Arctic

Polar Ice Is Disappearing, Setting Off Climate Alarms

December 28, 2017 Sabrina Shankman and Bob Berwyn, Insideclimatenews.org Educate! Arctic, Climate Change, Global Warming

Turns out, when you heat up ice, it melts. And with 2017 likely going down as one of the warmest years on record worldwide, this year's climate change signal was amplified at the Earth's poles. There, decades-old predictions of intense warming have been coming true. The ice-covered poles, both north and south, continue to change at a breathtaking pace, with profound long-term consequences, according to the scientists who study them closely. And the consequences are destined to spill over into other parts of the globe, through changing atmospheric patterns, sea currents and feedback loops of ever intensifying melting. The past year may not have broken annual records, but it provided ample evidence of where long-term trends are heading.

Greenpeace Sues Norway Over Arctic Exploration

November 16, 2017 Tone Sutterud and Elisabeth Ulven, theguardian.com Resist! Arctic, Environment, Greenpeace, Lawsuit, Norway

By Tone Sutterud and Elisabeth Ulven for The Guardian - The Norwegian government is being sued by climate activists over a decision to open up areas of the Arctic Ocean for oil exploration, a move they say endangers the lives of existing and future generations. The plaintiffs, led by environmental organisations Greenpeace and Youth and Nature, will on Tuesday claim that the Norwegian government has violated a constitutional environmental law which guarantees citizens’ rights to a healthy environment. The law, known as Section 112, states: “Everyone has the right to an environment that safeguards their health and to nature where production ability and diversity are preserved. Natural resources must be managed from a long-term and versatile consideration which also upholds this right for future generations.” “We have for years tried to stop the expansion of Norway’s oil extraction, from both local and global considerations,” said Truls Gulowsen, head of Greenpeace Norway. “As far as granting concessions for the Arctic is concerned, not only have our objections been ignored and overrun, but the state has also paid no heed to the guidelines from their own appointed advisers, such as the polar institute and the environment agency, who both recommended that the majority of concessions in this area be turned down.” In fighting the case, Greenpeace is relying on the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which states that to meet the goals set out in the 2015 Paris accord, oil production must be wound down, not escalated.

Hilcorp, Arctic Driller Has Troubling Trail Of Violations

August 11, 2017 Sabrina Shankman, www.insideclimatenews.org Educate! Arctic, Arctic drilling, Drilling, Oil and Gas

By Sabrina Shankman for Inside Climate News - ANCHORAGE, Alaska—In the energy industry, Hilcorp has built a reputation for fast growth, big profits and making people rich. This 28-year-old Houston-based company has kept a low public profile while becoming one of the top five privately held oil and gas producers in the United States. Founder Jeffery Hildebrand has become a billionaire, rising up the ranks of the hundred richest Americans. Employees, who got six-figure bonuses for meeting output goals, rave online about their employer, which Fortune magazine has lauded as one of the 100 best companies to work for five years in a row. In regulatory circles, however, and among environmentalists, Hilcorp has become known for different reasons. As the company has bought up older oil and gas fields from bigger companies, a business strategy known as "acquire and exploit," it has amassed a troubling safety and environmental track record in Alaska and several other states. As soon as the company started working in Alaska in April 2012, it began to accumulate violations. By October 2015, the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC), the main industry regulator in the state...

Leaked Draft Shows U.S. Weakened Climate Change Wording In Arctic Declaration

May 20, 2017 Sabrina Shankman, www.insideclimatenews.org Resist! Arctic, Climate Change, US Foreign Policy

By Sabrina Shankman for Inside Climate News - The day before the Arctic Council met for its biannual ministerial last week, the United States requested six changes to the intergovernmental declaration that was to be issued—each of which weakened the language on climate change. The Arctic Council, an intergovernmental body representing all eight Arctic states, does not make policy, but the diplomatic work accomplished there is intended to trickle back to the countries and result in changes. An important part of that is the declaration issued at the end of each two-year chairmanship, which is signed by top officials from each country, to acknowledge the scientific and diplomatic work that was accomplished and to state the council's goals going forward. The last-minute move by the United States to weaken the document can be seen as a test case for what we can expect at larger, more consequential meetings of international organizations dealing with global warming issues and policy as President Donald Trump rolls back U.S. climate policies and backslides on international commitments.

The Arctic Goes Bonkers

December 8, 2016 Robert Hunziker, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Arctic, Climate Change

By Robert Hunziker or Counter Punch - Recent news out of the Arctic is alarming scientists, as for example the Union of Concerned Scientists discussed further on in this article. This extreme bad news is far-reaching, out of the ordinary, and chilling to the bone. Global warming is getting worse and worse by the month and by the year and now, all of a sudden, frighteningly worse yet. Worldwide temperature sets monthly records, but who really cares in the public domain, other than scientists, the Pope, and the parties to COP, the Conference of the Parties, which is the gabfest for climate change.

The Arctic Warms Up For Trump

November 23, 2016 Robert Hunziker, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Arctic, Climate Change, Donald Trump, Global Warming

By Robert Hunziker for Counter Punch - A little over one week following the presidential election, The Washington Post carried this headline: “The North Pole is an Insane 36 Degrees Warmer Than Normal as Winter Descends,” d/d November 17th, 2016. That headline is not tomfoolery; it is an actual, real temperature reading. According to NovaNext, PBS, d/d Nov. 18th, 2016: “As the Arctic settles into polar night, scientists are noticing that something has gone horribly wrong.

Inuit Struggle Against Oil And Gas In Arctic

October 14, 2016 Chris Williams, www.truth-out.org Educate! Arctic, Climage Change, Indigenous Peoples

By Chris Williams for Truth Out - The Inuit in the Canadian Arctic are engaged in a centuries-old fight to retain their culture and reestablish self-determination and genuine sovereignty. In particular, Inuit in the autonomous territory of Nunavut are resisting what American Indian studies scholar Daniel R. Wildcat has described as a "fourth removal attempt" of Indigenous people, coming on the heels of failed efforts at spatial, social and psycho-cultural deletion.

In Arctic, Ancient Diseases Reanimate And Highways Melt

August 23, 2016 Dahr Jamail, www.truth-out.org Educate! Arctic, Global Warming

By Dahr Jamail for Truthout - By the time I'd reached the end of my 10 years of reportage on the impacts of the US occupation of Iraq in 2013, it was impossible for me to find an Iraqi who did not have a family member, relative or friend who had been killed either by US troops, an act of non-state sponsored terrorism or random violence spun off one of the aforementioned.

The Arctic Turns Ugly

March 6, 2016 Robert Hunziker, www.dissidentvoice.org Educate! Arctic, Climate Change, Global Warming

By Robert Hunziker for Dissident Voice. Runaway global warming is far and away humankind’s biggest nightmare, and the Arctic is the likely perpetrator. If it happens, it’ll blister agricultural foodstuff before it can reach the outstretched arms of the multitudes. Then what? Dr. Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute of California recently warned, “What is happening in the Arctic now is unprecedented and possibly catastrophic. The evidence is very clear that rapid and unprecedented changes are happening in the Arctic.”1 Dr. Gleick finds a growing body of “pretty scary” evidence that increasing temperatures create horrendously dangerous storms throughout the Northern Hemisphere. For example, the polar vortex and anomalous jet streams brought record-breaking hot and cold weather to the U.S. in 2015. In the UK, unusually strong storms brought massive flooding with record rainfall.

Project Censored 2015: Top Ten News Stories The Media Ignored

November 29, 2015 Tim Redmond, www.cascadiaweekly.com Educate! Arctic, Drones, Enviornment, Food and Agriculture, Fracking, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Fukushima, Groundwater, killed by police, Mass Media, Methane, Oil and Gas, Poverty, Propaganda, Renewable Energy, spying, Wealth Ineqaulity

By Tim Redmond for Cascadia Weekly. As Project Censored staffers Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth note, 90 percent of U.S. news media—the traditional outlets that employ full-time reporters—are controlled by six corporations. “The corporate media hardly represent the mainstream,” the staffers wrote in the current edition’s introduction. “By contrast, the independent journalists that Project Censored has celebrated since its inception are now understood as vital components of what experts have identified as the newly developing ‘networked fourth estate.’”

‘Bold, Cultural Revolution’ Comes To Portland

August 3, 2015 Patrick Mazza, www.cascadiaplanet.blogspot.com Resist! Arctic, Environment, Oil & Gas, sHellNo!

By Patrick Mazza in Cascadia Planet - The climbers and kayaktavists in both Portland and Seattle actions exhibited in the most profound way possible the meaning of “a bold, cultural revolution” against “the dominant technocratic paradigm.” They put their bodies and lives in the path of massive machines that could not more acutely represent that paradigm and its global insanity – The third largest corporation in the world, whose own projections show catastrophic global warming of 4°C, furthering that scenario by continuing to expand the fossil fuel frontier and doing it in a region where warming-driven ice melt makes it more possible, the Arctic. To even have a chance of holding warming below the standard safety barrier of 2°C, most fossil reserves must be kept in the ground including all Arctic gas and oil, a new study in Nature concludes.

Shell’s Arctic Drilling Faces Setback As Ship Forced Back To Port

July 9, 2015 Mike Gaworecki, www.desmogblog.com Educate! Arctic, Environment, Seattle, shell

By Mike Gaworecki in DeSmogBlog - Is Shell finally “Arctic Ready” after its doomed 2012 campaign? The company is set to begin drilling in the Arctic within the week, and it’s already not looking good. The MSV Fennica, an icebreaker vessel bound for the Chukchi Sea, had barely left its berth in Dutch Harbor, Alaska last Friday when it had to immediately turn around. The crew discovered a 39-inch long, half-inch-wide breach in the Fennica’s hull, FuelFix reports. There is no word yet from Shell on how long the repairs are expected to take, or how the company intends to proceed in the event that the Fennica is taken out of service for a long period of time. Any significant change to Shell’s Arctic drilling plans could force a new review by the USDepartment of the Interior.

I’m Standing Between Shell & The Arctic—Join Me

June 19, 2015 Mehreen Khan, www.telegraph.co.uk Resist! Arctic, Canada, Environment, Oil & Gas, shell

By Audrey Siegl in GreenPeace - This morning off the coast of British Columbia, I went face to face with Shell’s Arctic drilling rig, the Polar Pioneer. It was terrifying. But there are moments in life when—despite your fear—you must act. Standing in my tiny inflatable boat, feeling small and vulnerable as Shell’s rig approached, I had to steady myself physically, emotionally and spiritually. Feeling the waves and cold wind being out there on the open waters, I was reminded of exactly what I am protecting. I chose to stand there and use my voice to express my opposition to the devastating work Shell’s rig is on its way to do in the Arctic. I am scared that our future is being sacrificed for oil companies that would seal our fate away with catastrophic climate change to pad their own profits.

Greenpeace Puts Boats & Bodies Between Shell & Arctic

June 18, 2015 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org Resist! Arctic, Greenpeace, Oil & Gas, shell

By Nadia Prupis in Common Dreams - By boat, by raft, or by swimming through frigid northern waters, the people will not back down against drilling in the Arctic. That was the message Wednesday morning as about 30 environmental campaigners on Greenpeace vessels—including Musqueam First Nation activist Audrey Siegl, featured in a video on Tuesday preparing for the action—chased down oil giant Shell's Arctic drilling rig, the Polar Pioneer, as it moved past Vancouver Island toward its final destination in Alaskan waters. Under the banner of People vs. Oil, several protesters jumped from a raft into the choppy ocean waves to block the path of the Polar Pioneer. Shell plans to drill for oil in the Arctic's Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, which are home to numerous Indigenous communities and marine species. As of Wednesday morning, the Polar Pioneer had barreled down on the swimmers, forcing them to move out of the way, but two smaller boats of activists are still facing off with the vessel.

Save The Arctic!

September 6, 2014 Greenpeace, www.savethearctic.org Petitions and Online Actions Arctic, Climate Change, Oil, Peace

The Arctic ice we all depend on is disappearing. Fast. In the last 30 years, we’ve lost as much as three-quarters of the floating sea ice cover at the top of the world. The volume of that sea ice measured by satellites in the summer, when it reaches its smallest, has shrunk so fast that scientists say it’s now in a ‘death spiral’. For over 800,000 years, ice has been a permanent feature of the Arctic ocean. It’s melting because of our use of dirty fossil fuel energy, and in the near future it could be ice free for the first time since humans walked the Earth. This would be not only devastating for the people, polar bears, narwhals, walruses and other species that live there - but for the rest of us too. The ice at the top of the world reflects much of the sun’s heat back into space and keeps our whole planet cool, stabilising the weather systems that we depend on to grow our food. Protecting the ice means protecting us all. To save the Arctic, we have to act today. Sign now.

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