Drilling for Oil Has Begun In Greenland

Scotland-based Cairn Energy began drilling offshore of Greenland's Disko Island last week, marking a new phase of exploring and exploiting the vast natural resources believed to be stored in the rapidly-thawing Arctic.

There's a nasty feedback loop here -- as global warming softens the bitter, inhospitable conditions of the north, more oil interests will move into the tempting virgin territory. By some estimates, 20 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas resources lie in the region. In Greenland alone, there may be as much as 50 billion barrels of oil just waiting to be tapped.

But that means more petroleum will be pumped out of the ground and burned in the service of fueling the global economy. It will all be done with the best intentions -- in the name of bettering mankind and increasing humanity's prosperity -- but according to a mountain of scientific data, it will hasten sea level rise and all the climate problems that come with global warming.

Nevertheless, it is the reality. Barring a huge change in political and economic course in the near future, the Arctic will continue to be drilled. And as it is drilled, it will yield ever more to the increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, facilitating yet more drilling.

The question is: is it worth it? Oil and gas have been the foundation of modern civilization for over a century. Considering our history exploiting oil, it could be argued that we must pursue all reserves, because without them we will cease to be prosperous. Indeed, this is the course we are following.

But now we stand on a very well-defined threshold. Should we continue as we have for the past 100+ years and drill the Arctic until the the oil is all gone? Or should we -- whether for reasons of conserving the Arctic as one of the last great unspoiled places on Earth, or over concerns of global warming or oil spills -- find some way to turn the drill bits off?

To anyone who reads the Earth site regularly, it should be obvious where the opinions of this blogger lie. But it's not every day that the first holes are drilled in what was once considered a frozen, worthless wasteland. I'm curious what people think: is this a good thing, bad, or somewhere in between?

Image: Flickr/NASA