jimnyc
02-13-2021, 04:56 PM
Thought maybe NightTrain would know more about all of this...
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I Will Take on Wall Street to Protect Alaska
By Gov. Mike Dunleavy
A few years ago, an Alaska fishing trip by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was interrupted by a smoky haze from wildfires in Siberia. In his telling, that experience was a catalyst for his now-infamous letter calling for a halt to development in the 49th state.
The irony is that the actions of Fink and other Wall Street megabanks are sending resource production to the dirty oil and gas fields of the Russian tundra. In doing so, they speed the very calamity they are ostensibly hoping to prevent.
Climate change is a global phenomenon. Whether atmospheric carbon is produced in Alaska, Texas, or Russia has no relevance. Canceling a cutting-edge horizontal-drilling project on the North Slope doesn’t stop demand for oil; it simply shifts production. Rather than pumping that oil from an Alaskan oil field, where stringent environmental regulations prevent flaring, extractors will harvest that oil from a dirty, carbon-spewing well in Russia.
The net result? The environment gets warmer. More polar ice melts. More Alaskans are denied economic opportunity. Revenue that could have been used by the North Slope Borough to fund desperately needed schools and health clinics is diverted to Russian oligarchs and Saudi sheikhs. Money that Alaska needs to fund renewable-energy projects is instead used by Russia to build more Arctic oil and gas infrastructure.
But it doesn’t end there. Like every decision we make in life, canceling drilling on the North Slope comes with unintended consequences.
You see, there is a larger threat looming in the Arctic – one that we are actively funding by sending jobs and production to Russia. As the polar ice melts, the former Soviet Union is rapidly moving to stake claims under Arctic seas, where 10% of the world’s remaining petroleum lies. As we feed the Russian resource economy, Moscow’s Arctic operations accelerate exponentially.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/02/13/i_will_take_on_wall_street_to_protect_alaska_14524 2.html
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I Will Take on Wall Street to Protect Alaska
By Gov. Mike Dunleavy
A few years ago, an Alaska fishing trip by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was interrupted by a smoky haze from wildfires in Siberia. In his telling, that experience was a catalyst for his now-infamous letter calling for a halt to development in the 49th state.
The irony is that the actions of Fink and other Wall Street megabanks are sending resource production to the dirty oil and gas fields of the Russian tundra. In doing so, they speed the very calamity they are ostensibly hoping to prevent.
Climate change is a global phenomenon. Whether atmospheric carbon is produced in Alaska, Texas, or Russia has no relevance. Canceling a cutting-edge horizontal-drilling project on the North Slope doesn’t stop demand for oil; it simply shifts production. Rather than pumping that oil from an Alaskan oil field, where stringent environmental regulations prevent flaring, extractors will harvest that oil from a dirty, carbon-spewing well in Russia.
The net result? The environment gets warmer. More polar ice melts. More Alaskans are denied economic opportunity. Revenue that could have been used by the North Slope Borough to fund desperately needed schools and health clinics is diverted to Russian oligarchs and Saudi sheikhs. Money that Alaska needs to fund renewable-energy projects is instead used by Russia to build more Arctic oil and gas infrastructure.
But it doesn’t end there. Like every decision we make in life, canceling drilling on the North Slope comes with unintended consequences.
You see, there is a larger threat looming in the Arctic – one that we are actively funding by sending jobs and production to Russia. As the polar ice melts, the former Soviet Union is rapidly moving to stake claims under Arctic seas, where 10% of the world’s remaining petroleum lies. As we feed the Russian resource economy, Moscow’s Arctic operations accelerate exponentially.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/02/13/i_will_take_on_wall_street_to_protect_alaska_14524 2.html