Amazing: Again with the name-calling? Is everyone who opposes oil/gas drilling and pipelines in the Arctic a “radical” and/or dishonest?. I see no facts in your post, just name-calling. Here are some facts:
Massive oil and gas exploration and drilling of the type proposed by Bush is not “safe”. It can cause enormous environmental destruction. This can clearly be seen in areas of the Arctic which have undergone drilling over the past decade. Formerly pristine wilderness, home to caribou, moose and all kinds of wildlife, and home to people who have lived in harmony with that wilderness for thousands of years, has been reduced to desert-like conditions, with very few economic benefits going to those who call this region home. I have seen it - I work as a lawyer for First Nations in the Canadian western Arctic.
Pipelines are also not safe. They leak and explode all the time. According to the industry’s own reporting (and most leaks are probably not reported) every couple of days, a natural gas pipeline incident occurs in North America. Since 1986, in the US there have been, in addition to thousands of leaks and explosions which “only” harmed the natural environment, there have been 1,407 injuries and 322 deaths from natural gas pipelines. In Alberta (a small energy rich Canadian province, the Energy Utilities Board listed 950 reported (how many unreported?) pipeline failure incidents in the year ending March 31, 2000, a 7% increase from the previous year. In addition to these obvious threats to human safety, there is evidence of serious impacts on wildlife from pipelines.
Then there are problems with flaring. Flaring is used for a wide range of purposes within the industry. During well testing it is used assess the rate and pressure and size of reservoir in order to size the diameter of the pipelines and the amount of equipment that's going to be needed to get the gas out. The gas, unburnt, will have a wide range of lighter hydrocarbons. Primarily methane, which is the main hydrocarbon of interest, CH4, but there can be a range of other hydrocarbons. Particularly of high interest are C5 to C8. In that case, we are talking benzene, ethyl benzene and styrene, which are also known to be hazardous air pollutants when they are placed into the air. The biggest concern is the presence of hydrogen-sulphide. It's a sulphur product that can occur naturally. Hydrogen-sulphide, once released into the air, is one of the most toxic substances known to humanity. If sulphur is converted into sulphur dioxide then you have concerns around air quality and the impacts on humans, but also degradation of soil and water bodies, etc… There are also noise, odor problems and of course greenhouse gases associated with them.
There's a large range of air toxins that can be released that are directly from the gas or created through the flaring process itself through products of incomplete combustion. People living in those areas report increases in respiratory problems, headaches and fatigue. As well, livestock and wild animals have reduced reproduction, slow growth and in some cases death and stillbirths. The oil/gas industry has argued that flaring was a pretty safe way to get rid of waste gases, claiming that it basically converts everything out of the hole into carbon dioxide and water. So studies were finally done in the late '90s and it showed there was quite a toxic chemical soup of these kinds of compounds that are being released from the flares.
Finally, there is no sound economic argument for drilling in the Arctic. To the extent that there is an “energy crisis” (and that is highly debatable) it is likely that all of North America’s energy needs could be addressed through conservation and alternative energy sources. All this could be done for a fraction of the cost of building the insane “missile defence shield”. (BTW, isn’t it funny how the very companies which will profit from this huge expenditure of tax-payers money by Washington, and those oil/gas companies which profit from the give-away of public lands and resources are the same ones that scream about the horrors “big government” whenever legislation which would protect the environment or public health is proposes.) But then drilling in the Arctic has nothing to do with the public interest or addressing a supposed “energy crisis”. It is all about Bush, the servile toady of big business, doing his duty to the oil/gas industry which funds his election campaigns by ensuring massive give-aways and profits for them. That’s “big government”.
And what of the deeper moral issues involved. Does the land not have some value in itself? Are we not devaluing our humanity by looking at the land as merely something to “exploit” for economic gain?
