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August 2, 2012 Tomgram: Subhankar Banerjee, Shell Game in the Arctic
Think of it as a shell game of the worst
sort, and we’re the ones being taken for a ride. Thanks to the burning
of the fossil fuels that oil giants like Royal Dutch Shell are
increasingly eager to extract from some of the most difficult environments on the planet, the vast quantities of
carbon dioxide being sent into the atmosphere, and the way the oceans
to absorb CO2, offshore waters are in the process of acidifying. By the
end of this century, ocean acidity could be up by 200%, according to
James Barry, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research
Institute. It turns out to be a disaster for -- you guessed it --
shellfish.
A recent study found that “more than half the near-shore waters governed by the California Current system [off the West Coast] are likely to become so acidic throughout the year that many shell-building organisms will be unable to maintain their armor.” This is obviously bad news for marine creatures, “ranging from tiny plankton to headliners for bouillabaisse and bisque.” And don’t think it’s just those oysters, clams, and lobsters, either. Thanks to ocean acidification, coral reefs are, scientists agree, suffering a similar fate now. They are already globally in significant decline: “In the Caribbean, for example, 75-85% of the coral cover has been lost in the last 35 years.” On the other hand, one Shell is fortifying itself. That’s Shell Oil, whose drill ships, as Subhankar Banerjee writes, are heading for America’s Arctic seas, with the blessing of the Obama administration, to begin oil exploration in a region whose ice and fierce weather are a formula for disaster. Banerjee, a wondrously skilled photographer (whose 2003 exhibit on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History experienced a strange political fate in Bush-era Washington), has spent much time capturing an Arctic world that may soon enough be irreparably damaged. He has also edited a new book, Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point (Seven Stories Press), that includes some of his remarkable photos and a no less remarkable line-up of voices from a fast-melting Arctic most of us know far too little about. He’s the genuine thing. Unfortunately, so much else is indeed a Shell game. (To catch Timothy MacBain's latest Tomcast audio interview in which Banerjee discusses the importance of the Arctic, click here or download it to your iPod here.) Tom Walking the Waters |
