Al Gore warns it would be 'recklessly irresponsible' to allow Alaska oil drilling plan

[Celerity]

Ex-vice-president says new projects ‘are a recipe for climate chaos’ ahead of Biden administration’s decision on Willow development

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/10/al-gore-biden-alaska-oil-drilling-willow-development

Al Gore has warned it would be “recklessly irresponsible” to allow an enormous, controversial oil drilling project to proceed in Alaska, speaking ahead of a decision from the Biden administration on whether to approve it. Gore spoke amid growing alarm among Democrats and campaigners that the Willow development will drastically undermine the US’s effort to confront the climate crisis.

The vast, multi-billion-dollar ConocoPhillips oil project, to be situated on the tundra of Alaska’s northern Arctic coast, is awaiting approval from the federal government that could arrive as soon as Friday. Gore, the former US vice-president and leading climate advocate, told the Guardian that the planned drilling would threaten local communities as well as the task of curbing dangerous global heating.

“The proposed expansion of oil and gas drilling in Alaska is recklessly irresponsible,” Gore said. “The pollution it would generate will not only put Alaska native and other local communities at risk, it is incompatible with the ambition we need to achieve a net zero future. “We don’t need to prop up the fossil fuel industry with new, multi-year projects that are a recipe for climate chaos,” Gore added. “Instead, we must end the expansion of oil, gas and coal and embrace the abundant climate solutions at our fingertips.”

The Willow project has become a leading target for climate campaigners due to the huge volume of planet-heating emissions it could unleash. The drilling operation would extract up to 180,0000 barrels of oil a day, about 1.6% of total US oil production from one site alone. In a grim irony, ConocoPhillips has said it may have to re-freeze ground that is rapidly thawing as the Arctic heats up in order to stabilize the drilling equipment. This drilling would result in 278m tons of greenhouse gases over a 30-year lifespan of the development, according to the administration’s own estimates, the equivalent of adding 2m gasoline-consuming cars onto the road or running more than 70 coal-fired power plants for a year. The pollution produced would comfortably wipe out the emissions saved from all renewable energy projects on US public lands by 2030.

snip

[malaise]

1. As usual he is correct

Rec

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. Every time I see his name,

I get so GD angry. He would have been such a great POTUS.

[Botany]

4. Leave the shit in the ground! It is killing the supportive capacity of the planet as we know it.

The earth will continue to circle the sun but w/salt water killing N.J.'s coastal cedar forests, the
Mississippi River drying up, and Alaska's King & Snow Crab population crashing because the Bering
Sea is getting too warm are signs that we have to proactive in trying to control greenhouse gases.

BTW If President Biden thinks by throwing Joe Manchin this bone will make him start being helpful
he is mistaken.

Besides that area is one of the very last intact wild ecosystems and that is worth trillions.

[Celerity]

5. the following dismayed many in my social set/age cohort, as climate change is a huge issue with us:

this was probably my most disappointed I ever was with Biden (I think he has been superb on balance)

especially because the excuse they used for months to justify it was simply not true

Revealed: Biden administration was not legally bound to auction gulf drilling rights

Justice department admits a previous ruling did not force the detonation of what environmentalists call ‘huge carbon bomb’

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/13/revealed-biden-administration-was-not-legally-bound-to-auction-gulf-drilling-rights

The Biden administration admitted that a court decision did not compel it to lease vast tracts of the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling, shortly before claiming it was legally obliged to do so when announcing the sell-off, the Guardian can reveal. Last month, the US government held the largest-ever auction of oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico’s history, offering up more than 80m acres of the gulf’s seabed for fossil fuel extraction.

The enormous sale, which took place just four days after crucial UN climate talks in Scotland, represented a spectacular about-turn from Joe Biden’s previous promise to halt offshore drilling and was denounced by outraged environmental groups as a “huge carbon bomb”.

The president’s administration insisted it was obliged to hold the lease sale due to a court ruling in favour of a dozen states that sued to lift a blanket pause placed on new drilling permits by Biden. But a memo filed by the US Department of Justice before the lease sale acknowledges that this judgement does not force the government to auction off drilling rights to the gulf.

“While the order enjoins and restrains (the department of) interior from implementing the pause, it does not compel interior to take the actions specified by plaintiffs, let alone on the urgent timeline specified in plaintiffs’ contempt motion,” wrote government lawyers to the federal court in Louisiana in August.

snip

the actual memo

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/21152195/8-24-2021-biden-opposition-to-motion-to-show-cause-and-compel-compliance.pdf

smdh

[Botany]

7. One of Joe's 1st actions was to protect this area. We don't need the oil that bad.

Let ConocoPhillips spend that money on building solar/wind power E.V. charging stations.

[Faux pas]

6. I'm

with Al all the way on this one! Yikes!