FDL Book Salon Welcomes Subhankar Banerjee, Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point

[phantom power]

Drilling in the Arctic is infinitely more reckless than other oil industry operations, and the repercussions are even more costly. The damage that could be done, the damage that is being done, may be irreparable. The Arctic is warming at a rate double the rest of the planet. Climate change is melting permafrost on land which is releasing methane from primordial wetlands — and accelerating climate change further. And as this occurs the Arctic is also absorbing pollution from around the world, which has created an “Arctic Haze” in the sky and contaminated the breast milk of indigenous women to toxic levels.

The Arctic is frozen and harsh and unforgiving; it cannot spring back easily from this destruction.

Author and photojournalist Subhankar Banerjee’s new anthology Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point exposes these dangers and goes much further, offering a nuanced examination of what Arctic drilling would mean for everyone, from local communities, to regional wildlife, to the health of the planet.

Most importantly, Banerjee situates this discussion firmly within a broader critique. He describes what he calls the arctic paradox: Corporations are spending billions in hopes of extracting more coal, oil, and gas from the Arctic, yet “the very thing that is devastating the Arctic — global warming — is the result of accumulation of greenhouse gases that we see from the burning of coal, oil, and gas.”

The 39 voices in Banerjee’s anthology speak from personal experience and with urgency. He notes a saying of the Tikigaq people: “Never tell one story. Always add a second. That way, the first one won’t fall over.”

http://fdlbooksalon.com/2012/09/16/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-subhankar-banerjee/

[PDJane]

1. Yes. Fooling around with drilling and spills in the arctic as it warms and melts

Is going to be dangerous beyond belief. Those methane plumes are damn dangerous, and could make our atmosphere unbreathable. It's long past time to stop this idiocy.

[Speck Tater]

2. That was my thought.

What if they drill into a pocket of clathrates and release a huge bubble of methane. Boom goes the drilling rig. Or worse yet, they could set off a chain reaction releasing more methane from a huge area beyond just where they are drilling. We don't really know enough about all those methane-bearing clathrates, or how unstable they are, or how they are going to react to being prodded and poked.

[AverageJoe90]

4. At least we know that Earth won't turn into Venus II, though, so that's a bit of good news there....

I seriously doubt that the clathrate gun hypothesis(or at least parts of it), is really viable at this point in Earth's existence, but on the other hand, it really is still a major gamble because we can't at all accurately predict what will happen if something does go wrong, other than a few basic guidelines(TBH, there are some scientists that believe that a methane release could possibly lead to global cooling, under certain conditions). IMHO, I think the vast majority of DUers would agree with me when I state my belief that this is NOT a risk worth taking by any means, and it should in fact, be halted, quickly.

(P.S., here's a reference: http://pangea.stanford.edu/Oceans/GES205/methaneGeology.pdf )

[AverageJoe90]

3. Thank you, Dr. Banerjee, for speaking out!

And thanks for posting this, Phantom Power. This needs to be heard.

[pscot]

5. if god didn't want us to drill in the Arctic

why is he melting all the ice?