melanie_d

John McCain consistently and falsely says that offshore oil drilling is safe, and that drill rigs have withstood Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike without any significant damage or oil spills.  The facts tell a very different story.

Most recently, Hurricane Ike barreled through the Gulf of Mexico. According to the Minerals Management Service, as of September 15, 2008, 28 of the 3,800 offshore oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico had been destroyed, and several other platforms were significantly damaged. On September 16, the oil drilling company Rowan announced one of its drill rigs was missing, and that it had likely capsized and sunk due to Hurricane Ike.  

Yet on September 17 McCain stated he’d visited an oil rig in the Gulf, it survived the hurricane, it was safe and sound, and fish were swimming all around it. Clearly McCain visited a rig that escaped damage, but it’s a tremendous disservice to spin this visit in a way that leads people to believe there was no damage.

It’s not the first time McCain lied about the impact of hurricanes on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In June, McCain said, “As for offshore drilling, it’s safe enough these days that not even Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could cause significant spillage from the battered rigs off the coasts of New Orleans and Houston.” Yet the US Coast Guard reported that there were over 9 million gallons of oil released from six major and five medium spills (for comparison’s sake, the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil), and the Minerals Management service reported that Hurricane Rita destroyed 46 platforms and damaged 20 others, while Hurricane Rita destroyed 69 platforms and damaged 32 others.

Not so insignificant, is it?

Now, to be fair, the 9 million gallons spilled as a result of Katrina and Rita were not spilled from offshore rigs. The oil was spilled from onshore tanks and pipelines that failed or ruptured. However, it’s not possible to drill offshore in the Gulf without an extensive network of tanks, pipelines, refineries and other infrastructure. Just as it’s not possible to talk about hurricane damage to oil industry infrastructure without including onshore damage.

More offshore oil drilling will only lead to more oil spills, pollution and global warming. And global warming is the very thing that supercharges storms like Katrina, Rita and Ike, which in turn causes major oil spills and extensive damage to oil industry infrastructure. It’s a vicious cycle that any Senator should approach with true solutions to global warming and this country’s energy crisis: energy efficiency so that we get more out of every drop of oil, and a new vision for US energy that relies on renewable forms of energy such as solar and wind and phases out addiction to oil.

If you’re paying attention to the news today, you’ll have heard that the federal government decided to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  What you’re probably not hearing is that this threatened listing comes with a huge exemption that effectively neuters any protections today’s decision could have brought to the polar bear.  What happened? The Interior Department will include an exemption so that federal agencies will not have to consider the impact of global warming pollution on the polar bear.  That’s like the Bush administration announcing it is going to stamp out lung cancer, but it’s exempting the impact of cigarettes in its plan.

Am I mad? You bet I am.  Once again the Bush administration is ignoring the science that is staring it in the face: global warming is threatening polar bears with extinction.   The federal government’s press release announcing the decision carried the headline, “Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Polar Bears under Endangered Species Act,” but it’s clearly mistitled and would have been more aptly written if it had said, “Secretary Kempthorne Announces Decision to Protect Oil and Gas Industry.”  Exempting global warming pollution caused by unabated oil and gas drilling spells doom for the polar bear, pure and simple.

I have been following this issue for quite some time, and I have seen firsthand the impacts of global warming in the Arctic. I’ve been in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea when the sea ice retreated so far offshore that a lone polar bear was stranded in open water, swimming for what little ice it could find in search of its ringed seal prey that were hundreds of miles away at the ice edge.   That bear was not long for this world, and the image haunts me every time I read another grim report about the plight of polar bears in our warming world.

The federal government’s own scientists predict that 2/3 of the world’s polar bears will be gone by mid-century, including all of Alaska’s polar bears, because of sea ice loss caused by global warming. Global warming is literally causing the polar bears habitat to melt out from under them, causing them to drown, cannibalize eachother, increase mortality in yearlings, etc.  The ESA is supposed to protect plants and animals from going extinct, yet our federal government is shirking its responsibility to the American people by looking the other way while global warming spells extinction for US polar bears.

I’m sure some of you are reading this and thinking that saving the polar bear is a laudable goal, but what’s more important is drilling for oil, jobs and the economy.  Consider these facts:

• The US will never be able to drill its way to energy independence since it has only three to four percent of global oil reserves, yet burns one-quarter of the world’s oil.

• The government of every other industrialized country on the planet is ratcheting back on its emissions of global warming pollution, without sacrificing jobs, their economies or their quality of life. Case in point: Europe is cutting back on global warming pollution, and the EU economy and Euro are walloping the dollar.

• The Arctic is a harbinger for things to come at lower latitudes. What we see now in the Arctic – unprecedented sea ice loss and species threatened with extinction – will not be limited to the Arctic.  Serious global warming impacts and species’ extinction will accelerate in the mid-latitudes as it is in the Arctic.

• Stalling action now means more disruption and economic cost down the line. It’s not just about polar bears and the Arctic, the entire country will benefit if the government replaces dirty sources of energy such as oil, gas and coal with cleaner, climate friendly forms of energy like solar and wind.  Conservation can go a long way toward cutting US energy needs as well.

I have to get back to work, but I’d be interested in hearing what folks think about today’s decision, and if you are getting the message that the threatened listing is nothing but a hollow victory for the polar bear.

I live in Anchorage, Alaska, and this morning, during my morning ritual of stoking the wood stove and  reading the Anchorage Daily News, I was struck by the convergence of so many issues that have to do with oil.

On the front page of this morning’s newspaper is an article about a remote village in northwest Alaska, Kivalina, that is suing Exxon and other big oil companies because of global warming >> http://www.adn.com/front/story/327607.html  Kivalina is one of many villages on the coast of arctic Alaska that is  protected from winter storms by sea ice. Sea ice tamps down waves and prevents them from pummeling the shoreline. Global warming now means the sea ice forms later in the year, melts earlier, and as a result, villages such as Kivalina are being ravaged by winter storms that threaten their very existence.  Villages will have to relocate, but relocation will cost hundreds of millions of dollar per village, and where is the money going to come from? And even if a village is re-located, how will the community handle being moved from its traditional hunting and fishing grounds? Kivalina believes Exxon and its oil industry allies have engaged in a decades-long conspiracy to undermine climate science and block real action to stop global warming.

There is also a story about how today, almost 19 years after the Exxon Valdez ran aground and spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s pristine Prince William Sound, the Supreme Court will hear a case about whether Exxon Mobil should have to pay punitive damages to the people who suffered and are still suffering the effects of that spill >> http://www.adn.com/front/story/327804.html Almost two decades since the Valdez disaster—two decades that have witnessed the highest profits ever earned by any company anywhere-- and Exxon’s still fighting to avoid responsibility.  One of the key questions the Supreme Court will consider is if Exxon Mobil should be held accountable for the actions of its Captain, Joseph Hazelwood, who was drunk when the supertanker ran aground.  As far as I’m concerned, the spill had nothing to do with Joseph Hazelwood’s addiction, it was caused by this country’s addiction to oil.  Yes, Exxon Mobil should be held accountable, finally and should have to pay through the nose for what it did. However, I am dismayed to hear little or nothing about how the country’s oil addiction has only worsened since the Exxon Valdez ran aground on March 24, 1989.  Big oil is making record profits for a reason.  We have met the enemy, and he is us.  We’re not doing enough to curb our addiction to oil, and there is certainly more that we can do to pressure our elected officials to wake up and smell the petroleum.

And at the same time, the Chukchi Lease Sale is in the news.  The Chukchi Sea is shared between Alaska and Russia. It is remote, hostile, and home to half the US population of polar bears. The Chukchi Sea is also in the cross hairs of the federal government that wants to open it up to oil drilling.  Oil companies have been salivating for decades at the prospect of oil drilling this vast, untouched part of the Alaska coast.  Up until now, it’s been too costly to seriously consider oil drilling in the Chukchi. But now that Alaska crude oil has reached the milestone of $100 per barrel >> http://www.adn.com/money/story/327647.html, drilling in the Chukchi is a reality. 

Our federal government sold off tracts in the Chukchi Sea in early February, the tracts closest to the shore are 25 miles away, meaning risky sub-sea pipeline technology will be used to transport oil from drilling platforms in an area that is covered by ice for much of the year. The government estimates about a 40 percent chance – just slightly better than 50/50-- of a major oil spill from these leases. There is little possibility of any effective spill response in this part of the world given it is covered by solid or broken ice for much of the year.  And while the oil industry says it can safely drill offshore, its record debunks that assertion as hogwash, to put it mildly. Several spills from offshore platforms have been as large or larger than the Exxon Valdez spill -- the Ekofisk in the North Sea, Ixtoc in the Gulf of Mexico, Funiwa No. 5 off Nigeria, among many other offshore disasters.

Last, as I prepare myself for my day at the Greenpeace office, I wonder if today will be the day when the federal government finally releases its decision about listing the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act?  The federal government missed its self-imposed decision deadline of January 9, which is suspiciously convenient given the Chukchi Lease sale took place on February 6.  The Department of Interior probably  figured out that it could not list the polar bear as threatened in January and then sell of its habitat for oil and gas leasing less than a month later.

I’m doing all I can to take responsibility for global warming. I heat my home with wood, I walk everywhere, and I put a lot of effort into reducing my own carbon footprint.  I just wish the oil companies and federal government would follow my lead. I don’t like to think what Alaska will look like in another ten or twenty years. I don’t want to pick up the morning newspaper and read about coastal villages being swept out to sea creating a new wave of environmental refugees, polar bears drowning and cannibalizing each other in even greater numbers, the sea ice disappearing completely in summer, and  oil spills in the pristine waters of the Chukchi Sea.  I want to read about windfarms, wave power and geothermal energy replacing dirty fossil fuels.  Those are the headlines I look forward to reading.

There seems to be an outbreak of oil spills in the news lately. From San Francisco to Korea, Russia to Norway and Alaska to the Antarctic, oil spills are making headlines.   What’s most aggravating to me is this notion that an oil spill can be “cleaned up,” and that an area can be restored to its pristine condition after an oil spill.  Nothing can be farther from the truth.

I live in Alaska where the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons crude oil that that blackened 1,200 miles of our state’s pristine coastline and killed untold numbers of fish, birds, whales, seals, otters and other wildlife. It also decimated local fishing and Alaska Native communities who rely on the ocean and its resources for their way of life.  I have kayaked in Prince William Sound and seen firsthand the “bathtub ring” of Exxon Valdez oil still visible at high tide line.  Scientists report that oil from the initial spill in 1989 is still being dispersed in the sound today, and could continue for decades.  Only a few species have recovered since the spill, the rest are in decline or have not recovered.  

All this against the backdrop of ExxonMobil declaring the spill “cleaned up” 16 years ago, while posting record profits and continuing to stall and delay the payment of funds to fishermen and communities still feeling the effects of the spill.   

In short, “cleaning up” an oil spill is a misnomer. Even under perfect conditions - warm temperatures, calm seas, no wind and oil, and oil spill response equipment close at hand –  only 15 percent of the oil is removed from the environment. The rest remains, smothering birds and other wildlife so that they die of hypothermia, suffocation or by poisoning themselves through ingesting oil in an effort to clean themselves.  The legacy of an oil spill lives on for decades.

It’s just one more reason we need to break our addiction to oil.  Phasing out dirty fossil fuels like oil and replacing them with clean forms of energy such as solar and wind will not only reduce and eventually eliminate the threat and impact of oil spills, it will also solve the issue of global warming.  

Above photo is me, at the site of the Selendang Ayu oil spill on Unalaska Island, Alaska, December 2004.

 

-- Melanie