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?

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