In one fell swoop, the President took a concrete step to reduce all
current and future threats to the Arctic region. The Administration
cancelled new lease sales…
If a person is really devoted to something it means they are focused on
that particular thing and work towards achieving its’ goals; whatever
they may be. Of course, for a President of the United States it is
virtually impossible to be exclusively devoted to any one thing or
cause, unless of course it is a Republican pre
tender; they are typically
exclusively devoted to war and enriching to the ultra-wealthy.
Throughout President Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, there
were some ’causes’ that appeared to be set aside as if they were very
low priorities, but over the past couple of years he has demonstrated
that he is deeply devoted to combating climate change and protecting
the environment.
Whether it is working with China to set new carbon emission
standards, vetoing the KeystoneXL pipeline approval legislation, setting
new clean air standards, or pushing for greater investment in renewable
energy sources, there is little doubt that Barack Obama is devoted to
protecting the environment and combating climate change. Now, in a
stunning reversal from just a couple of months ago, President Obama has
taken a huge, and absolute, step to reduce any future threats from the
dirty oil industry to the North Alaskan coast and Arctic Ocean. This is a
serious bit of good news for the environment and the war on global
climate change that, curiously, corporate-owned mainstream media has
failed to report or condemn.
On Friday, to little fanfare, the Obama Administration sent a very
clear, and forceful, message to the oil industry that their dangerous
plans to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean were futile. In one fell
swoop, the President took a concrete step to
reduce all current and future threats to the Arctic region. The Administration cancelled new lease sales in the so-called “
Polar Bear Seas,” the Chukchi and Beaufort, just off the north Alaskan coast. He also issued a terse “
absolutely not”
reply to lease extension requests from Shell and other oil corporations
such as BP that hold existing leases in the region; leases that are now
likely not worth the paper they are printed on.
Prior to the announcement, the President’s Administration had focused on, and was devoted to, excluding some “
high value” environmentally-threatened areas and pledged that any drilling would be subject to “
very high”
standards. In fact, the Administration previously gave Shell approval
to start drilling and tentatively proposed allowing even more leasing in
the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic after 2017. But a few things happened
in the past two months that made the President’s decision much easier
to justify and frankly, necessary to protect the fragile environment and
combat climate change.
First, Shell oil, in a rush to start drilling, was discovered to be using an oil spill containment system that was
proven to fail prompting federal regulators to impose harsh restrictions on the company to only “
preliminary shallow drill” in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska. Shortly thereafter, Mother Gaia interceded and unleashed a huge ice floe that
forced
Shell to halt drilling operations 70 miles off the North-West coast of
Alaska. The vice president, Peter Slaiby, of Shell Alaska claimed that
his company had learned a valuable lesson from the Deepwater Horizon
disaster. Then, last year after a rash of Shell equipment
failures,
federal fines, and a BP-like drilling unit running aground, the
corporation dramatically scaled-back its crusade to drill for crude in
Arctic waters.
Of course, as the so-called Seattle Washington “
kayaktivists”
protesting Arctic drilling rightly cited that their protests and
obstructionism was always more of a climate change issue due the fact
that “
new huge investments in dirty fuels cannot possibly be
harmonized with the Administration’s stated drive to shift to a clean
energy future.” But it was not just environmentalists’ pressure
that emboldened the President to make the right decision; Shell’s
significant international shareholders
demanded
that corporate leadership explain exactly how exploring and drilling
for oil in a pristine environment “squared with limiting damage from
global climate change.”
For at least a decade, intelligent people have said that until the
folks controlling the money see the idiocy of allowing global warming to
continue, there would be no substantive action. At an international
gathering of Shell’s investors at The Hague, a whopping 98.9% of
investor voted to support Shell’s decision to rethink the idea of Arctic
drilling and interestingly, drilling for oil at all.
That nearly unanimous vote also demanded that Shell start reporting
on whether, or how, its long-term business plans and current activities
were compatible with a pledge by world’s governments to limit global
warming to a 2C rise. Also, about 150 investors controlling billions
upon billions of dollars in shares put a permanent ban on corporate
bonuses for any industry activity that damages the climate. They also
imposed a requirement for Shell to start investing in renewable energy.
Shell had little option but to embrace the proposal; particularly
after a four-and-a-half hour meeting dominated by 98.9 % of shareholders
casting doubt on Shell’s climate change credentials and criticizing the
international corporation’s continued efforts to extract fossil fuels
instead of focusing on clean renewable energy sources. After Shell’s
board or directors “accepted” the strident shareholder resolution, the
fund manager for America’s largest public pension fund praised the
company for “publicly recognizing that climate change posed a threat to
the world and to Shell’s business,” and likely its reputation as an
international corporation. For the record, the same resolution was
passed a month earlier at BP; the corporation responsible for the
DeepWater Horizon disaster.
President Obama has always claimed, often to severe criticism, that his Administration’s energy policy was “
all of the above.”
Now it is apparent that where combating global climate change and
protecting the environment and endangered wildlife is concerned, “
all of the above”
was just a nifty slogan and not a literal policy according to this
latest action. When the President gave Shell permission to drill the
Arctic a couple of months ago, he defended the move by claiming that
drilling in the Arctic Ocean was inevitable.
Now that the President took the Arctic Ocean region completely off
the table, it is obvious that the only inevitability is that he is
devoted to doing everything within his Executive authority to combat
global climate change and protect the environment. Coupled with all the
other environmental protection actions and bold efforts to combat
climate change, it is no wonder the Koch brothers and Republicans have
spent no small amount of time and money to oppose this President; even
though they have lost at every turn.
