Environmental Justice, Naturally

On June 3, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it would “assist the state of Alaska in the first scientifically based study to determine when oil companies can transport equipment over the Arctic tundra without damaging the fragile ecosystem.”

They’re not spending much money – about $350,000 in federal and oil-company money – but the reason they need to do this is worth noting: the oil companies are running out of winter.

As the DOE release noted, there has never been a hard-and-fast rule about when you can drive oil exploration equipment over the tundra – just a “rule of thumb.” The non-rule relied on the common-sense notion that snow and ice would protect the delicate ecology of the tundra from the effects of heavy equipment moving over it. So, logically, no snow and ice, no exploration.

According to the Office of Fossil Energy’s Assistant Secretary, Mike Smith, "Sound science offers the best way to protect sensitive environments. This project will apply the latest in scientific instrumentation and modeling to refine our understanding of the tundra's resistance to disturbances. The result will be better environmental protection and a much more scientific basis for determining when oil operations can be conducted."

The equipment used in the oil exploration process rely on increasingly absent
snow and ice to get around without damaging the fragile Arctic tundra.

You see the problem. This “sound science” is needed to find out whether you can travel over the tundra in a way that is “environmentally safe” without protective snow and ice. Although the DOE attempted to put the best scientific face on this, the truth is that warming in the colder latitudes has significantly shortened the “exploration period” in Alaska, and the oil companies have got to find a way to do something about it.

Will this be a real case of “environmental justice?” We’ll have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, the release this summer of a study by the U. S. Geological Survey showing that winters here in the more southerly latitudes of the Northeast are getting shorter corroborates a series of indicators of climate change developed by the University of New Hampshire and Clean Air – Cool Planet.

In fact, based on temperature monitoring, lake ice-in and ice-out data, lilac bloom information, length of growing season (an increase of 8 days in 50 years) we’ve known for some time that winters are getting shorter in the Northeast. So the USGS findings – from river measurements indicating winters are shorter by a week or two – fit perfectly with a number of other indicators of climate change. Looking at 26 temperature tracking stations throughout the Northeast, for example, 18—that’s 69 percent – have shown a clear trend toward a longer growing season, defined as days above 32 degrees F, by an average of about 8 days over the last 50 years.

Similarly, we see Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire experiencing ice out about a week earlier than it did 100 years ago, while Lake Champlain freezes eight days later than it did 100 years ago.

February 2002 on Lake Winnipesaukee: Earlier ice-outs here and elsewhere in the Northeast are one sign that our winters are getting shorter photo courtesy weirsonline.com	Spring’s harbinger—blooming earlier

The report on the indicators, which also include frost-free days, high ozone days, sea level rise, and information on species shift, will be ready for distribution in the fall.

—Bill Burtis