David Gordon, from Pacific Environment, spoke about the increasing probability (and possible consequences) of Arctic oil and gas development. His talk focused on two isssue—international shipping and offshore oil and gas—which are of extreme importance to the Alaskan natives. Mr. Gordon emphasized the Chukchi Sea, where a large proportion of this development is likely to take place, but briefly discussed the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic as a whole.

A number of legal challenges to offshore development are already being made by various groups, most of them under NEPA and/or the Marine Mammal Protection Act, but the public perception of Arctic oil development is centered around ANWR (with main-line environmental groups fighting to restore the moratorium and ex-candidates chanting “Drill, baby, drill”). Worldwide oil reserves are dropping, and given that market attitudes towards oil companies rise and fall with the amount of proven reserves, there is an exceptionally intense fight to claim as many proven reserves as possible—even if those reserves are marginal or in hostile environments such as Arctic waters.

Accordingly, both the U.S. and Russia have claimed enormous tracts of land in the Arctic Oceans. A B.P. platform already exists in the Beaufort sea. Shell’s plans to drill two areas are currently blocked by an injunction (apparently, they didn’t prepare an adequate impact statement about the project’s effects on subsistence resources). Meanwhile, over 72 million acres of new lease areas in the Chukchi, Beaufort, and Bristol Bay (home to substantial sockeye and Chinook fisheries) are coming on the block. The Minerals Management Service, fresh off its recent corruption scandal, is trying to get as many leases sold as possible under a new proposed 5-year plan. The past lease sale was the largest in U.S. history, with extraordinarily large bids placed by Dutch, British, Norwegian, Italian and Russian companies—but no American ones. As Mr. Gordon pointed out, this poses a significant question to those who see offshore Arctic oil and gas development as an important part of American energy independence.

Most of the current oil and gas extraction in the U.S. Arctic is done on the North Slope of Alaska, in relatively unproductive fields, using old technology that has been grandfathered in. Shifting the industry to an offshore model would require substantial pipelines across western Alaska. The direct environmental effects of offshore drilling can best be seen by looking at Shell’s practices near Sakhalin (in Eastern Russia.). The platform is located in an environment quite like the Arctic in terms of environmental and social factors. Sakhalin’s effects included major stress to Western Pacific Grey Whales, damage to native fisheries (including a 5,000-ton herring kill), lack of compensation for indigenous people, drilling muds and cuttings that weren’t reinjected back in to the drilled formation.

The rich ecological system which supports the Beaufort and Chukchi subsistence communities and their associated cultural traditions is likely to be similarly impacted. In the Beaufort, impact will be localized to a corridor near the shoreline; in the Chukchi, where the continental shelf extends a greater distance, risks will be transferred to open-water environments. Oil spills are near-impossible to clean up on ice unless the oil is burned (which creates significant air pollution). In such bad weather, Mr. Gordon estimated a 50% chance of a major spill in the near future. The seismic waves and acoustic noise created by major exploration are also likely to have significant disruptive effects on various populations. (Notably, the recent polar bear listing excepted both climate change and oil-and-gas drilling effects.)

Mr. Gordon concluded his presentation with a discussion of the Arctic Council’s Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment survey ; which outlines potential future scenarios. These scenarios are organized around two dichotomies; the high or low demand for Arctic resources, and high or low levels of governance. The Arctic Race—with high demand and low governance—seems unappealing, as does the Polar Lows scenario (with the Arctic as a ‘balkanized’, forgotten region due to low demand and low governance). Mr. Gordon supported the Polar Preserve, where demand for oil and gas was lessened (presumably by some non-fossil-fuel energy infrastructure) and the expanses and ecologies of the Arctic Circle were defended, not assaulted, by the actions of companies and states.