“You Go” First Nations…we support you 100% !!!!

May 15, 2012 at 6:23 pm Leave a Comment

First Nations to Enbridge: ‘The war is on,’ decry pipeline ‘time bomb’

By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press | May 09, 2012

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Martin Louie a First Nations leader from Nadieh, B.C arrives at the Enbridge AGM after leading a march of first nation protesters and their supporters through downtown Toronto as they continue their protest against proposed oil pipelines in Canada’s west coast, on Wednesday May 9, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

TORONTO – Scores of West Coast First Nations and supporters ended a colourful and noisy protest against a proposed Enbridge oil pipeline Wednesday with a declaration of war from one of their chiefs.

The Yinka-Dene Alliance argues the Northern Gateway project poses a threat to aboriginals’ way of life by threatening waterways and ecosystems but Enbridge insists the project will proceed.

“The war is on,” said Nadleh Whut’en Chief Martin Louie after the shareholder meeting.

“Enbridge and the government are going to go on fighting us. How far are they willing to go to kill off the human beings of this country?”

Project opponents had travelled from the West Coast aboard a “Freedom Train” to the country’s financial heartland to make their point to Enbridge’s shareholders.

After a “mingling of the waters” ceremony and speeches, protesters marched several blocks east to the downtown hotel where the shareholders were meeting.

Demonstrators braved rain to drum, sing and chant under the watchful eye of security and police officers. They carried signs that read “No pipelines on our lands” and chanted “We can’t drink oil.”

“It’s a ticking time bomb,” said Terry Teegee, vice tribal chief of the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council.

“This company has a lot of breaks in their pipelines; it’s not a matter of if, it’s just a matter of when.”

The $5.5-billion project would see crude from Alberta’s oilsands moved through a twin pipeline more than 1,100 kilometres to the B.C. coast. From there, supertankers would ship the crude to Asia.

Calgary-based Enbridge (TSX:ENB) maintains the project would create jobs, stimulate economic development and be safe.

“We wouldn’t be proposing this project if we didn’t have utmost confidence that we could both construct and operate the project with utmost safety and environmental protection,” spokesman Todd Nogier said from Calgary.

Protesters also denounced Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government for proposed legislative changes they say would weaken environmental protections.

Among the changes would be limits on the ability of environmental groups to intervene in project-assessment hearings.

“The Harper government is doing everything in its power to get this project approved, including changing laws and changing policies,” Teegee said.

“This project is not only a threat to our lands, but it is a threat to the democratic system of Canada.”

Enbridge filed its application for Northern Gateway, which would run from Bruderheim, Alta., to Kitimat, B.C., almost two years ago. Environmental hearings began in January of this year, and a decision is not expected until late next year.

Critics argue the pipeline would endanger the habitats of the hundreds of rivers and streams it must cross, and would have a drastic impact on First Nations communities if a spill occurred.

There are also concerns about a dramatic increase in supertanker traffic along the pristine coastline in waterways that can be treacherous.

Mutual fund company NEI Investments and two co-filers called on Enbridge to report within a year about the risks posed by the opposition to Northern Gateway, and how it intends to mitigate them.

“The opposition appears to be significant, widespread and hardening daily,” Jamie Bonham of NEI, which owns 148,000 Enbridge shares in its ethical funds portfolio, told the shareholder meeting.

“It seems likely that this will result in extended litigation.”

At the urging of Enbridge management, investors voted the motion down.

CEO Pat Daniel said the company was committed to finding common ground with First Nations opponents but insisted the project should go ahead.

“That very train that got you here, it was an infrastructure project that was strongly opposed by a lot of people — strongly opposed — that enabled society and Canada,” Daniel said.

“Can I stand here and say that if we have one person opposed that we will not proceed? I can’t, because that’s not the way a democracy works.”

The company said the protests suggest a higher level of opposition than is actually the case.

More than 20 of 50 communities affected by the proposed pipeline have signed on to a 10 per cent equity stake in the project, but the Yinka-Dene have refused to even discuss the idea, Nogier said.

Earlier Wednesday, Enbridge reported a 14 per cent rise in first-quarter adjusted earnings to $376 million.

Military Lacking Skills/Equipment in Arctic race

May 9, 2012 at 3:12 pm Leave a Comment

Military exercises in Arctic reveal gap in US capabilities

Mia Bennett | Eye on the Arctic | May 07, 2012

The Canadian Forces have just commenced one of their annual sovereignty exercises in the Arctic, called Operation Nunalivut.

One-hundred fifty Canadian Forces personnel from the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Canadian Rangers are participating. This year, the exercises are taking place around Cornwallis Island and on the western portion of Devon Island in Nunavut.

Sovereignty and search and rescue (SAR) training compose a large portion of the operations this year. Royal Canadian Navy divers dove under six feet of ice in Gascoyne Bay to simulate a medical rescue.

Two Royal Canadian Air Force CC-138 Twin Otters also performed ski-landings to resupply a temporary camp in Viks Fiord.

Another exercise helped Canada look into the dangerous past of the Arctic: sailors cut a hole into the ice with heated saws to submerge a remotely operated vehicle to survey the world’s northernmost shipwreck, the HMS Breadalbane, which sank down into the murky depths in 1853.

Testing communications

Participants are also testing new communications capabilities for Op Nunalivut. For the first time, rangers can communicate through a chat program that connects them both to headquarters in Resolute and Yellowknife, thousands of miles away in the Northwest Territories.

Before, phone and radio were the only options. Lt.-Col. Glen MacNeil observed to CBC, “If the person in a deployed forward headquarter is talking to, let’s say Yellowknife, then we can see what they’re saying in Resolute Bay. So we have an all-informed net. So if anything is going on or we need something to happen, we can immediately communicate over that mechanism.

It’s great in terms of situational awareness.” Canada’s Arctic region is vast but unpopulated, with only a little over 100,000 people living across the whole region. That means it’s much harder (not to mention uneconomical) to create widely distributed communications networks, unlike in a place like Norway, where the northern area is much smaller and more densely populated. As such, the chat network could represent a big leap forward for communications in the Canadian North.

USA: 2011 Fleet Arctic Operations Game

Meanwhile, the U.S. is “behind the power curve regarding the Arctic” according to Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Bob Papp. The U.S. Naval War College’s War Gaming Department recently carried out an operations game in which it found that the Navy is woefully unprepared and ill-equipped for activities in the Arctic.

Without any heavy icebreakers, it must rely on other countries for that capability. Walter Berbrick, assistant research professor in the War Gaming Department, stated, “We have limited capability to sustain long-term operations in the Arctic due to inadequate icebreaking capability. The Navy finds itself entering a new realm as it relates to having to rely on other nations.” Previously, the Navy mostly just had to rely on the Coast Guard, to whom it gave its last icebreaker, the Glacier, to the Coast Guard in 1966. That year, it decided to hand over all icebreaking operations. Coast Guard

Captain Craig Lloyd, chief of response for the 17th Coast Guard District in Alaska, remarked, “It’s very likely that whatever operation goes on up there would be a joint operation.” This parallels many other activities in the Arctic, whether they be oil and gas exploration or mapping of the sea floor. Countries, corporations, and scientists all have to band together to get work done. The scale and expense of Arctic activities make cooperation almost a necessity.

U.S. falling behind?

The U.S. falls behind other countries, including Canada, in terms of its communications infrastructure in the north. Dana Goward, director of marine transportation systems management for the Coast Guard, stated, “If you’re in Barrow [Alaska] and two people pull out iPhones at the same time, service goes down.”

At the International Polar Year Conference in Montreal last week, I listened to a speech given by Steve Maclean, president of the Canadian Space Agency. He said, “Without a doubt, two of the most pressing challenges in Canada’s North are communications and weather.” The CSA, along with other space agencies like NASA, is trying to tackle those challenge by putting up more satellites in space that are focused on the circumpolar region. Maclean later continued that the Arctic needs more infrastructure, and “like any road or bridge, these satellites are an integral part of that infrastructure.” (The full text of his speech is available here).

While it’s hard to imagine the NASA Administrator giving a speech about the connection between outer space and the Arctic, many of Canada’s agencies and departments have a view towards the region. In fact, the U.S. is the only Arctic country lacking an Arctic strategy, and it shows in the military’s lack of preparedness. Though Canada’s capabilities in the Arctic have many holes of their own, and though Stephen Harper has left many promises unfulfilled up north, the country is still miles ahead of the U.S.

Lieutenant-General Walter Semianiw, Commander of Canada Command, said, “Sovereignty operations like Op Nunalivut 2012 allow the Canadian Forces to regularly demonstrate a visible presence in the region. As part of the Canada First Defence Strategy, we maintain the capacity to exercise control over and defend Canada’s Arctic territory, and to provide assistance to other government departments and agencies when called upon.” Canada might soon have to provide assistance to the U.S., too.

This story is posted on Alaska Dispatch as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.

Filed Under: Arctic North News, Earth Changes News, Environmental & Specie Changes, NASA News - Sun to Earth Activity, World Healing Project, World News

Drilling in Russia’s Arctic…signed and sealed

May 9, 2012 at 2:58 pm Leave a Comment

UPDATE 4-Statoil to drill with Rosneft in Russian Arctic

Sat May 5, 2012 3:39pm EDT

* Joint venture to operate in Barents and Okhotsk Seas

* Follows similar Rosneft deals with Exxon and Eni

* Strengthens Putin’s energy development legacy as PM

* Statoil and Rosneft to partner up for Norwegian licences

By Melissa Akin and Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW, May 5 (Reuters) – Norway’s Statoil will drill in Russian Arctic waters thought to contain 2 billion tonnes of oil in partnership with Rosneft, marking the third deal of its kind for the Russian state company.

The agreement, signed on Saturday, provided a showcase for president-elect Vladimir Putin, serving out his final days as prime minister before a May 7 inauguration, and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, in charge of energy and industrial policy.

As a legacy of their time in government, the three deals secure capital and expertise for a push into some of the world’s potentially most energy-rich regions.

Rosneft President Eduard Khudainatov said Statoil in turn invited his firm to partner up and bid in Norway’s coming licensing rounds.

That offers an entry ticket to one of the world’s most developed offshore oil and gas sectors, aiding the government’s goal of building its top companies into respected global players.

Output from Russia’s Soviet-era oil provinces is declining and the country faces high costs and technological challenges at remote new fields to retain its status as the world’s top crude oil producer.

For Sechin, viewed as likely to relinquish a formal cabinet post when Putin returns to the Kremlin, the deals strengthen his political clout and secure his dominance over Russia’s energy industry.

Statoil will be a minority partner with Rosneft in the latest venture, which is modelled on deals struck in the last month with U.S. oil major ExxonMobil and Italian oil firm Eni.

“The terms for everyone are the same,” Khudainatov told reporters after the briefing.

The agreement covers a block in the Barents Sea, the Perseyevsky, and three fields in the Sea of Okhotsk, with overall prospective recoverable resources of 2 billion tonnes of oil and 1.8 trillion cubic metres of gas, Rosneft said.

The four blocks’ resources are far from the largest in Rosneft’s portfolio. Lund, speaking to reporters after the signing, called the projects prospective, with a high risk/reward ratio.

“It falls exactly in line with the strategy,” he said.

Statoil will own 33.3 percent of a joint exploration venture and finance its geological exploration activities. It will also reimburse historical expenses incurred by Rosneft and 33.3 percent of expenses incurred acquiring the licence.

Khudainatov said that if the fields’ resources were confirmed, exploration costs for all four could total $2.5 billion.

“The resource base (of Perseyevsky) is 1.4 billion tonnes, according to current estimates. If that is confirmed (total investment) could be $35-40 billion,” Khudainatov said.

“For Magadan-1, Lisyansky and Kashevarovsky (in the Sea of Okhotsk) we estimate $10-$20 billion, depending on confirmation of resources and difficulty of extraction. I took a minimum number here so as not to scare you.”

Statoil CEO Helge Lund, speaking to journalists later, declined to confirm potential costs, saying they depended on many factors.

Statoil may also pay Rosneft one-off bonuses for each commercial oil and gas discovery depending on the terms of a final agreement, Rosneft said. They intended to place orders for ice-class vessels and drilling platforms with Russian shipyards.

SHTOKMAN PROGRESS

The Statoil deal was widely expected after Lund received support from Putin at a meeting in late March to try to work out a way forward with the Shtokman gas project in the Barents Sea, after nearly two decades of false starts with two investor groups.

The Gazprom-led Shtokman Development consortium, which also counts Total as a partner, is revamping plans for the field, which holds more gas than all of Norway’s continental shelf, into a liquefied natural gas project and will unveil it in late June, sources have said.

Progress on Shtokman was seen as key to Statoil’s access to Russia’s Arctic offshore oil reserves. Rosneft had a total of five blocks in the Barents Sea, near the recently defined maritime border with Norway.

Sources said the Barents Sea blocks were among the most coveted by potential foreign investors. Two of them – with combined prospective resources of around 28 billion barrels of oil equivalent – went to Eni. Two remain. Rosneft also has two blocks in the Sea of Okhotsk.

ENOUGH FOR ALL

Merrill Lynch estimated in a recent research report the top Russian oil company – holder of the world’s largest oil reserves – had 309 billion barrels of hydrocarbon resources in its Arctic offshore licence areas.

Rosneft has several more Arctic fields yet to be assigned partners, and Khudainatov re-iterated he had invited Russian companies to such partnerships as well as foreign oil companies.

Sechin said on Friday the government had formed working groups with two Russian companies on shelf projects.

“Concerning russian companies, as you know, I made offers to all Russian companies wishing to work on the shelf. They were LUKOIL, Bashneft, and TNK-BP.”

“From two companies, TNK-BP and LUKOIL, I received confirmation of the wish to work with us on these projects,” Khudainatov said, adding: “They have to agree to all terms of my offers.”

An attempt by BP to tie up with Rosneft in a venture to develop Arctic offshore zones on the Kara Sea fell apart because of resistance from its local partners in TNK-BP, who said TNK-BP should assume BP’s role in the deal.

Efforts to buy out the Russian shareholders failed, and Exxon Mobil eventually won the deal.

Filed Under: Arctic North News, Earth Changes News, Environmental & Specie Changes, Universal Laws and Reflections, World Healing Project, World News

China possibly seeking OBSERVER status on Arctic Council

April 20, 2012 at 2:11 pm Leave a Comment

Wen to promote China’s Arctic ambition in Europe

BEIJING: The Arctic and its vast energy reserves, one of the last places on earth where sovereignty has not been established, will be a key focus of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s trip to Europe.

Wen leaves Friday for an eight-day trip that will take him to Iceland, Sweden, Poland and Germany, and will touch on China’s Arctic ambitions as well as the ongoing eurozone debt crisis. Iceland’s strategic location near the Arctic has not gone unnoticed in China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, as the shrinking of the polar ice cap makes the region’s mineral resources more accessible. The retreat of the ice has also opened up the potential for a shorter cargo shipping route with Asia that would cut the sea voyage between Shanghai and northern Europe by some 6,400 kilometres (3,970 miles). “There is great potential for cooperation (with Iceland) in bilateral trade, geothermal energy and the Arctic,” vice foreign minister Song Tao said this week.

Cui Hongjian, head of the European department of the China Institute of International Studies, pointed out that China has been doing research in the Arctic for some time to prepare for development of the region. “Countries closer to the Arctic, such as Iceland, Russia, Canada, and a few other European countries may tend to wish the Arctic is private or that they have priority to develop it,” he said. “But China insists that it is a public area, just like the moon is.”

China’s interest in Iceland came to the fore last year when a Chinese property tycoon tried to buy a large swathe of land in the north of the country for a tourism project. Some observers suggested Huang’s purchase would help China win a foothold in the Arctic region, amid general concern over Chinese investment in Europe. Arni Thor Sigurdsson, head of the Icelandic parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told AFP at the time that “in talks with Icelandic authorities, (the Chinese) have made a point of saying it was very plausible” that China would use the island as a trans-Arctic shipping port. The deal was eventually blocked by the government.

Asked about the setback, Song said Beijing respected “the sovereign rights” of countries bordering the Arctic, and added China was willing to “contribute to peace, stability and sustainability” of the polar region. As part of its ambitions, Beijing is seeking permanent observer status on the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation among eight states bordering the region, including Iceland and Sweden.

Song told reporters this week that China already has Sweden’s backing. But with fellow members Russia and Canada thought to be lukewarm about China’s bid, and with other high-calibre candidates such as the EU, Japan and South Korea in the wings, Beijing will have to bring all its influence to bear.

In this context, Norway — another Arctic Council member state — could play a key role. Diplomatic relations between Oslo and Beijing have been at a standstill since jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. The Norwegian foreign minister has said publicly that Oslo supports China’s bid, but sources suggest that behind-the-scenes, Oslo may actually be hampering Beijing’s candidacy.

Norway “is getting fed up with the fact that containers of salmon are being left rotting in Chinese ports and that Beijing keeps asking for official apologies for a Peace Price that was not a government decision,” said Jonathan Holslag of the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies.

Filed Under: Arctic North News, World Healing Project, World News

Terror to Earth and the Native People in the name of progress?

April 20, 2012 at 4:23 am Leave a Comment

Front Door Stripped off Mobile Home As Forced Evictions Reach New Low in Bakken Oil Fields

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 18, 2012

For more information contact:

Kandi Mossett

Indigenous Environmental Network

Native Energy & Climate Campaign Organizer

701.214.1389 iencampusclimate@igc.org

Evictions, Price Gouging, Natural Gas Burn-off, Crumbling Infrastructure, and Death: The energy boom is not progress, it’s waste and extreme violations of human and environmental rights!

New Town, ND – Forced evictions, of local residents from their mobile homes in the New Town area, to provide housing for predominately out-of-state oil workers has reached a new low. On Monday, April 16^th, Four Native American residents of the Prairie Winds Mobile Home Park, including a 9-year old child, were forced to leave their home when landlord, Leroy Olsen, removed Heather Youngbird and Crystal Deegan’s front door. Olsen then cut the electricity and turned off the propane to the home, and told them they had to leave their home immediately.

The battle for housing in North Dakota has been an on-going struggle since the onset of the oil boom in the Bakken Shale Oil Formation, which partially lies in northwestern North Dakota. The housing crisis has been growing exponentially worse, particularly within the million-acre Fort Berthold Indian Reservation; homeland of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara tribal nations.

Crumbling Infrastructure and Severe Housing Shortages

Tribal members, as a result of this boom, are experiencing some of the most severe consequences from the lack of proper infrastructure to support this intensive extractive industry. Infrastructure is inadequate at all levels in North Dakota- from crumbling roads and the lack of proper sewage facilities in the various man camps that have popped up across the state, to a severe shortage of adequate housing.

Who Is Prospering?

It’s estimated that the state of North Dakota, to date, has collected at least $100 million as a result of the oil boom through revenue generated from Fort Berthold alone, while the majority of Fort Berthold residents haven’t seen a dime. In the meantime, roads are crumbling as semi-trucks take over with no regards for safety. Several deaths have occurred over the past few years as a result of accidents between the semis and local Native American residents; at least 6 of the deaths involved young people under the age of 27 with the youngest being 3 years old.

With the “Boom” Comes Guns and Crime

Crime, drug and death rates have increased all across the state as firearm sales have hit an all time high. Prostitution rings are being formed and rape rates for both men and women are on the rise with police enforcement struggling to keep up and yet North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple has said, “Build America back on the same blueprint that North Dakota has adopted and our country will surely be rewarded with the same great economy our state is enjoying.”

Gas Flaring – Why are they burning it off?

Additionally, within the Bakken shale formation hydraulic fracturing is being used to extract the oil but the natural gas is being flared off. A New York Times article points out that more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is being flared away every single day in North Dakota. That’s enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day. The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal fired power plant would emit. Regulations on flaring are woefully inadequate as well in North Dakota and there are no current federal regulations on flaring for oil and gas wells.

Wind Has Taken a Back Seat to Oil

Perhaps the greatest irony is that North Dakota has the greatest wind resource of any of the lower 48 states. According to National Wind, LLC, “With all of its wind power a class 3 or higher, North Dakota could supply 1.2 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of annual electricity, which is 14,000 times the electricity consumption in the state.” Unfortunately, programs for wind power generation and distribution have recently been cut back within the state while the focus is on the extraction of the oil, with almost no regard to the human health impacts and environmental devastation occurring.

Divided Communities

“This oil boom has divided the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people and pitted them against each other in a negative way,” says tribal member Kandi Mossett. “It’s really hard to see the damaging and negative effects occurring at Fort Berthold and throughout North Dakota as a result of corruption and greed. The reality is that people in positions of power at both the Tribal and State level are lining their own pockets, while the Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara people suffer and in some cases die as a result of this terrible oil boom. I want people to know the reality we are facing here and to realize that at this rate we are heading toward modern-day genocide of the people, while the BIA and others stand idly by and let it happen.”

The Fight For Prairie Winds – Their Homes & Future

Prairie Winds mobile home residents refuse to stand by while their homes are ripped out from underneath them and held a protest this past Saturday in New Town geared toward Mobile Home Park owner, John Reese. Residents of 45 trailers have until August 31st to move after the mobile home park was sold with plans to develop it to house oil workers. Future Housing LLC bought the property and plans to construct housing for employees of United Prairie Cooperative, formerly Cenex of New Town.

John Reese, the CEO and general manager of United Prairie Cooperative and agent for Future Housing LLC, has said the company is trying to work with the residents. Initially, the eviction deadline was set for May 1, but it’s been postponed until Aug. 31.

The residents have not been given any restitution to help with moving expenses, therefore, if they cannot afford to move their homes they are left with limited options and facing homelessness. “Just because there’s a lot oil around here doesn’t mean we all have money,” said Heather Youngbird of New Town. “We were not even given a formal 30 day eviction notice and now that we have been kicked out of our home we are currently homeless.” Reese said in an interview last month the housing shortage in the area makes it difficult for him to find employees. Available land to develop housing is also difficult to find, he said.

“Right now, anything that’s available that has water and sewer on it is very attractive to anybody that’s trying to continue to grow their business.” On Saturday, Reese said he was aware of the protest but he was out of town planting potatoes. Many of the signs and chants targeted Reese directly.

“I’m just fine with taking the rock beating,” Reese said. Indeed John Reese has proved that he’s fine with displacing people because this isn’t the first time he’s done it. In 2010 he displaced people from the Four Corners trailer court behind the old Charbee’s and the second time he displaced people from the old movie theater apartments on main street. Tribal members are still paying back loans they had to take from the tribe to help pay for the moving expenses.

Filed Under: Arctic North News, Earth Changes News, Environmental & Specie Changes, Universal Laws and Reflections, World Healing Project, World News

Our Inuit People at Risk

April 15, 2012 at 5:14 pm Leave a Comment

Climate Change Linked to Waterborne Diseases in Inuit Communities

A recent study may warn of more widespread threats to water quality.

For National Geographic News

Published April 5, 2012

This story is part of a special National Geographic News series on global water issues.

As global warming triggers heavier rainfall and faster snowmelt in the Arctic, Inuit communities in Canada are reporting more cases of illness attributed to pathogens that have washed into surface water and groundwater, according to a new study.

The findings corroborate past research that suggests indigenous people worldwide are being disproportionately affected by climate change. This is because many of them live in regions where the effects are felt first and most strongly, and they might come into closer contact with the natural environment on a daily basis. For example, some indigenous communities lack access to treated water because they are far from urban areas. (See a map of the region.)

“In the north, a lot of [Inuit] communities prefer to drink brook water instead of treated tap water. It’s just a preference,” explained study lead author Sherilee Harper, a Vanier Canada graduate scholar in epidemiology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. ”Also, when they’re out on the land and hunting or fishing, they don’t have access to tap water, so they drink brook water.”

The experiences of the Inuit and other indigenous communities as they struggle to adapt to changing climate conditions could help guide humanity in the coming years when the effects of climate change are felt universally, scientists say.

“These societies are like crystal balls for understanding what could happen when these changes start materializing over the next few decades down south, as they surely will,” said James Ford of McGill University, an expert in indigenous adaptation to climate change who was not involved in the study.

“Scientists often talk about how if global temperature increases by 4 degrees Celsius [7°F], there will be catastrophic climate change effects, Ford said, “but where I work in the Arctic, we’ve already seen that 4-degree Celsius change.”

Weather and Illness

Ford said the new study is the first to draw a link between climate change and disease in Canadian Arctic communities. “Water issues have been largely neglected in the [climate change] scholarship,” he said.

“Before this study, there was very little understanding of the burden of illness of waterborne disease in the Arctic . . . The baseline that we have from this study will allow us to track whether changes in behavior make a difference in the future,” said Ford.

Harper’s Inuit research, published in a recent issue of the journal EcoHealth, is part of a multiyear comparative study of how extreme weather events affect waterborne disease outbreaks in aboriginal communities around the globe.

The team is conducting similar studies among the Batwa pygmies in Uganda and the Shipibo people in Peru. The trials are still under way, but preliminary results suggest that, like the Inuits, these groups are also starting to feel the health effects of climate change-related weather patterns.

Boosting Native Health Systems

For each of the communities studied, Harper and her team documented the local weather patterns using weather stations; conducted weekly water tests; and searched clinical records for reports of vomiting and diarrhea. The team also conducted surveys to gather information about local lifestyles.

Combining and analyzing these various data together uncovered some interesting patterns. For example, “our research found that after periods of heavy rainfall or rapid snowmelt, there is an increase of bacteria [such as E. coli] in the water, and about two to four weeks later there is an increase in diarrhea and vomiting,” Harper said.

In Uganda, the team found that families that don’t keep their animals in shelters are about three times more likely to get sick after periods of heavy rain. The team suspects pathogens from the animal feces are getting washed into the drinking water.

Harper’s studies are part of a larger endeavor—the Indigenous Health Adaptation to Climate Change, or IHACC, project. It aims to combine science and traditional knowledge to strengthen health systems in indigenous communities.

One of the IHACC project goals is to use data from the studies to advise local policymakers and help develop ways to improve the health of those in the affected communities. Strategies for reducing waterborne disease, for example, might be as simple as building animal enclosures or establishing protected sources of water for drinking, Harper said.

Widespread Changes

In Rigolet, a small Inuit town studied by Harper’s team, the findings from the study have already led to changes in the community, said Charlotte Wolfrey, mayor of the town.

“We’re asking people when they go to their cabin not to drink brook water and instead take water that has been chlorinated to eliminate bacteria,” Wolfrey said. “We also have posters around town reminding people that if they’re going to drink [untreated] water, they need to boil it first.”

Wolfrey, who has spent nearly 40 years of her life in Rigolet, says that climate change has forced the people in her town to question things that were once taken for granted, such as places in the ice where one can safely cross, or seasonal water routes for boats.

“With climate change, that knowledge that was passed down from generation to generation doesn’t count anymore,” she said. “We can’t trust it.”

The lessons learned in Rigolet and other indigenous communities could someday benefit humanity as a whole because their problems could soon become global problems. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), for example, most of the climate change-related disease burden in the 21st century will be due to diarrheal diseases.

“The climate change impact on waterborne disease is not just an Arctic issue, or just an indigenous issue,” Harper said.

McGill University’s Ford agreed. “If we look at what happens in the Arctic and how climate change plays out with its societies and people, we’ll increase our understanding of how as a globe we are going to respond to climate change,” he said.

Ford says his time among the Inuit has made him “cautiously optimistic” that climate change is a problem that humans will be able to adapt to, if not solve.

“When I first went to work up north more than ten years ago, there were all sorts of news reports about how climate change was going to threaten the Inuit. But when I started working with them, the thing that struck me is that many people said, ‘We’re resilient. We’ll adapt.’ So I think we’ll stand a good chance of weathering whatever changes might happen,” Ford said.

But, he added, “Things will have to be done to get there. We can’t just wait and hope we adapt. We have to be proactive.”

Filed Under: Arctic North News, Earth Changes News, Environmental & Specie Changes, World Healing Project, World News

Shell – Get Out of the Arctic Now !

March 14, 2012 at 7:32 pm Leave a Comment

Shell contracting Finnish icebreakers for Arctic oil exploration

YLE News | Mar 08, 2012

Oil giant Shell is planning to start charting the seas for oil drilling in the Arctic, and Finnish icebreakers are coming along on the test drillings, even as Greenpeace says oil drilling in the Arctic is dangerous in the extreme.

Shell is looking into offshore drilling in the Beaufort Sea by the Alaskan coast and the untouched waters of the adjacent Chukchi Sea. For this venture, the company has signed a lease deal for two icebreakers, Fennica and Nordica, with Finnish state firm Arctia Shipping.

The environmentalists are raising concerns. Tapio Laakso, Greenpeace programme manager in Finland, says that oil drilling that far up north is very dangerous.

“Conditions are the harshest on the planet, which naturally raises the risk of accidents. If anything were to happen, oil recovery would be very difficult,” he explains. “The area has no infrastructure to speak of.”

Greenpeace wants Arctia Shipping to dissolve its contract with Shell. As it is, icebreakers Fennica and Nordica are to sail to the coast of Alaska in the summer.

Arctia Shipping says the responsibility for the operation lies with Shell, while Shell has not commented on the matter. Neither has Finland.

The Arctic Ocean is a unique natural environment where whales, fish and polar bears have been largely left alone. However, current international agreements do not forbid oil companies from the region. Remote and dangerous sources of oil are becoming increasingly attractive as the global need for oil grows and the existing reserves dry up.

This story is posted on Alaska Dispatch as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.

Filed Under: Arctic North News, Environmental & Specie Changes, World Healing Project

Greed blinds Nations

March 8, 2012 at 5:12 am Leave a Comment

Begich sees boom in Arctic development

Alaska’s junior senator claims role in oil permitting successes

Posted: March 6, 2012 – 12:03am

Michael Penn/Juneau Empire

Alaska Sen. Mark Begich gives his annual speech to a joint session of the legislature on Monday. Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, left, and Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, listen from the Speaker’s desk in the background.

By Pat Forgey

JUNEAU EMPIRE

Alaska is facing its most active year of development of its Arctic resources in years, but both the country and the state need to do more to make use of them, Sen. Mark Begich told the Alaska Legislature Tuesday.

Begich, who suggested he was responsible for some of that success, said he’s confident Shell Oil will be able to drill for oil in the outer continental shelf this year.

“I believe we will see exploration this summer in the OCS Arctic for the first time in a generation,” Begich told a joint session of the Legislature before meeting with reporters.

In addition, ConocoPhillips’ new CD-5 field in the National Petroleum Reserve is likely to be developed soon after years of delay, he said.

Efforts are continuing to get access to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, he said, and the U.S. Coast Guard is beginning preliminary work on a new icebreaker which can help the nation and the state develop the Arctic. Shell has also had success in the Beaufort Sea, he said.

Begich recommended more state effort to take advantage of new development opportunities brought on by the emergence of the Arctic as a source for natural resources.

Among the actions legislators should take, he said, was boosting programs at the University of Alaska that allow Alaskans to be trained to help take advantage of those opportunities.

Begich, still two years away from a re-election bid, sounded like he was running already.

After having spent decades trying to open ANWR in hopes of one more big bonanza for the state, Begich said success in those other areas was on the verge of bringing tens of thousands of energy development jobs to the country, and new jobs for Alaskans as well.

That’s not what some people thought would happen when he was elected, Begich acknowledged.

“Some thought my election meant that Alaska would be locked up even further,” he said.

Instead, Begich said he worked to bring Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to Alaska just a few months after he took office to deliver the state’s message Alaska can responsibly develop its resources.

In the year since, he’s brought Salazar and other cabinet members back to continue to drive that message home, he said.

Despite a 40-year record of successfully developing the state’s resources, Alaska still has to deal with regulatory hurdle after hurdle when it comes to new developments, he said.

That’s a process Begich calls “regulatory whack-a-mole,” but he said the Obama administration took up his plan for regulatory streamlining “and ran with it.”

That’s now helping ConocoPhillips and Norway’s Statoil work through he regulatory process on their North Slope developments, he said.

It wasn’t always easy, especially after BP’s offshore well blowout.

“After the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, we had to work double-time to gain lost ground with the administration and the public,” he said.

Begich started with President Barack Obama and went down through his administration, and across party lines in the Congress.

The result, he said, was new success in opening Alaska for development.

“Today, just three years later, we have accomplished more than in the last 30 years to open federal lands and waters to development,” he said.

Filed Under: Arctic North News, Environmental & Specie Changes, World Healing Project

North Slope oil well suffers a blowout – ALASKA

February 16, 2012 at 12:11 pm Leave a Comment

An exploratory well being drilled on the North Slope by the Spanish oil company Repsol suffered an apparent blowout Wednesday morning when drillers were unable to control pressure from a pocket of natural gas, state and company officials said.

Drilling mud and methane gas shot from the well through a diverter pipe, but none of the 76 workers on the rig were injured, no oil was spilled and the gas didn’t ignite, the officials said.

The well spewed gas for hours Wednesday, but by about 5:45 p.m. the gas had stopped flowing on its own, indicating it was probably from a small pocket, said Dan Seamount, chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The well was still producing water and remained out of control, he said.

A well-control contractor mobilized from a field office in Anchorage and its headquarters in Texas and was expected to be on site by early today, Seamount said.

A spokesman for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Ty Keltner, said drilling mud landed on the rig and neighboring snow. The DEC initially said the spill contained about 1,200 gallons of drilling mud, but by 7:30 p.m. had increased the estimate to about 42,000 gallons, based on information from Repsol.

Drilling mud is a clay mixture designed to lubricate the hole, carry cut rock to the surface and provide downward pressure to reduce the risk of a blowout.

Officials identified the well as Qugruk 2 or Q2. It was on land on the Colville River delta about 1 3/4 miles from the Arctic coastline and about 55 miles west-northwest of Deadhorse, Seamount said. The nearest village, Nuiqsuit, is about 18 miles away.

The blowout occurred as a group of Repsol-North America officials were visiting the North Slope. The Madrid-based company, a big player in the international oil business, only recently came to Alaska. Its announcement last year that it would begin an aggressive exploration program this winter was cheered by state officials and legislators interested in diversifying Alaska’s North Slope industry and in boosting total production.

But Pamela Miller of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center said it was sobering to note that Repsol had more than 100 offshore leases in the Chukchi Sea, making it second only to Shell. Environmentalists have expressed concern about the effects of a well blowout in the Arctic Ocean, where spilled oil would be difficult to contain.

One of the visiting Repsol officials was Jan Sieving, the company’s North American vice president for public affairs, who was called upon to deal with the crisis from an oil camp with a cell phone that barely worked.

Sieving said the rig contractor was Nabors Alaska Drilling. When the blowout occurred about 9 a.m., the workers were evacuated and the rig shut down, she said.

Seamount, in Juneau for hearings and meetings with legislators, said because the rig was “cold,” there was not likely to be an ignition source that could cause the gas to explode.

Repsol hired Wild Well Control of Houston, with an Anchorage office, to restore control. Seamount said it’s likely they will force heavy “kill-weight mud” back down the well.

Advances in drilling technology and geologic modeling have reduced blowouts, but not eliminated them, as the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico shows.

“Blowouts are exceedingly rare,” Seamount said in an email message. Since 1949, Alaska’s 7,553 wells have generated 19 blowouts. None have resulted in oil spills on tundra or water, he said. Before Wednesday, the last blowout on the North Slope was in 1994 in the Endicott field, he said.

At Q2 Wednesday morning, with the temperature around 14 below and areas of low fog hanging around the rig, workers were pulling the drill out of the well, a routine operation, when “they had a gas kick,” Seamount said. The well was about 2,525 feet deep at that point, on its way to a planned 7,000 feet.

Mud and gas shot out of the well. Drillers responded by pumping more mud down the hole in an attempt to kill it, the DEC said. But the new mud was blown out too.

“The diverter worked the way it’s supposed to,” Seamount said. “All the personnel got out of the way.”

In the early stages of a well like Q2, drillers don’t use the heavy blowout preventers that the world learned about from the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Instead, Seamount said, surface holes rely on diverters to route mud, gas, oil and water safely away from the rig in the event of a blowout. The diverter vent on Q2 was about 75 feet from the rig, Seamount said.

Pressurized gas pockets are common hazards of drilling.

“We are not sure why they lost control but will pursue that as part of our incident investigation,” Seamount said. An inspector from his agency was on the scene Wednesday and the DEC expected to have four representatives there Thursday.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission regulates drilling for worker safety, environmental protection and resource conservation.

Even if no oil spilled as a result of the lost well control, “it’s going to be a very expensive incident for Repsol,” Seamount said. Well-control contractors don’t come cheap, he said, and the Nabors rig will be idle for some time.

Repsol has attracted attention in Congress recently because it is drilling several deepwater exploratory wells in Cuban waters not far from U.S. territorial water off Florida.

Reach Richard Mauer at rmauer@adn.com or 257-4345.

Anchorage Daily News reported this story at www.adn.com

Filed Under: Arctic North News, Environmental & Specie Changes, World Healing Project, World News

North Pole Ice – disappearing…..

February 9, 2012 at 5:02 pm Leave a Comment

The North Pole is on thin ice

February 7, 2012 – 05:40

While the world’s political leaders have left the negotiating table again without an agreement to reduce greenhouse gases, the Arctic has greater problems than ever – 75 percent of the sea ice has disappeared.

Keywords: Biology, Climate, Earth, Environment, Geography, Nature, the ocean

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By: Signe Høgslund, Peter Bondo Christensen

Glacial algae on the underside of the sea ice. (Photo: Maria Stenzel)

“There’s been enormous focus on when the North Pole will be free of ice for the first time, but people have overlooked the great change that has already taken place,” says Professor Jean-Claude Gascard of the Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris. “Most of the ice at the North Pole has actually disappeared.”

Gascard says that between 50 and 75 percent of the Arctic sea ice around the North Pole has already disappeared – a figure that surprises most people.

Not only has the extent of the sea ice fallen, but the Arctic ice cap has also become two to three metres thinner.

The professor is part of the large European research project Arctic Tipping Points (ATP), which aims at understanding climate change in the Arctic.

The ATP project combines biological data and mathematical models in order to predict how climate change impacts on the Arctic ecosystem.

Cold night gives 20cm of ice

In 2008, Gascard led a research project that deliberately let the expedition ship Tara freeze in in the North Pole’s ice mass. For a year, Tara was borne across the Arctic by the movements of the ice, and it became a drifting home – in the middle of a sea of ice – to a group of researchers.

The North Pole’s sea ice has become younger. Here, the age of the sea ice at the end of the melting season is shown. (After C. Fowler and J. Maslanik, University of Colorado Boulder).

Every day, to the accompaniment of a ‘son et lumière’ show from the ship’s jarring and the Northern Lights, researchers measured the speed, temperature and salinity of the currents under the ice.

“Even the job of keeping the holes which we used to lower the equipment into the water free from ice was an enormous challenge,” says one crew member. “A 20-cm thick layer of ice could easily form overnight.”

Travel time halved

The Tara expedition showed just how much the North Pole had changed over the previous 100 years. The ice masses brought the ship and the researchers over the Arctic very quickly – twice as fast as when Fridtjof Nansen explored the North Pole in the same way a century ago with the ship Fram.

Nansen let Fram freeze in in the ice, and let the movements of the ice bear the ship from Siberia to the Atlantic.

When the researchers on Tara compared to two expeditions, they noted that Tara took just one year to cover the part of Fram’s route that took two years a century ago.

Younger ice

In the ATP project, Gascard and his group build on the data and experiences gained from the Tara expedition.

The map shows the routes of Fram and Tara across the North Pole. Also shown is the route of the Russian research station NP 35, whose journey in 2007 lasted only ten months.

Now it is obvious that much thinner sea ice is one of the reasons why the Arctic ice moves more quickly.

The researchers have also revealed that the thin ice means that even small seasonal variations in cloud cover or summer temperatures result in extreme variations in the expanse of the sea ice.

The sea ice is simply becoming younger and younger. The old ice – which has been formed over several years – disappears and is being replaced by ice that accrues every year and then melts away.

Glacial algae can’t adapt

The changes in the dynamics and thickness of the ice have enormous impact on both the oceanographic and the biological conditions in the Arctic. Among other things, the changes affect the glacial algae, which adhere to the underside of the ice and are the first link in the Arctic food chain.

The results of the ATP project show that the changes in the Arctic now occur so quickly that the glacial algae and other biological components of the Arctic ecosystem cannot adapt to the new ice and temperature conditions before new changes occur.

Country Denmark

Translated by

Michael de Laine

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