Pompeo Wants to Double Down on the Disaster Unfolding in the Arctic
Loss of Arctic sea ice is accelerating extinctions and global warming, but Trump administration sees business opportunities
It’s perverse to seek profits from a disaster, whether it’s a war or global warming. And it’s downright shameful to cause or worsen a disaster just so you and your pals can make more money.
But that’s exactly what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top Trump administration officials are doing by celebrating the dangerous loss of Arctic sea ice as a business opportunity for the fossil fuel industry and international trade.
“Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade,” Pompeo told Monday’s meeting of the Arctic Council, a body representing eight Arctic nations and indigenous peoples that works to cooperatively protect that crucial region.
Pompeo went on to detail precisely which industries he wants to exploit the Arctic — the same industries that are causing the Arctic to heat up at twice the global warming rate and speeding the devastating loss of sea ice that only make warming worse.
“The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance. It houses 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil [and] 30 percent of its undiscovered gas,” Pompeo said.
Uniting under the Paris climate agreement, the world’s countries recognize the existential threat posed by climate change, how it’s driven by the excessive burning of fossil fuels, and the obligations they have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. But not the Trump administration.
Instead, the United States is the only country in the world that is withdrawing from the Paris climate accords and instead pursuing a reckless energy policy that increases dependence on fossil fuels and attacks conservation and clean energy programs.
In other words, this administration is committed to making climate change worse and doubling down on our fossil fuel dependence — all so a handful of its business cronies can keep making money.
The grim results: Rapidly melting sea ice is pushing polar bears, walruses, and ice seals in Alaska toward extinction. And Alaska Native coastal communities are being forcibly displaced as their villages crumble into the sea.
Even if you don’t spend much time worrying about the far north, there are many reasons to be concerned about loss of Arctic ice.
Arctic sea ice is critical to regulating the global climate because it reflects the sun’s energy back into space and keeps the polar region cool. The loss of Arctic sea ice has been linked to destabilizing the jet stream and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, and heat waves that have devastated areas of the United States far south of the Arctic.
Human-caused climate change is already leading to immense economic losses in the United States. Between 2015 and April 2018 alone, 44 weather and climate disasters that caused a billion dollars or more in damages struck the United States. All told, they inflicted nearly $400 billion worth of harm.
Losses to our economy, our livelihoods, and way of life will be much more severe the longer we delay carbon pollution reductions.
According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, by the end of the century, warming on our current trajectory would cost the U.S. economy hundreds of billions of dollars each year and up to 10 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. Those costs will stem from factors like increasing health harms and premature deaths, lost crop yields, lost labor, property loss from sea level rise and extreme weather damage.
To have any hope of avoiding these catastrophic harms, we must take swift action to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Scientists warn that there is more than enough carbon in the world’s already developed oil, gas and coal fields to push us past the 1.5-degree Celsius climate target agreed upon by the world’s leaders. Keeping Alaska’s offshore waters, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Western Arctic Reserve safe from planet-killing drilling is a good place to start.
If the United States continues to thumb its nose at the rest the world and pursue fossil fueled business as usual in the Arctic and elsewhere, we’ll become an international pariah.
Instead, the wise investment — the one that protects our children, our economy and our way of life — is speeding the transition to clean energy. Solar energy is already cost-competitive with fossil fuels. And studies show that shifting investment from fossil fuels to clean energy will yield a net increase in jobs.
So we don’t need the plunder the Arctic — we need to protect it.
