The Arctic is heating up at three times the rate of the rest of the planet and ConocoPhillips will have to resort to Kafkaesque interventions to be able to drill for oil in an environment being destroyed by the burning of that fuel. The company plans to install “chillers” into the Alaska permafrost, which is rapidly melting due to global heating, to ensure it is stable enough to host drilling equipment.
Monsell said the attempts to refreeze the thawing permafrost in order to extract more fossil fuel “highlights the ridiculousness of drilling in the Arctic.” Kirsten Miller, acting executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said Willow “is the poster child for the type of massive fossil fuel development that must be avoided today if we’re to avoid the worst climate impacts down the road.”
The Willow project will involve drilling up to 250 wells and associated infrastructure, such as a processing facility, hundreds of miles of new pipelines and roads and an airstrip, in the northeastern corner of the petroleum reserve, which is a federally owned tract of land roughly the size of Indiana.
Trump’s administration approved the drilling late in the former president’s term and activists hoped Biden would reverse this decision to meet his climate goals. A recent landmark report by the International Energy Agency found that there can be no new fossil fuel projects anywhere if the world is to avoid dangerous global heating.
Native Alaskan groups have also opposed the project over fears it will adversely impact the abundant local wildlife, such as polar bears, fish and migrating caribou.
“This project is in the important fall migration for Nuiqsut,” said Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, a resident of Nuiqsut, a community in the north slope. “It should not happen. The village spoke in opposition and the greed for profit should not be allowed over our village.”
Oliver Milman is an environment reporter for Guardian U.S. Email High Country News at [email protected] or submit a letter to the editor.
