Energy at the North Pole?

After I'd mentioned that it was great that there looked to be a renewable solution to European and World energy needs , I listened in horror to Radio 4 last night about potential oil and gas prospecting that is shortly to be afoot at the North Pole.

According to the programme, as the ice pack there recedes, it opens up a passage to huge oil and gas reserves. There is somewhere in the region of 3 years worth of fuel to power all the Worlds current energy needs at the fingertips of whomever gets there. It sounds a lot but given the increasing usage of resources globally, that really isn’t that long despite the figures quoted in terms of billions of barrels. The Russians, as this article shows, planted their flag underwater last year to claim rights to the territory and thus the reserves; the Norwegians naturally lay claim to it and a number of other nations, the US included, are all scrabbling to do the same in time for when prospecting can get seriously underway.

Given current concerns about the ever decreasing amount of fossil fuels; the effect of those used so far by mankind and the potential catastrophe and difficulty in clearing up any large oil spill would cause in this part of the world, it seems to me and surely most sane thinking people, a barking idea to go an exploit yet more of our natural resources?

I think this statement from Pen Hadlow sums up my feelings and frustrations on the matter:"There is a terrible irony that the very thing that is driving climate change and the recession of the sea ice, the combustion of oil and natural gas and coal, is the very thing that they are looking to extract from the sea bed." If we can’t see that clearly now, whilst financial profit gets put before long term sustainability and the environmental damage caused, we’re narrower focused than I thought possible.