Oil Exploration Ramps Up In US Arctic

ananyo writes "A new round of exploratory oil drilling is due to begin in the Arctic this July. The oil giant Shell was granted permission some months ago by the U.S. government to drill two exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea and three in the Chukchi Sea, both north of Alaska, this year — between 15 July and late September. The project is finally coming to fruition after years spent fighting legal challenges. It will be the first oil-exploration program to run in U.S. Arctic waters since 2000, and could mark the start of the first offshore commercial drilling in the American north, although it would take another decade to establish production wells."

Comments

Re:I thought all drilling was banned....

[CanHasDIY]

I thought all drilling was banned - Hope & Change I can believe in.

And I thought monkeys couldn't stop jerking off long enough to type a legible sentence, yet here you are...

Re:Good

[BlueStrat]

Oh, the old "it'll wreck the economy" and "hurt the poor" arguments. I'll call you, and raise you a "it'll destroy civilization" argument if we don't do it.

Higher gas prices won't wreck the economy. There are alternatives. People don't have to drive monster SUVs. Don't have to live in McMansions and commute 100 miles to work every day. There are a bunch of easy things we could do to save gas if we got serious about it.

If the environment is wrecked, that will wreck the economy more surely than any tiny price increase. You'd suddenly realize just how petty a $1 or even a $5 increase in the price of a gallon of gas is compared to millions of homeless people forced to move to higher ground thanks to rising sea levels, and more hungry millions swarming over the land because the weather made our crops fail. Civilizations have fallen over crop failures.

So, all you've got to refute with is wild hand-waving and environmental scare-mongering.

Not to mention you're effectively saying that those poor people who suffer and lose their lives to fulfill your anti-Capitalist enviro-whacko agenda are acceptable "collateral damage".

Of course, it wouldn't affect the rich. They can pay whatever is charged for energy and gasoline. The impact of higher oil prices is steeply regressive. It always hurts the poorest first and hardest.

You just ooze the milk of human kindness and mercy for the less-fortunate, don't you?

Strat