How To Stop Arctic Drilling

Today, our society is very dependent on oil. we use about 93 million barrels of it a day for heating, plastic, asphalt, and transportation. Although we should primarily use renewable energy, oil is very energy dense and is easy to use. Even if we stopped using fossil fuels for energy, we would still need it for plastic which is in almost everything we use everyday. In 2008 it has been estimated the the arctic holds about 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil and enough natural gas to sustain us for about 15 years Climate change is here, and by drilling in the arctic we are just accelerating the process. what we should really worry about is the natural gas. Because oil companies are lacking of facilities for the transportation of gas at the poles, they would use flaring to get rid of unusable gas and release lots of black carbon which is responsible for the double warming effect. Arctic temperatures have been increasing at twice the global average during the past 100 years. We may not have an immediate solution for climate change but a very good first step would be to stop arctic drilling. …show more content…
It could even lead to a “petroleum rush” that would globalize the arctic territories and improve their quality of life. Russia and the United States are already drilling in the arctic, so why would we sit here doing nothing while those resources are being taken away when you can use your position as one of the largest exporters in the world as a pressure point in diplomatic negotiations. Oil spills can happen. In the harsh weather of the arctic oil behaves differently and if an accident were to happen it would be more difficult and costly to clean up than a normal spill. If all the money that was spent in fossil fuel extraction was used for renewable energies we could still sustain ourselves. We just have to change our way of thinking and take