UK scientists attack oil firms' role in huge Arctic project

[spindrifter]

David Adam, environment correspondent
Tuesday April 18, 2006
The Guardian

British scientists are at loggerheads with US colleagues over a controversial plan to work alongside oil companies to hunt for fossil fuel reserves in the Arctic.
The US Geological Survey is lining up a project with BP and Statoil to find oil and gas in the Arctic Ocean, under the auspices of a flagship scientific initiative intended to tackle global warming.

<snip>

Documents on the IPY website show that BP and Statoil, a Norwegian company, are "significant consortium members" on a USGS proposal to assess "energy resources in the circumarctic area including oil, gas, coalbed methane and methane hydrates". Geologists estimate that a quarter of the world's undiscovered oil and gas reserves lie under the Arctic, and analysts have predicted a 21st-century goldrush to tap them as the Arctic Ocean's ice cover retreats.

Chris Rapley, the director of the British Antarctic Survey, said: "I would be very uncomfortable with a project that simply was out to log the hydrocarbon reserves of the Arctic as a geological activity. I don't think that fits very comfortably within either the scientific guidelines or the ethical underpinning of the IPY."

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,1755819,00.html

[PublicWrath]

1. As the Arctic Ocean's Ice Cover Retreats!!!!!!!!!

An USGS expedition supposed to be studying global warming is looking for energy resources that will only be available as the ice retreats?!!!!!