Fresh Connections – The Parfitt Way Blog

Contributed by Christine St. Pierre

Environmentalists, dust off your resumes—you’ve got some updating to do. The news is better than anyone expected, but it’s what we were all putting our energy and voices toward: there will be no oil drilling—or spilling—in the Arctic!

Royal Dutch Shell has backed out of plans to drill for oil off of the Alaskan coast amidst intense scrutiny from millions of activists, environmentalists, and people with the power to have their voices heard by the powers that be, most recently Pope Francis and Leonardo DiCaprio. These big names are amongst the many that have recently spoken out against the unfathomable and inhumanity that drive colossal environmental devastation for the sake of capital gain and fossil fuel extraction. And today, after months of disappointing results from failed exploratory drilling, Shell announced that they will indefinitely suspend Arctic drilling, having wasted billions of dollars on the project.

That’s what Shell’s chalking it up to, at least. But—and this is just one activists opinion—there were far too many loud voices, communities, risks, kayak flotillas, and concerned citizens’ fingers waving in the face of this mega-corporation for drilling to ever occur. Just as we activists weren’t going to be stopped until the rig was far off in the Chukchi Sea, Shell wasn’t going to stop until they proved their point: the planet can be bought for a high price, and new ownership can do whatever it pleases, even if that means risk everything. Shell and countless other oil corporations have always known that there aren’t enough oil stores at 6,800 feet below the surface of frigid arctic sea. They say it’s about money, investors, and the looming financial devastation that an oil spill would cause—not the looming environmental devastation.

On one hand, we want to consider this a victory; on another hand, we’re all wondering what will tip the scale the next time, driving oil tycoons to gamble once again with the fate of our planet by extracting oil from the arctic. Will it be that oil prices have risen once again, making the gamble worth it? Or, will Exxon resolve the political disagreements with Russia that have kept them from drilling thus far? Maybe teams of scientists will discover yet another potential pocket of oil that could produce enough to pacify the growing demand—another 10 million barrels a day to meet growing demand between 2030 and 2040, according to some analysts. Until then, the prices of oil continue to drop while the push for cleaner energy sources becomes stronger and stronger.

If there’s one thing Shell wants us to believe, it’s that people power had nothing to do with their backing out of the arctic. Let’s show them what else we can accomplish when we come together as a planet. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.”