Receding Ice and Expensive Oil, Yay for Greenland!

By Oregon State University Archives, available Creative Commons, via flickr

With oil over $60 a barrel, and the icy lands of Greenland slowly defrosting, there’s no need to panic, no need for doomsday scenarios of the future. In fact, it’s a cause for celebration; “drill baby, drill!”

This businessweek article highlights the contradictions between the need to realistically consider tough decisions to explore scenarios of sustainability, vs the desire to chase profits wherever they exist. If it is knowingly possible to drill oil in a habitat that has become exposed thanks to the burning of fossil fuels, without ever taking into consideration the cost of the side effects, scenarios of sustainability will simply not be explored until humanity faces a realistic threat of extinction.

Should we just party hard and let our grandchildren fight it out?

Perhaps that’s how the business leaders who see the dollars signs of raw material extraction in Greenland think. After all, their simply equipping their grandchildren with more capital hold their own in the future wars over food, water and shelter.

Sorry if this is a bit of a downer, but it is simply shocking to hear of language such as:

That means that the Arctic Ocean may be largely ice-free during the summer by 2050 … For now, the Greenlanders are being practical: The melting makes it easier for miners and drillers to do their work. And the island may be able to generate more revenue from shipping as once-impassable routes open up…

Yay – let’s move to Greenland!

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