Fox News: Oil and Adventure in the Arctic!

By now, I'm sure everyone here at dailyKos has heard about this:

The Arctic ice cap has collapsed at an unprecedented rate this summer and levels of sea ice in the region now stand at a record low, scientists said last night. Experts said they were "stunned" by the loss of ice, with an area almost twice as big as Britain disappearing in the last week alone. So much ice has melted this summer that the north-west passage across the top of Canada is fully navigable, and observers say the north-east passage along Russia's Arctic coast could open later this month. If the increased rate of melting continues, the summertime Arctic could be totally free of ice by 2030.

The effects of this unprecedented low in Arctic sea ice are already apparent.  One example:

In spring and summer of 2004, Ashjian and colleagues were investigating the potential impacts of a warming climate on the delicately balanced Arctic Ocean ecosystem, when they discovered an unexpected phenomenon: nine sightings of baby walruses swimming alone far from shore—apparently abandoned by their nursing mothers.

"The young can’t forage for themselves and are dependent on their mothers’ milk for up to two years," said Ashjian, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The lone calves, about two months old and too far offshore to swim back to land, would likely succumb to starvation and drowning, the researchers concluded.

[snip]

The researchers think that the mothers had to swim farther and farther from shore to find ice for the calves to rest on and eventually had to abandon them in waters too deep for the mothers to reach food. Ice was "virtually absent" throughout the area where the scientists saw the lone calves.

(More on walruses and decreasing sea ice here.)

By 2050, grandparents may have to explain to their grandchildren what a polar bear was - not what a polar bear is.   Grandparents might have to tell them "When I was a kid, the North Pole was really, really cold,".  They might also have to tell the youngsters that "People didn't used to fight over the Arctic,"... and history teachers may describe two different "cold wars".

The more cynical, astute, and reality-based history teachers might use Fox News footage to teach their students about the new "cold war":

In a new series billed by Fox News as the "Race for the Arctic," the network has responded by sending a reporter to Greenland to document first-hand observations of glaciers receding, icebergs breaking off, and other drastic climate-changing effects.

But if you think that Fox’s "race for the arctic" is a race to educate and inform the public about global warming, you are mistaken. In fact, from Fox’s perspective, the "race" is actually a race for oil. Fox News reporter Jonathan Hunt explained:

The melting ice cap is making the Arctic’s resources much more accessible. Now that is vital. Because beneath the Arctic Ocean, scientists estimate there may be a full 25 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves. There is now a race on to get to those reserves.

Here's the Fox broadcast:

There's more...

Hunt says:

Whatever you think of global warming, most of the scientists say that is the cause of this. Other people insist that this is just a cyclical phenomenon. But one thing is absolutely clear: Whatever the cause, the effect is indisputable. The ice cap is melting.

Translated: "Whee!  It's meltin', let's go prospectin'!  But don't forget that the ice cap isn't melting due to human causes.  It's cyclical!  I know so, because some real smart Exxon-funded bullshit artists told me that!"

And don't forget that Fox News helped perpetuate the "global warming isn't caused by humans" lie.  I'll believe the real scientists, thank you.

So, although Fox still says the jury is out on global warming, they concede that the ice cap is melting.  Their new message is "Hey, it's a good thing!  More oil, plz, kthx!"

The new show will provide pasty-faced armchair oil barons with a vicarious thrill.  It is a study in how humans will take advantage of any situation to further their own wealth while they're fucking up the planet at the same time.

Thank you, Fox, for showing so blatantly what humans are capable of doing.

[Major hat-tip to Think Progress.  They watch Fox so we don't have to.]