Spring 2007 Issue - Alaska Report
"Gut Shot" on Global Warming?
Posted: October 1, 2008
The Great Polar Bear Debate Begins Harry Whittington…
That’s the name of the guy who was shot by Dick Cheney during a quail hunt last year in Texas. The man and the episode were rapidly receding into the dusty realm of scandals past but they are both brought back to mind by a new Alaskan controversy that may pack a global wallop.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing that the polar bear be classified as an endangered species. The proposal is based on the long term threat posed to the bears by thinning sea ice in the Arctic. The proposal sets the stage for the first knockdown, drag-out battle over the impact of global warming on U.S. commerce, and it is unfolding in a political environment that could scarcely grow more heated.
Lined up on one side is the U.S. environmental movement and a world view that sees Alaska as a symbol for much that is evil and good in the world. Environmental advocates use worst-case scenarios in Alaska the way Napoleon used his cannon: massed up, firing often, and aiming for the maximum possible impact – and few things on earth provide more environmental ammo right now than the imperiled state of Alaska’s magnificent polar bears.
Lined up on the other side are a good number of the people who live in a state that is more dependent on oil per capita than any other state in the union. Oil drives the Alaskan economy like no other industry can. Oil accounts for 90 percent of all private business revenue created in Alaska making it the largest generator of greenbacks in a land where thousands still get by mostly on food they obtain through hunting and fishing. Each and every Alaskan receives an “oil check” every year from the state government as their personal payout from the state’s Permanent Fund of accumulated oil royalties, and those dollars loom especially large for those who subsist in the vast Alaskan bush.
In addition to oil checks, Alaska is also full of people who are fed up with being told what they can and cannot do by people who live thousands of miles away but possess deep passions about the importance of preserving Alaskan wilderness.
The crunch of publicity about the proposed listing obscured two other inconvenient truths.
First, endangered species status will not thicken up the Arctic ice that is thinning beneath the polar bears.
Second, it will bring a whole new level of government review to any development activity in any polar bear habitat, and polar bear habitat fits like a mukluk on the North Slope shorelines and offshore areas that contain Alaska’s largest remaining oil pools.
Ironically, there is abundant evidence that oil exploration and production have had very little negative impact on polar bears, which makes sense if you think about it. No matter. Endangered species status would create a whole new arsenal for environmental groups to fight Alaskan oil and gas activity.
Standing in the middle of this mess? None other than President George W. Bush, the best friend Alaska oil ever had – until now.
The fact the new proposal came from the Bush administration left some in Alaska feeling a bit like Harry Whittington must have when he was shot by his hunting buddy at the Armstrong ranch: shocked, confused, trying to grasp the depth of the damage and the size of the wound.
U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne attempted to reassure Alaskan officials and Native leaders that the listing is not intended to block oil and gas development on the North Slope nor to disrupt subsistence hunting. Just one problem.
Just as the listing won’t thicken any sea ice, the Department of the Interior will possess no control over who opts to use the listing to pursue legal challenges to North Slope oil and gas development. New Alaska Governor Sarah Palin pointed this out in a letter to Kempthorne.
“We know listing polar bears as endangered or threatened will not impact polar bear numbers or cause sea ice to freeze,” she wrote. “What we don’t know are all the unintended effects of listing. It is highly probable that among them will be third-party lawsuits from litigants with a variety of motivations to list large portions of Alaska’s North Slope as critical habitat or to limit emissions of greenhouse gases throughout the United States.”
Advocates for polar bear endangered species status contend that they are thinking globally while acting locally. They argue that the listing is just one of many, many steps that must be taken by the government and the people of the United States to develop an effective response to global warming. And if the designation happens to knock the stuffing out of the Alaska oil industry, well, let’s be honest. If they even pretend to act sad, the crocodile tears would be large enough to fill swimming pools.
One group that pressed hardest for the endangered species proposal is the Center for Biological Diversity. The CBD website says the group’s goal is to save endangered species around the world through “litigation, policy advocacy and an innovative strategic vision.” The group is based in Tucson, Arizona. Tucson is a long way from the Arctic, but even from that distance the CBD’s strategic vision was sharp enough to know an outstanding mobilizing issue when it saw one.
A spokeswoman for the CBD provided the following explanation for the polar bear initiative, according to the Associated Press. “It’s such [a] canary in the coal mine. If you want to know what’s going to be happening in the rest of the world in 25 years, all you have to know is what’s happening in the Arctic. Everything is changing and not for the better.”
An editorial in the Portland Oregonian reflected much of the commentary about Bush. Hopefully, Team Bush did not support the proposal believing it might bring them credit for finally acknowledging the issue of global warming.
Sayeth the Oregonian, “Not even the Bush administration can ignore the melting of the Arctic sea ice, or stomach the awful image of polar bears drowning in the open ocean, far from the nearest pack ice. Polar bears are clearly in trouble, and so are other species, such as penguins, that depend on the same habitat. Experts on polar bears say that the adults they see are noticeably thinner, the mortality of cubs is much higher, and a few starving bears have even resorted to killing and eating other bears.”
Which brings us to a pretty good place to pull over, roll down the window, and let some of the odious gases escape. During this pit stop, we will attempt to add some perspective that will usually be lacking in the Great Alaskan Polar Bear Debate.
For the record, regarding the canary metaphor, virtually all reputable scientists who have examined the evidence say that global warming will impact different parts of the world in different ways, and many believe there will even be some good impacts along with the bad ones. If you really want to know what might be happening in the rest of the world 25 years from now, the last place to look is the Arctic, because its environment and vulnerabilities are so unlike the places where 99.9999 percent of the world’s humans, animals, and plants live.
Over the past two decades, Arctic temperatures have risen three times faster than those in the rest of the world, and the impacts have been much more severe because of the special vulnerabilities to warming of permafrost and sea ice, the two pillars of “normal” life for humans and many animals in the Arctic. Scientists believe the exceptional warming rate is caused by a phenomenon called “ice–albedo feedback.” As ice and snow retreat, their capacity to reflect sunlight is reduced and the exposed earth and sea absorb more heat from the sun. As the cycle is repeated, more earth and sea areas are exposed, and the temperature continues to rise.
So while Alaska provides incredible examples of global warming, it’s not too credible to claim that it shows us what our world will look like if global warming continues.
As for the Oregonian, three points require clarification.
First, penguins and the polar bear occupy similar habitats, but they do not live in the same habitat except in Coca Cola commercials and, apparently, the editorial page of the Oregonian. Polar bears and penguins literally live polar worlds apart (and, trust us: this is extremely good news for penguins).
Second, while North Slope polar bears may be in trouble, they are not yet suffering from a detectable population decline. In fact after 20 years of rising temperatures it appears the Alaskan polar population remains relatively stable. Worldwide, it is believed that polar bears have rebounded strongly from a low point in the 1960s when they suffered from overhunting. Some quote numbers to document or debate this point. We choose not to because virtually all reputable scientists who have examined the available evidence have concluded that until very recently nobody really spent enough time or money to study polar bears, and that means there’s a large lack of verifiable baseline data about them.
Critics of the proposed listing contend that this would be the first time an animal has made the endangered species list without first starting to suffer from population declines.
Third, news reports about polar bear drownings, cannibalism, malnourishment, and high rates of cub mortality are gut wrenching, just as the Oregonian says, and the reports are growing in frequency. But these horrible things are also among the facts of life that have been chasing polar bears across the Arctic for as long as polar bears have been chasing ringed seals. Polar bears live in an extremely dangerous part of the world with extremely thin margins for error. Thinner ice makes the margins even thinner. But much of the reporting makes these hazards seem new. They aren’t.
And forget the frolicking polar bear families in the Coca-Cola commercials. Actual polar bear family life is more suited to the Jerry Springer show than the Disney Channel.
Males and females hook up during mating season. After that, females and cubs live separate from males because males will eat cubs if they get hungry enough.
It is also worth noting that virtually all credible scientists who have appraised the available evidence have concluded that polar bears evolved from brown bears about 200,000 years ago. During that epoch the earth warmed up at least a few times. Presumably, the Arctic ice cap shrank during those warming periods too. Somehow, polar bears survived. So, the present situation may not be hopeless after all.
Compared to the ice-related dangers, the impacts of North Slope industrial activity on the polar bear are a lot like a can of dye: easy to dispose of.
The dye can example comes directly from a 2002 report by the prestigious National Research Council, which is affiliated with the National Academy of Science. The National Research Council was asked by the U.S. Congress in 1999 to conduct an in-depth study of the cumulative impacts of oil and gas activities on North Slope people, plants, soils, marine environments, and wildlife, including polar bears.
The study predicted the existing warming trend with amazing accuracy, and concluded that if it continued the sea ice might disappear entirely during summer months within 50 years. This would be a terrible outcome, but there is a potential qualifier involving the key word “summer.” Summers in the Arctic last for about two months, while winters last for eight to nine months, including prolonged periods of complete darkness and astonishing cold. Presumably, some ice – maybe a lot of ice – would return in the winter.
The study also warned of the potential dangers to polar bears and other marine animals should an oil spill ever occur in the Arctic Ocean (so far, one hasn’t).
But, on land, the impacts of industrial activity were negligible. The report noted that in three decades of oil activity, one polar bear had died after eating a can full of dye used for marking a temporary airstrip.
The low impact on polar bears makes sense if you put it in spatial perspective. The North Slope is huge, about the size of Minnesota, and it is amazingly flat, one of the largest flat stretches on the face of the planet. It is also barren of trees. In fact, there are no plants capable of creating firewood, just an ocean of land that in the summer gently slopes down to the Arctic coast from the Brooks Range of mountains that divide the North Slope of Alaska from the rest of the state. In the winter, the snow makes the landscape blend in with the Arctic Ocean, which extends past the horizon to the north.
Oil activity takes place on the North Slope within an area about the size of Rhode Island. Rhode Island is vastly smaller than Minnesota. In fact, it’s only half as big as King County, Washington. By contrast, the range of polar bears is enormous. A female was tagged at Prudhoe Bay and tracked by satellite. The satellite tracked her as she headed north over the top of the world to Greenland, then to Hudson Bay in Canada, then back again to Greenland.
It shouldn’t be surprising that oil activity has little impact on polar bears; it’s probably more surprising polar bears even come across the oil patch. When they do, according to the National Research Council, the bears are often lured by garbage, which, to them, means food. This was a problem both for polar bears and grizzlies and bear/human interactions tend to end poorly for bears if the humans have guns, and on the North Slope, people tend to keep rifles handy because of the bears.
A few grizzlies and polar bears were shot by workers defending themselves, the report noted, but workers got better at garbage disposal, which helped to reduce interactions between bears and humans, although there continues to be occasional intermingling.
A few years ago, a grizzly entered the Prudhoe Bay Hotel in Deadhorse. The bear made it through two doors that could be opened with push-bars before reaching the second floor, where it was stopped by a doorknob and a rifle shot. Bad for the bear and a reminder that endangered species on the North Slope can also include humans.
If the endangered species proposal is accepted, the biggest impact would probably be felt through challenges to development in the National Petroleum Reserve west of Prudhoe Bay and in offshore portions of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. It is believed that the petroleum reserve holds more than 10 billion barrels of oil and both exploration and production are permitted there. The offshore areas are believed to hold about 20 billion barrels of oil and vast amounts of natural gas. To put the amounts in perspective, it is estimated that Prudhoe Bay held about 15 billion barrels prior to development and it was the largest oil field ever discovered in the United States.
Does this much oil matter when it comes to the bigger issue of global warming? Symbolically, many environmentalists might argue yes. But practically speaking? No. It represents 2 or 3 percent of all known oil reserves in the world, not enough to make a dent in the grand scheme of things.
But, if it’s a drop in the bucket, it is Alaska’s bucket that it falls into. Ours too. Oil is one of the industries that is essentially shared by the states of Alaska and Washington. Alaska produces oil and Washington refines it. Washington oil refineries turned out products valued at $18 billion last year and two-thirds of the oil refined here comes from Alaska.
If 10 billion barrels can be recovered in the petroleum reserve, it would keep Washington refineries supplied with oil for three decades at present production rates.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is now collecting feedback on the proposed endangered species listing. People predict it will take about one year before a decision is made.
Whatever the outcome, the polar bear debate has already produced one positive outcome by causing a major upgrade in the animal “poster child” that will be used in the crusade to curb oil development on the North Slope.
The polar bear perfectly represents the dangerous beauty of its extreme habitat. It stands at the top of the Arctic food chain, and when they are up on their hind legs male polar bears typically stand 10 to 11 feet tall – taller than a legal height basketball hoop – while females stand about 8 feet tall.
Polar bears weigh anywhere from 500 to 1,500 pounds, but they can run faster than horses over short distances and they are nimble enough to catch seals underwater. But they usually catch seals instead by waiting beside holes in the ice where they can nab the seals as they come up for air. This is not because polar bears are lazy. It is because polar bears are smart. You only have so many calories to burn in the Arctic and it burns up many fewer calories to bushwhack seals at air holes than it does to chase them across the pack ice or underwater.
Some researchers believe polar bears are the smartest bears. Some believe they are as smart as apes. Native people who know the bears best believe they may be smarter still. In some native legends, it was said that polar bears weren’t bears at all, but a race of super human beings who roamed the Arctic disguised in bear outfits.
In the poster animal role, polar bears replace the pretty, but utterly undependable, caribou.
In the late 1960s, when the battle over Arctic development was first joined, the caribou seemed to have a lot to offer as the poster animal for preserving the North Slope. Caribou are a variety of reindeer, and if you are looking for an animal cause celeb you can hardly do better than the one that pulls Santa’s sled.
Caribou are also vegetarians, which makes them not only beautiful and Santa sanctioned, but nonthreatening and even politically correct. Caribou would no doubt rule like a Queen of the Animal Kingdom – if the Animal Kingdom was in the 90210 zip code of Beverly Hills. But, as sometimes happens in that zip code, caribou turned out to be overly herd-oriented, their brain power is dubious and, by human standards at least, they are completely unreliable.
Leading environmental advocates and virtually every reputable scientist who supported them claimed that oil development on the North Slope would devastate Alaska’s great caribou herds. But the opposite proved true. Of the four main herds, one is stable and three grew dramatically, while the one that spends its summers in Prudhoe Bay – the Central Arctic Herd – grew by a factor of FIVE, increasing from 5,000 animals to more than 27,000 during the time the Prudhoe Bay oil complex was being developed.
Go figure.
It was a major embarrassment for the worst-case scenario crowd, and no credible scientist who has examined the evidence can claim the increase did not occur. Some believe that the elevated roads, outbuildings, drill rigs, and well pads did not drive the caribou away but instead drew them in, providing them with a level of protection from the mosquitoes and other insects of the tundra that can drive caribou literally crazy. Environmentalists don’t spend a lot of time talking about it.
The advocacy groups might have seen this coming if they had paid more attention to the work of the man who helped build the cornerstone of their movement, Bob Marshall.
Marshall was the leading founder of the U.S. wilderness movement, a high-ranking official of the New Deal administration of Franklin Roosevelt, and helped establish the basis for the same federal programs and policies that are used today to protect wilderness areas and national forests.
Marshall loved Alaska and he believed it should be preserved as a giant wilderness area as a way to preserve what was left of America’s pioneer soul. He came to public attention through a book he wrote about frontier Alaska called Arctic Village. Marshall researched the book during 1931 and 1932 while living in Wiseman, a small village in the Koyukuk River valley deep in the Brooks Range, the chain of massive mountains that divides the North Slope from the rest of Alaska.
Wiseman was populated by about 120 Americans, Europeans, and Eskimos who supported themselves as gold prospectors and hunters. Caribou was the biggest source of meat for the locals, as massive herds come through the Wiseman area while heading to or from the North Slope.
But, Marshall wrote, the beasts were unreliable. Old timers told him that in 1902 the caribou “changed their route of migration and disappeared from the country. For years, only an occasional straggler was ever seen. Then, without any advance indications, they suddenly thronged into the Koyukuk [region] in unprecedented numbers in 1919 and have returned every year since.”
The caribou return was heralded because caribou were so easy to kill, perrhaps the reason why so many Arctic and subarctic religions provide a special place for caribou. Who wouldn’t be thankful for such a compliant food source in such a dangerous world? As Marshall explained to his readers:
“This American species of the reindeer travels in great bunches, often with tens of thousands of animals in a single herd. In such a crowd, even a poor hunter can readily shoot all the meat he requires… Good caribou hunters, by dropping certain key animals, stampede the herd in just the right way for it to keep milling back and forth instead of running straight away. Consequently, one successful hunt sometimes yields an Eskimo a winter’s food supply for himself, his family and his dogs.”
Yep, caribou are so dumb they will form themselves into reindeer shooting galleries for the convenience of hunters who know the knack for getting them to do it.
Polar bears, on the other hand... Well, if you go hunting in polar bear country, there is always a chance that polar bear might be hunting you.
For all of its recent, well-publicized hazards, quail hunting is much, much safer.
