Oil companies endorse Global Warming to support new drilling opportunities

Edited by Sue Jones

Rising global temperatures will melt areas of the Arctic making them more accessible for oil and natural gas drilling, a report prepared by the United States and seven other nations had stipulated reported since 2004.

It predicts that over the next 100 years, global warming could increase Arctic annual average temperatures 5 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit over land and by up to 13 degrees over water. Warmer temperatures could raise global sea levels by as much as 3 feet.

The Arctic region, particularly offshore, has huge oil and gas reserves, mostly in Russia, Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Norway.

Warmer temperatures would make it easier to drill and ship oil from the Arctic, the report said. It did not attempt to quantify the costs of drilling and shipping Arctic oil and gas, or estimate how high energy prices would have to be to justify drilling in the region.

"Offshore oil exploration and production are likely to benefit from less extensive and thinner sea ice, although equipment will have to be designed to withstand increased wave forces and ice movement," the report said.

Energy companies would find it easier to transport oil and gas because the warmer temperatures would open sea routes.

"By the end of this century, the length of the navigation season...along the Northern Sea route is projected to increase to about 120 days from the current 20-30 days," the report said.

The report was commissioned by the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland. It concluded that global warming is heating the Arctic almost twice as quickly as the rest of the planet in a thaw that threatens millions of livelihoods.

Oil companies are substantively responsible for creating much of the destructive path of Global Warming. The political interests which either completely deny or prentend to care, while sunstantively resist preventing Global Warming do so, on behalf of the Oil companies which fund their political campaigns. Oil companies want further Global Warming to make oil exploration easier in the Arctic, irrespective of the social and environmental costs. Any politician who gets money from Petroleum related interests, while purporting to care about Global Warming, is similar engaged in a form of insincere political theatre. Politicians want what Big Oil wants, so that they can maintain their political power, that is propped up by big Oil. Indeed, prevailing American led "global capitalism" is driven by parastic interests of Big Oil.

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