If you read some newspapers, you’ll find global warming is good for business. No, strike that. Global warming is GREAT for business. This is how the “science” journal at the Wall Street Journal enthusiastically describes what Global Warming means to its readers.
Researchers aboard the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Healy are mapping claims to the spoils of global warming.
North of Alaska, the 23 scientists of the Healy are gathering the data legally required to extend national territories across vast reaches of the mineral-rich seafloor usually blocked by Arctic ice. Fathom by fathom, multibeam sonar sensors mounted on the Healy’s hull chart a submerged plateau called the Chukchi Cap, in a region that may contain 25% of the world’s reserves of oil and natural gas.
In an era of climate change, these frozen assets are up for grabs, as melting ice allows detailed mapping and, one day perhaps, drilling.
The faster the ice goes, the sooner the oil flows. And vice versa. The faster we burn oil, the sooner the ice goes. Where there’s oil, there’s money to be made. The stunning, accelerating loss of the polar ice cap merely opens up the Arctic for oil and gas exploitation. If the polar bears go extinct along the way, then sobeit — no cost to doing business.