As Alaska Thaws, Oil Industry Exploration Season 1/2 As Long As In Past

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"Despite the weather, Mr. Bader, the state's land manager for the oil-rich North Slope, was consumed with one thing — the warming climate. Oil-prospecting convoys in search of new deposits are allowed to crisscross the fragile tundra only when it is snowy and solid. But over three decades, rising temperatures have cut this frozen season in half, to 100 days from 200.

Environmentalists have begun to point out the contradictions in a situation where Arctic-wide warming, which many scientists say is at least partly driven by smokestack and tailpipe emissions, is curtailing the quest for a fossil fuel that is a prime source of such pollution. Nowhere is the warming trend more acute than here on this Minnesota-size stretch of pond-pocked plains and shrubby foothills.

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For decades, officials have relied on a simple test to determine when the spongy soil and the carpet of lichens, sedges and other vegetation were shielded from scarring by the heavy vehicles. Six inches of snow and a foot of frozen ground — measured by hammering a finger-thick steel bar into the earth — meant the convoys could roll. With those rules, the exploring season had dwindled. All of this was happening as the Bush administration, Gov. Frank H. Murkowski, the oil industry and Mr. Bader's agency were pushing more than ever to expand oil exploration. Established wells were playing out and the Senate still refused to allow the oil hunt to expand into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the most familiar part of the North Slope.

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The oil industry says it needs 120 days a year to avoid having projects drag out expensively. "We still want to protect the Arctic environment," said Larry Houle, general manager of the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, a trade group for oil subcontractors. But because of the shrunken season, he said, "if you discover oil today it's going to take you eight years to get it developed."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/13/science/earth/13TUND.html

Mother Gaea is defending herself from the carbon polluters.