip-toed around. It's frozen, that's the only difference between it and any other type of land in this world. Developing a few patches of it isn't going to hurt anything.
4
Except that 30 years later it hasn't regrown, which shows in fact that on a human scale the damage is permanent. So, yes, it's quite fragile. spilling oil all over it, putting in roads and trash and toxic waste everywhere isn't going to just go away overnight. Sorry, but the number of responsibly managed oil facilities worldwide is vanishingly small, because oil companies virtually never pay the full cost of the damage they cause.
10
Oil drilling results in oily messes. If gov't doesn't dictate an expensive after-you're-done clean-up plan, before the drilling starts, gov't gets to either clean it up afterwards, or ignore it in the state they leave it. Look at Detroit, for what it may look like, when the oiligarchs are done with it, and move on to other, greener pastures.
1
"...it takes sometimes nearly forever for the mark to go away..."
This is a complete rejection of scale or perspective. The Arctic tundra has existed in its current state for about 120,000 years. This pad and the ugly scar it left has existed for 30. I love our Mother Earth, but I also know that the length of human existence is so very insignificant when compared to her own.
9
As the Trump regime remains intent on "winning" in last century's energy resources, there's some hope in an op-ed by Bill McKibben in today's paper:
"The European insurance giant Axa announced it would divest itself of more than $825 million in investments in oil production and pipelines in the tar sands of Canada for both ethical and business reasons. The planet could see temperature increases as high as four degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit), noted Thomas Buberl, the company’s chief executive, a development he called “not sustainable and therefore also not insurable.”"
" the World Bank on Tuesday said it would by 2019 end all financial support for oil and gas exploration (it had earlier made the same pledge about coal) because of the simple facts of a “rapidly changing world.” "
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/opinion/finance-global-warming.html
4
It was a good idea to do an article on the impact of one test well 30+ years ago.
Unfortunately, I can't tell what I'm looking at. I can't tell is this is bad, or how bad, or why it's bad. As liberal as I am -- as ready to believe as I am that damage has been done -- I must admit that this article doesn't make me shudder because I don't know what to make of what I see.
Please do more follow-up on this.
2
Please note: if we stick to a hydrocarbon economy the tundra everywhere will be melting.
4
So now we see images of the physical damage that is still visible after 30 years. That does not take into account the wildlife harmed, species possibly extinct because of it, and what the area would look like if a spill had occurred there.
It is irresponsible to drill in the refuge for so many reasons.
Number One: The cost simply doesn't justify this. Fossil fuels are on the way out. The industry just refuses to believe it. It is more cost effective at this point to invest in alternative energy. Natural gas, though I'm no fan of it, made drilling for oil foolish from an economic standpoint.
Number Two: The economic concerns of ONE state should not dictate that we should doom our entire planet. Sorry, Alaskans, find something else to do to energize your economy. Like, learn math, economics, and statistics which would help you understand that the tourist industry is by far superior as revenue stream to drilling. Actually, simply reading and processing information could tell you that. It's no secret that tourists tend to be interested in wildlife and natural beauty and will stay away once oil rigs make their appearance.
Number Three: We have to start to leave it in the ground, period. Even Alaskans aren't entitled to their own facts.
And shame on Senator Murkowski for her fuzzy thinking. I thought better of her.
15
Why did you think better of her?
4
I am a long-time North Slope exploration geologist and while I'll withhold any detailed opinions about opening ANWR, I feel obligated to comment on your photos. Very simply, numerous comparable footprints from remote exploration wells drilled in the past 20 years on the tundra are effectively undetectable, except for a small pipe, capped at the surface. So, the sort of footprint left by the KIC well would not be left today (because all wells are now drilled from thick ice pads that melt in the summer; a topic given short shrift here). Thus, all other important topics in this debate notwithstanding, this piece is badly misleading.
7
Even further south, along the Yukon, Alaskan landscape recovers very slowly. A track left by a single vehicle lasts for years. What surprised me in these photos is that the road to the pad has disappeared. Homza may have explained why: it appears to have been built on ice. It's nice to know that one kind of impact can be mitigated, but that's not enough to give a pass to industrial activity in ANWR.
2
It is not surprising that it is easy to exploit and destroy, hard to recover. All in the short-term interests of people who don't have even the interests of their immediate descendants and younger friends in mind. Appalling ...
Our cheating congress and president only know how to take, not how to give.
13
Long-lasting damage to Arctic tundra is one kind of environmental damage that could be caused by drilling for oil in the Arctic Refuge. Exacerbation of climate change from burning recovered oil could be the most significant hazard from any new oil drilling. And there's another important concern that I haven't yet seen discussed. Recovered oil would most likely be transported through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline south to its terminus at Valdez, then by tankers through magnificent, fisheries-rich Prince William Sound on the way to Lower 48 ports. Those tankers would need to navigate around Bligh Reef, where the Exxon Valdez ran aground and spilled its enormous cargo of oil in 1989. Icebergs are another navigational hazard in the Sound. I have sailed extensively in the Sound and feel that these are important concerns. It will take decades if not centuries for the Sound to fully recover from the 1989 spill. We do not need oil from the Arctic Refuge. We do need clean energy technologies that can bring the fossil fuel era to an end as soon as possible.
34
My wife and I have spent a total of about three months in ANWR over the past decade on six different backpacking trips. It it truly a fanatastic place, one of the few places left in the world that is essentially untouched by man. Thanks to the short-term greed of the current generation of politicians (and Alaskans too) future generations may never again be able to see the land in the same way.
16
Recently, the NYT published an article on the fate of water from the glaciers - it looked like some was remaining in the ice as water in the melt-spaces and not running straight to the sea - and this reminded me of an old theory on the Dryas periods.
It was thought that a giant lake broke thru to the sea and the thermohaline current in the N Hemisphere shut down (known as the Gulf Stream). This caused the northern hemisphere to enter a cold period. The temp dropped 10 degrees on average within a few decades.
The article on the fate of the water in the ice suggests that it's not a giant lake that caused the Gulf Stream to shut down but massive loss of the ice storing both water and ice across the N Hemisphere and this could already be taking place in Greenland.
Evidence for the lake collapse (Lake Agassiz) is diminishing but evidence for the flood remains. The N Hemisphere cooled down rapidly too so if we don't both study the mechanisms so we understand what happened, and work to prevent AGW, then we could experience something similar, even though it's not likely going to be as large as after the last ice age.
How much disruption can the world's ecosystems take? Do we find out the hard way or do we step back and make informed decisions?
9
Numbers 35:33: "No atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it." We must atone for our crimes against the Earth. And we will.
17
Jeremiah 2:7……. "And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in, you defiled my land and made my heritage an abomination."
7
The old adage that a "wise bird does not foul its own nest" still holds true. Alaskans think they will be getting jobs and prosperity by allowing drilling in this undisturbed land. What they will surely get is a mess. By the time oil is extracted fossil fuels won't be worth what it costs to extract them and the rest of the world won't want their dirty oil.
35
Its more like they will be expecting parger checks at the end of the year as they get their portion of the profits from the state. It has basically been $1500 a year for all citizens since the oil companies found this way to bribe poor people into acting against their own best interests.
6
" .. These satellite images of a small part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge .."
That's right, a very small part, of a very big site .. the size of South Carolina.
Conservation is one thing. Near-insanity about doing nothing is another, IMHO.
I think we know the oil companies found what they consider deposits worth exploiting especially with new technologies that make fuller extraction of a particular deposit possible.
The fact that the site is still covered in open water pretty much tells us the idea is a very bad one. Maybe the Times should do something that explains how the Tundra ecosystem works and why open water on it is so bad for it?
27
It took nature millions of years to develop the carbon resources that humans exploit for fuel. Humans are hell bent on extracting every last drop or chunk that they can and burning it to put it all into the atmosphere as CO2. So it will take us a couple hundred years to demolish what nature took eons to put there.
Not thought whatsoever is given to our children or grand children. Supposedly, intelligent mankind as we know it has lasted 5000 years beyond the evolutionary stages that took many 10's of thousands of years before that. What exactly is the idea about the evolution of mankind. Are we just preparing for the point in a few hundred years when we will have turned the planet back into a poisonous mess where only cockroaches can live?
29
The problem is belief in magic and the use of it by unscrupulous people to take control of our responsible well regulated society away from sensible mature adults so they can enrich themselves never caring for the facts about the future because magic.
6