In this episode of the podcast, I have explained "Arctic Refugee Drilling" and President Biden's decision about it which came few days ago. This is the last episode of "Season 1" and I have planned something very important for the next season for audience like you. Stay Tuned!
Additional Info:
In 1989, the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Exxon spent $2 billion trying to clean up and recovered less than 7 percent of the oil spilled.
In 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout spilled up to 200 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico. Of that, only about 8 percent was recovered or burned off. Extreme conditions—including icy waves that reach 50 feet—make response in the event of an Arctic spill even more difficult. The nearest response stations to Arctic drilling sites are located thousands of miles away. For decades, Murkowski and other Alaska politicians have seen the refuge as an extension of Prudhoe Bay, the nation’s largest oil field and the state’s aging cash cow, which has been in steady decline since 1988. In 2017, Murkowski’s daughter, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), managed to slip a provision mandating two ANWR lease sales of at least 400,000 acres each into the massive federal tax cut bill. She and the Trump Administration estimated that the oil field might ultimately generate $100 billion in revenue for the federal treasury. The financial challenges to drilling anywhere in the Arctic stem from the physical challenges—and those are increasing, thanks to fossil fuels themselves. The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, turning rock-hard frozen permafrost into a land of lakes, sinkholes, and boggy peat in the summer. Last June, after weeks of record high temperatures that hit over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a giant diesel fuel tank in the Siberian city of Norilsk sank into the tundra and ruptured, spilling 21,000 metric tons (157,500 barrels) of fuel—nearly half the amount spilled by the Exxon Valdez tanker off Alaska in 1989—and creating the largest spill in modern Russian history.
Arctic’s abundant wildlife would be impacted by offshore drilling and a potential oil spill in the Arctic. Polar bears spend so much of their lives on the sea ice of the Arctic Ocean that they’re actually classified as marine mammals. They’re talented swimmers and spend more than half their time hunting for food—mainly seals. Walruses—and their unmistakable white tusks—are a mainstay of Arctic marine life. Belugas, the bright white whales of the Arctic, sit at the top of the food chain and play a crucial role in the ocean by distributing nutrients to phytoplankton. Ringed, ribbon, spotted, and bearded seals are collectively known as the “ice seals” and live on sea ice in the Arctic for at least part of the year. Expansion of oil and gas drilling in their habitat could be extremely damaging.
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