Arctic Oil: Good or Bad?

A recent study by the American Geological Survey and other International institutions found substantial amount of oil and gas reserves in the Arctic Circle.

The study estimates upto 160 billion barrels of oil in the northern hemisphere. Much of the good news for oil companies is that the reserves mostly lie in less than 500 meters of water. So it’s obvious that the oil industry will take it faster from the air into their hands. So we can expect that very soon Arctic areas will be burdened with offshore drilling.

But what will be remaining for the environment? – the remains are most probably worse than we imagine. The noise of the drilling rigs, used lubricants, increased traffic of ships, finally the wastes generated from all these activities are going to harm this quiet horizon of our planet many folds than future modelling will predict. 

Although Greenpeace and other organisations will surely take special initiatives to stop the oil and gas exploration in this Circle, but it will be unsuccessful to make any influence on decision making. But one good thing of the ‘environmental campaign’ could be that oil companies will show more responsibility towards the environment by trying to leave as little refuge as possible.  

But how ‘little’ will be that to keep the delicate environmental balance in our extreme north? Disappearance of glaciers will obviously be one of nature’s fast reactions to any exploration in this quiet northern horizon.