Editorial: Apocalyptic quest for oil

Saturday, Aug. 4, 2007 | 7:43 a.m.

Global warming is all a matter of perspective.

Take this fact, for example: Arctic sea ice is diminishing at an astounding rate - 365,000 square miles of it have vanished over the past 30 years, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Upon learning this, many people would repeat their belief that the world must significantly cut back on the burning of fossil fuels, particularly oil and coal. Carbon emissions from cars and trucks, power plants and factories, after all, are a leading cause of planet-threatening climate change.

The governmental perspective, however, is turning out to be quite different.

A USA Today story this week reported that the Bush administration, along with the governments of seven other countries bordering the Arctic region, are seeing the retreating, loosening and vanishing ice as an opportunity - for easier access to oil.

Seven of the countries have signed a 1982 treaty - the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - that allows them to drill for oil and extract other resources in the Arctic that are within 200 miles of their coasts, or even beyond if ocean-floor mapping shows that their continental shelf extends farther.

With the Arctic Ocean now showing a lot of open water, those countries are now busy staking their claims, USA Today reported.

The U.S. Senate has not ratified the treaty, a fact that Time magazine reported is owed to "Republican leeriness of such international pacts." But the Bush administration wants to reverse that attitude. USA Today quoted a State Department official as saying ratification of the treaty is a "top priority for us."

And no wonder, given the feverish competition. A Russian expedition, for example, reached the North Pole Wednesday, with the objective of using mini-submarines to deposit a capsule containing a Russian flag on the sea floor more than 13,000 feet below the surface ice. The Associated Press reported that Russia believes this will strengthen its legal claim to gas and oil deposits.

We are struck by the irony in all of this. The world's scientists agree that burning oil for fuel contributes significantly to global warming, which is responsible for the melting of the sea ice. They warn about what could happen if the melting continues - a much hotter planet with greatly diminished food output, and coastal flooding the world over.

Yet what do the nations bordering the region want most to do? Exploit the lack of ice to drill for more oil. We are reminded of T.S. Eliot, who wrote, "This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends" as the finale of his aptly named poem, "The Hollow Men."