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Greenland suspends oil exploration because of climate change
- anonporridge 5y agoThis reminds me of a Norwegian series called Occupied. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupied The premise is Norway suspends oil extraction completely, intensifying an energy crisis in Europe. In response, Russia invades and occupies Norway to force them to keep extracting oil, with the implicit support of the EU.
- gtt 5y agoBut there is plenty of oil in Russia! Why invade?
- thaumasiotes 5y agoFor the sake of the plot. A lot of what happens in stories is basically unmotivated.
- munk-a 5y agoWhat do you mean inspect possible futures through science fiction - none of that stuff is real! /s Stories, when well done, explore interesting concepts and can teach us about how some actions may turn out - yes a lot of writing is lazy and stupid these days, but it's hardly justified to write off all of fiction because of that.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago> yes a lot of writing is lazy and stupid these days This is backwards; if you want to see characters taking entirely unmotivated actions, Grimm's Fairy Tales is a great place to look. Modern writing is a lot more concerned with justifying what the characters do than traditional stories are. That said... > Stories [...] can teach us about how some actions may turn out True stories can. Fiction feels exactly the same, but it doesn't tell you how the action turns out - it tells you how the narrator decided the action should turn out. This is often unrelated to what would happen in reality.
- throwanem 5y agoRead better written stories.
- anonporridge 5y agoThere's plenty of oil in the US. Why invade Iraq?
- rtkwe 5y agoI think the 'US did it for the oil' has always been just a pithy jab at the US more than the truth. Looking at what actually happened it looks like Ahmad Chalabi lied to enough people (even after being labelled as an unreliable source by the US intelligence agencies) to convince the US to get involved in his life long goal to get him and the Shiites back into power in Iraq after being forced out by Saddam's Baath party and the Shia faction it represented.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoInteresting, I didn't think the US trusted people like Chalabi to that degree. Since watching Game of Thrones it's looked to me like it was a personal feud between two oligarchical families that had a falling out.
- rtkwe 5y agoHe'd been working on it for decades in exile trying to convince the US to back rebellions in Iraq then trying to get the US to depose Saddam itself. Of course there's rarely a single reason anything involving a whole government decides to do something but I think it'd be ridiculous to not say Chalabi was one of the big factors leading to the US invasion of Iraq. Another potential is the fact that the Bush family might have felt like they had unfinished work there from the first invasion where the US stopped short of deposing Saddam over Kuwait.
- tehjoker 5y agoOil, family business, getting strategic military bases oriented towards Iran, China, and Russia, wanting to really break America of "Vietnam Syndrome". It's all there!
- adventured 5y ago> Why invade Iraq? For the same reason the US occupied Afghanistan for two decades, destroyed Syria and toppled Libya. An attempt to strip Russia's influence out of the Middle East and wider region as a continuation of the eternal great powers conflict. The US has been conflicting with China across Asia, battling over influence, for decades in a similar way. One of the highest ranking and most decorated generals in US history - four star general Wesley Clark - is on public record stating that this is the exact reason we did it, as told directly to him by his pals in the Pentagon as the plans were being put into action and before we wrecked Syria or Libya (both of which were on the list to come next). Now the US is leaving Afghanistan and guess who is stepping into the regional great power void: Russia. And there's George W Bush now saying we shouldn't leave Afghanistan, he doesn't want the US to cede regional influence to Russia. Globalist warmongers are gonna be globalist warmongers. Oil is a very distant consideration next to military dominion and regional influence/control. If the US wanted Iraqi oil, Saddam would have sold it to the US by the millions of barrels per day at any time the US wished it. Hell, Saddam would have sold it under the table at a steep discount. It was very obviously not about the oil. Oil is merely one of many strategic items on the board. Sometimes I think the warmongers in DC prefer the false "they did it for the oil" premise, it's preferable to the truth, that we smashed the US fiscally and got thousands of our soldiers killed, to spar with Russia over influence. But that's the same exact reason we invaded Vietnam, we weren't there for oil either, we were there for the influence/control over the region. We're also not all over Eastern Europe for the oil, either; again, it's the power conflict with Russia.
- skywal_l 5y agoIf I remember the plot correctly, the EU needed the oil. The russians just took advantage of the situation to move in.
- pengaru 5y agoAll your competitors need oil to be competitive, control of such valuable resources otherwise up for grabs is of high strategic priority.
- thatcherc 5y agoIn the show, Norway had also designed a thorium reactor and were going to share the plans for free. They announced that and that they were shutting down the oil wells at the same time. Russia's main goal was to stop Norway from sharing the reactor design, because that would reduce Europe's dependence on Russia for energy.
- tpmx 5y agoIn reality Norway is the Saudi Arabia of the north, but with fantastic PR. Really, the best PR that money can buy. Bill Gates/George W Bush level PR, but for a country. They're going all out on going green in every part of society.. except for not stopping pumping oil from the sea bed and then selling it to people for the purpose of combusting it and releasing the co2 into the atmosphere. The sad thing is that it seems to work really well for them. Giant kudos to Greenland for resisting this way and showing the norwegians how to do this.
- lastofthemojito 5y agoIn a sense then, Norway is a microcosm of all human civilization. Since the early days of humanity we've burned trees, peat, whale oil, petroleum, whatever we could, side effects be damned. And for most of that time, there's been no sustainable plan to move away from such consumption. At least Norway is now using their oil wealth to try to plot an alternative course forward. We're not there yet, but at least they're not pumping oil today AND acting like pumping oil is the future as well.
- tpmx 5y agoThis is how good their PR is! Maybe kidding.
- munk-a 5y agoI disagree - it isn't just in recent times that dumping waste into waterways that people consume has been discouraged. For most of human history we've been ignorant on how we're hurting ourselves through pollution, but as we've learned how harmful pollution can be we've worked to minimize it. Dying and leather curing was, for a large part of history, about the most toxic thing you could do and so those facilities were usually forced away from the most dense population centers - and sewers have been a thing for a loooong time. I think the first time folks realized that sending smoke up into the air might actually be harmful is when London started having ash clouds from industrialization, but that's just one sort of pollution. Humanity actually has a pretty good record for cutting in and regulating things that they know are harmful.
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- dwiel 5y agoWouldn't Russia rather Norway stop pumping oil so the EU buys more energy from Russia? What is in it for Russia? I don't really know much about this, genuinely curious.
- chmaynard 5y agoObviously this decision is not guaranteed to remain in place forever. Nevertheless, it could be tremendously beneficial for future generations.
- skeeter2020 5y agoI won't wade into the entire "suspend oil expoloration" issue but find it lacks a bit of credibility when a territory of 57,000 people that receives an annual subsidy of $540 million promotes this under the guise of renewability and sustainability. The entire existance is essentially a non-renewable consumption.
- emptysongglass 5y agoI don't think you understand how significant the move is to them in sacrifice. The untapped reserves are likely worth factors of ten more than their yearly aid from Denmark. They could have used whatever they found to force the issue of independence they've insisted, year by year, they want from the Kingdom. Imagine using that wealth to build out a Norway-in-miniature.
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- baud147258 5y agothe reserve are suspected, nothing had been actually found, so they're sacrificing nothing.
- emptysongglass 5y agoThe very first citation in Wikipedia's Petroleum explorations in the Arctic page [1] states that, "Greenland is believed by some geologists to have some of the world's largest remaining oil resources." It goes on to cite a US Geological Survey that found its waters could contain up to 110 million barrels of oil. So yes, I believe that qualifies as a huge self-sacrifice. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_exploration_in_the_Arctic#Greenland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_exploration_in_the...
- kzrdude 5y agoThe pressure from the rest of the world will come, so it will be interesting decades ahead.
- lastofthemojito 5y agoInterestingly, not all denizens of the Arctic (or near-Arctic) feel the same way. I (accidentally, by acquisition) found myself working for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, a company owned by the Iñupiat people of the northernmost part of Alaska. They're the ones pushing to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and nearby areas. They're the ones who pulled out of the Alaska Federation of Natives when the AFN declared a climate emergency. I ended up leaving the company, in no small part because I disagreed with their oil exploration policy, but it is interesting to see how some of the Alaska Natives, despite seeing their surroundings warming faster than the worldwide averages, despite (or maybe due to) infrastructure crumbling due to permafrost thawing, they're saying "yep, we need money, so we need to drill for more oil for the world to burn".
- trhway 5y ago> seeing their surroundings warming faster than the worldwide averages, despite (or maybe due to) infrastructure crumbling due to permafrost thawing put yourself into their shoes - all that happens to them because somebody is making huge money while they aren't getting anything, and they can't stop it from happening. Given that, it hard to blame them for wanting at least some of those money.
- lastofthemojito 5y agoI've thought about a it a lot. I definitely see some sense to ASRC's stance. Last I heard they're providing an ~$8k/year dividend to each of their shareholders (every Iñupiat tribe member). That certainly does some good. They also give out scholarships and do other beneficial things. There'd be less money for all of that if the oil work stopped. I understand that that's problematic. On the other hand, I believe the government contracting side of ASRC's business has grown at a faster pace than the oil side. I'd sure prefer to see them make a stand and pivot into less damaging areas than oil exploration and extraction. But yeah, I do get why they do it.
- Gupie 5y ago"Would you feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you £20,000 for every dot that stopped - would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money?"
- bpodgursky 5y agoThere are ton of hypotheticals being thrown around here, but'll point out it's easy to suspend oil exploration when > No oil has been found yet around Greenland The people of Greenland would probably _not_ be so thrilled if there was a number on this like "$1mm per Greenlander is being turned down". But because there's no actual oil on the table yet, and no dollar signs on it, it's relatively easy to stick to principles.
- at-fates-hands 5y ago>> it's relatively easy to stick to principles. right up until the they do discover oil and then the companies come in, cities are set up, massive amounts of people get employed, the money will flow and it will be Western North Dakota all over again.
- wolftune 5y ago*It is easier to avoid temptation than to resist it.* - Dan Ariely
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- JoeAltmaier 5y agoI wonder when folks will switch to methane hydrates
- lovemenot 5y agoUnlikely. The country that has done most development so far has probably been Japan. They have managed small scale recovery, but nobody here is very confident deep ocean mining of clathrates will ever be economic.
- Proven 5y agoGroup of climatist fanatics manages to make lives of the rest of the Greenlanders miserable - that's certainly a reason to celebrate! It's not about whether it helps, but whether it coerces and punishes. In terms of by how long that postpones CO2 PPM hitting some higher number, it's probably around 25 minutes.
- baud147258 5y agoThey're not losing anything by doing this, so honestly I'm more reading this as hedging their bets and they'd just resume prospecting if they need the money
- baud147258 5y agoAnd going for a purely carbon-producing perspective, stopping uranium mining (unless it would have been very damaging for the environment) is a loss, since uranium is used to produce carbon-neutral electricity. Though it's easy understand locals not wanting any on their island, after the US shenanigans during the cold war.
- TeeMassive 5y agoI'm not against stopping exploiting fossil energy to fight climate change per se but I am worried that this is a pointless and self-destructive efforts if it is not done by all polluting countries; notably China and India.
- weavie 5y agoCurious why you are not worried about the USA which has double the co2 emmissions per capita compared to China, and about 8x compared to India?
- steve76 5y agoper capita. So you can: be the world's largest polluters increase pollution while the USA works very hard to decrease it oppose the USA through war and genocide because of cynical win at all cost marxism and then get a pass by starving billions.
- TeeMassive 5y agoPer capita doesn't matter, it's the total, and China and India has a growing middle class and 2.5B people combined and counting and are known, especially China, for their utter lack of environmental regulations or proper enforcement thereof.
- steve76 5y agoLand without drilling is a tar pit. Gasoline is free in countries that drill. Solar costs are down because they count replacements as something new, big government subsidies, and slave labor. You still need to mine for rare earths.