With his to open up the Arctic to drilling, Donald Trump is skating on thin ice. The president鈥檚 attempt to overthrow Barack Obama鈥檚 鈥減ermanent鈥� block on exploitation of oil and gas there will attract a barrage of legal challenges, and rightly so.
For starters, the law Obama used includes no provision to reverse a block. So, cautious good news for planet Earth, but it is complex and .
Are oil companies clamouring at the Oval Office door to grab leases? Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke . Shell鈥檚 exploration of waters off Alaska collapsed in 2015 amid falling oil prices.
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The Arctic is unforgiving. It is remote and becoming increasingly unpredictable, so building the infrastructure to extract fossil fuels, transport them and clean up after an inevitable regional disaster would take a decade or more. A big investment at a time when to usher in a lower carbon era.
But infrastructure challenges are not the sole reason drilling is such a bad idea. Here鈥檚 the big picture and the long view.
Mind-boggling change
On the same day as Trump鈥檚 announcement, with less fanfare, the Arctic Council published a . It noted the temperature rise there has been more than twice the global average increase in the past 50 years. It said that by the late 2030s, the Arctic Ocean could be largely free of sea ice in summer months.
These are just two of the frankly mind-boggling changes expected in the next few decades to a fundamental component of Earth鈥檚 environment. We must keep such changes near zero if industrialised societies want to avoid dangerous climate change and hang on in there in the long run.
In 2015, researchers that a third of global oil reserves and half of gas reserves should remain unused if the world is serious about meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate. Under this calculation, the US must leave 9 per cent of its known oil and 6 per cent of its known gas reserves buried. The analysis specifically states that the Arctic must be off limits.
In the same year, other researchers published a paper with a title that needs no further explanation: . Were we foolhardy enough to do this, sea levels would rise 58 metres.
Alternative reality
Last month, in a world far, far away from Trump鈥檚 executive-order drafting team, experts put the current warming trajectory in an even broader perspective. A billion years ago, the sun was cooler than today. Earth remained habitable due to a blanket of carbon dioxide much thicker than now. As the sun鈥檚 intensity grew over the last half billion years, net heat taken up by Earth 鈥� or radiative forcing 鈥� 聽increased by 9 watts per square metre.
Over time and through a homeostasis-like process for the whole planet, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fell, helping counter this heat gain and keeping Earth habitable. This was probably the result of a combination of feedback mechanisms such as weathering of rocks that increases removal of CO2 and increased plant growth.
Radiative forcing as a result of human activity since the industrial revolution began is at 2.3 watts per square metre. By the middle of the 21st century, unabated fossil-fuel use risks atmospheric carbon dioxide levels not seen since the early Eocene, 50 million years ago. The authors of last month鈥檚 paper state: 鈥淚f carbon dioxide continues to rise further into the twenty-third century, then the associated large increase in radiative forcing, and how the Earth system would respond, would likely be without geological precedent in the last half a billion years.鈥�
So, back to alternative reality. The rationale for Trump鈥檚 executive order is to 鈥渇oster energy security and resilience for the benefit of the American people, while ensuring that any such activity is safe and environmentally responsible鈥�.
Whatever view you take, long or short, local or national, regional or global, Trump鈥檚 actions are unsafe and environmentally irresponsible. Case closed.
