Shell and High Water

This story was originally published by NRDC's onEarth magazine.

Despite the blockading efforts of dozens of “kayaktivists,” the Polar Pioneer, Shell’s 400-foot drilling rig, left the port of Seattle in June 2015 and headed north to the Chukchi Sea. After being disappointed by the amount of oil and gas found while drilling one well, the company pulled out of the region in September 2015 and said it would abandon drilling efforts "for the foreseeable future." Here are five reasons why we hope drilling in the Arctic has stopped for good.

1. Spills, spills, and more spills.

Research conducted by our own federal government concluded that if the company drills in the Chukchi Sea, there’s a 75 percent chance of a large spill. (That figure doesn’t include the also-very-likely “small” spills of 1,000 barrels or less.) Those are really, really good odds—meaning they are terrible.

2. They won't be able to clean up after themselves.

Oil spills are never easy to deal with, but the Arctic Ocean is a particularly hairy place for such a disaster. The weather is unpredictable, ice renders tools like booms and skimmers useless, and oil can get trapped beneath sea ice. Plus, who’s going to rush to the scene? The nearest Coast Guard station is 1,000 miles away, and the nearest airport is in Anchorage, more than 700 miles away.

3. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Shell’s track record up north is a shoddy one. Its attempt to drill there in 2012 was fraught with mishaps, including the snafu involving its rig, the Kulluk, which ran aground during a storm, threatening the lives of the workers onboard. Another rig, the Noble Discoverer, had numerous mechanical issues and nearly got beached itself. Noble Drilling, the company responsible for operating both rigs, paid more than $12 million after pleading guilty to eight felonies that led to pollution and unsafe working conditions. These incidents proved that drilling in the Arctic was—and still is—extremely dangerous.

4. There's some news to share about some wild, wild life.

The Chukchi Sea is essential habitat for a diverse array of wildlife—including many endangered species—such as polar bears, ringed seals, Pacific walrus, puffins, and migratory whales. Alaska Native communities rely on the Arctic Ocean for food and age-old cultural traditions. Oil exploration alone would disrupt this fragile ecosystem, and a spill would devastate it.

5. The climes, they are a-changin’.

Drilling in the Arctic, which is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, would contradict President Obama’s commitment to fighting climate change. A report released in June 2015 by the International Energy Alliance found that current emissions targets—including the United States’—aren’t going to prevent global temperatures from rising by two degrees Celsius. The Arctic may hold about one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas reserves. Now is the time to invest in clean energy sources, not look for more fossil fuels to dig up—and definitely not in risky, remote ecosystems already reeling from our collective carbon mess-up.

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