15 November 2013, 03:46 PM IST
The ocean currents act as a conveyor belt for heat to travel across the waves and regulate the temperature of this planet. As Sudarshan Patnaik's sand sculpture depicting the 'Arctic 30', rested stoically on the sand beaches of Puri in Odisha, one wondered… could this message of solidarity and hope, be carried along the currents of the ocean, across continents, from Bay of Bengal to the fast melting ice of the Arctic Sea?
Arctic 30, as they are being called, are 28 Greenpeace activists, a photographer and a videographer, who were arrested when they were protesting against reckless oil drilling in the Arctic Sea. While two activists were arrested when they tried to scale Russian oil company, Gazprom's off-shore oil platform Prirazlomnaya in Pechora Sea of the Arctic region on September 18, the rest of the crew was arrested on their ship – MY Arctic Sunrise – the next day, and taken to Murnmask in Russia for a long painful pre-trial detention. The Russian Coast Guard allegedly wielded knives and guns at the unarmed activists.
Though the initial charges of piracy have reportedly been dropped (an official notification is still awaited), the Arctic 30 now face charges of hooliganism, which can ensure seven years of their lives wasted in prison.
Though it is puzzling as to how a non-violent protest has been termed as 'hooliganism', it is now up to the court to decide on the fate of these 30 prisoners of conscience. All they did was divert the world's attention to something very serious – something that threatens our very existence on this planet. Top political figures and heads of states from Brazil, Iran, Germany, Argentina, the EU parliament, and 13 Nobel Peace Prize winners offered their support to the Arctic 30.
Being an observer in the Arctic Council, it seems India is taking baby steps towards being more assertive on the issue of climate change, but back home it was just BJP politician Maneka Gandhi (the usual suspect) who tweeted in support of the captured activists. "It is amazing that earth destroyers get the support of all governments and all those that try to save it or any species on it are treated as the worst criminals," she said.
As tourists and locals in Puri, continue to pose for a picture with the Arctic 30 sand art, they do realize that there is a connection between them and the 30 prisoners – a relationship that rises above race and religion, and is forged by Nature herself.
Why should India be bothered about the Arctic?
The refrigeration system of our planet is governed by the Polar ice caps. Owing to its white surface, the sea ice is able to reflect 80 percent of the sunlight it receives, back into space. This way it keeps the earth cool. The Arctic sea ice plays a more vital role than the sea ice in Antarctic because, the Arctic sea ice is largely enclosed by land and in summers, the ice stays on for a longer period of time, which gets thicker in the winter.
But the Arctic is changing. The sea ice now starts melting in spring. Since 1972, the sea ice cover has been fluctuating. Greenhouse gases have made sure that the Arctic ice decreases at an average rate of about 3 percent per decade. Last year, by the end of August, National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), University of Colorado, USA, reported that Arctic ice had gone down to a record low of 4 million sq. km.
As the sea ice melts, it exposes the dark ocean surface, which absorbs 90 percent of the sunlight thereby heating up the ocean. This phenomenon has had a global consequence.
"What happens in the Arctic (in terms of climate change) will have its effects not only in India, but will have global consequences. In a way, Arctic (and the Antarctic) should be viewed as drivers of global climate," says Dr S Rajan, director of National Center for Antarctic and Ocean Research, Goa.
Dr Krishna Kumar Kanikicharla, climate scientist at Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune explains: "While global mean surface temperatures have stalled a bit due to internal variability of the climate system, reduction in Arctic Sea Ice is continuing. Besides having a contribution to global sea level rise, the Arctic sea ice changes can affect the climate over Europe. As a secondary effect the monsoon through modifying the land-sea contrast needed for the sustenance of monsoon winds," he says.
Dr Kanikicharla is also one of the drafting authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The IPCC is the international body for the scientific assessment of climate change, has been known for its comprehensive Assessment Reports. The first part of the 5th Assessment Report – Working Group 1 report – was released in September this year. It pointed out that we can witness a change in the monsoons. This can spell doom for Indian agriculture which is largely dependent on monsoons.
"Global warming is expected to affect monsoon not only in India but also in other parts of the world. The expected changes in the extremes of rainfall events are much larger than the seasonal mean changes across different monsoon regions. While we expect the Indian monsoon rainfall to increase, the monsoon circulation per se will weaken," says Dr Kanikicharla and adds that the duration of rainy season is expected to increase in many monsoon regions including India in the future under different emission scenarios.
In July this year, a World Bank commissioned report '4' Turn Down the Heat' also addressed the issue and highlighted the fact that global warming can have a catastrophic effect on monsoon patterns in South Asia. The report ironically came at a time when torrential floods were engulfing north India. The world is moving towards getting warmer by 4 Degree Celcius, but can we afford to bear this change?
Even while, climate scientists are suggesting ways to cut carbon emissions to keep the warming below 2 Degree Celsius. Dr Kanikicharla expresses concern over the situation. "Keeping warming below 2 degree Celsius is not going to be an easy task. Something has to be done drastically."
He explains the arithmetic behind this: "Right now we have already put over 500Gt of carbon in to the atmosphere and hence a margin of approximately 300Gt of carbon uptake is left from now until the end of the century. We are currently putting nearly 10-11Gt of carbon every year, and so we will have only 30 years to reach the target of 300Gt. To limit global warming to 2 Degree Celsius, this target should have been achieved by the end of the century."
But if the world's energy map is drastically skewed towards using dirty energy for its electricity and fuel needs, limiting warming to 2 Degree Celsius seems highly ambitious. Drilling oil and burning them up as fuel would only add to the carbon emissions. "Obviously it is a vicious cycle that we are getting into," says Kanikicharla.
Global Warming and Oil Drilling – partners in crime
Experts say that it was global warming that opened the shores of the Arctic to oil drilling. The fast depleting sea ice has made it easier for global oil giants to pounce upon every opportunity to pierce through the heart of the Arctic to extract the 90 million barrels of oil (according to the US Geological Survey) from underneath the sea. Shell Oil was the first company to start shop in the region, when the first offshore oil field was drilled in the 1960's at Middle Ground Shoal in Cook Inlet, off the coast of Alaska.
Other's followed suit. Arctic oil and gas production currently occurs primarily in Alaska, Canada, Norway, and Russia. This opened the doors for other players to start operations in the Alaska North Slope, Russia (Yamburg gas field), Canada (Mackenzie Delta area), and Norway. Exploration for oil and natural gas continues off the coast of Alaska (in the Beaufort Sea), Greenland (in eastern waters shared by Canada), Norway (Barents Sea and North Sea) and Canada. The Prirazlomnaya platform in the Pechora Sea is Russia's first commercial offshore oil drilling in the Arctic. But all these initiatives have received the flak of environmentalists all over the world.
In 2012, Shell Oil's foray into the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska ended in a series of accidents, clearly proving, that oil companies need to adopt certain safeguards to prevent accidents like the like the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. A similar accident in the Arctic Ocean can prove to be several times more catastrophic as it is still not known how the oil will react in the freezing temperatures of the Arctic.
Other Side Effects of Drilling in the Arctic
Drilling for fossil fuels in the Arctic can cause more than just oil spills. A 2011 report by an NGO called Clean Air Task Force says that drilling for oil in the region can lead to the emission of methane or natural gas –a greenhouse gas deposited in large quantities underneath ocean. It is a byproduct that can be hard to get rid of. Liquidizing the methane or shipping it through a pipeline can be an expensive proposition. Burning methane in a controlled process called flaring could be a solution, but that can produce black carbon or soot— which can further intensify greenhouse effect and settle on the ice, making it black. The planet's fridge would thus, lose its reflective power.
Neither the amount of methane released, nor amount of oil drilled can be estimated accurately. The estimated oil reserves in the region may only serve the oil-starved world for three years, but the cost the planet has to pay for these years cannot be calculated. The result: Animals in the Arctic lose their habitat; carbon emissions go up; the earth gets warmer; the world gets hungrier for oil. It is a strange viscous cycle that can go on until the planet breathes its last.
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