doi:10.1016/j.cub.2006.04.015


Magazine
R301
News focus

A new polar research effort is raising concerns that it may bolster 
fossil fuel extraction and increasingly threaten many local species. 
Nigel Williams reports.

Fears over Arctic research plans
An increasing number of 
researchers are concerned about a 
controversial plan by US colleagues 
to work alongside oil companies to 
hunt for fossil fuel reserves in the 
Arctic. The US Geological Survey 
is lining up a project with BP and 
Statoil to find oil and gas in the 
Arctic Ocean, under the auspices 
of a flagship scientific initiative 
intended to tackle global warming.

Tackling climate change and 
working out how it will affect the 
Arctic and Antarctic is a central 
theme of International Polar Year 
(IPY) — a high-profile project to 
start next spring that involves 
thousands of scientists from 60 
countries. 

The Arctic is warming twice as 
fast as the rest of the planet and 
last September saw the lowest 
extent of sea ice cover for more 
than a century. Scientists say that 
the temperature there could rise 
by a further 4–7ºC by 2100, and 
the Arctic Ocean could be ice free 
in summer by 2060.

Documents on the IPY website 
show that BP and Statoil, a 
Norwegian company, are significant 
consortium members on a USGS 
proposal to assess “energy 
resources in the circumarctic area 
including oil, gas, coalbed methane 
and methane hydrates”. Geologists 
estimate that a quarter of the 
world’s undiscovered oil and gas 
reserves lie under the Arctic, and 
analysts have predicted a 21st-
century goldrush to tap them as the 
Arctic Ocean’s ice cover retreats.
Launching the polar initiative 
last month, Chris Rapely, director 
of the British Antarctic Survey, 
said that scientists would work 
on projects “that will tackle the 
urgent environmental issues” 
because “rapid climate change is 
already impacting local peoples... 
and it is only a question of time 
before the wider consequences 
become apparent”.

The Inuit people have filed a 
lawsuit against the US government 
claiming that greenhouse gas 
pollution is damaging their 
livelihoods. Experts have warned 
the only realistic way to prevent 
dangerous climate change is to 
curb carbon dioxide emissions 
from burning fossil fuels.

Unlike the Antarctic continent, 
spread around the South Pole, the 
Arctic has no formal international 
treaty to regulate activities. And, 
while inclement conditions for 
Dwindling: The polar ice cover is receding, opening up oceans to fossil fuel prospecting to the alarm of many researchers. (Photo: 
Peter Menzel/Science Photo Library.)



Current Biology Vol 16 No 9
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April 7 was the day that brought 
public confirmation that a dead 
swan found in a Scottish fishing 
village had succumbed to the 
H5N1 avian influenza virus. The 
strain had emerged originally 
among chickens in China and 
the far East and had spread to 
and killed some of their handlers. 
After reaching various parts of 
mainland Europe, the virus had 
now arrived in Britain in the wake 
of growing concern over its 
capacity to ravage the country’s 
poultry industry. An even greater 
anxiety was that mutation or 
recombination might equip the 
agent for person-to-person 
transmission and thus spawn a 
lethal pandemic.

So was media coverage on that 
critical day marked by sensational 
headlines and panicky hyperbole? 
Scientists prone to blame 
journalists for offences of this 
sort would do well to reflect on 
what actually happened. In fact, a 
snapshot of the day’s newspaper 
columns revealed much level-
headed writing. Both ‘up-market’ 
and more popular titles sought to 
provide authoritative facts about 
the significance of the finding, 
and for the most part did so 

Mediawatch: Bernard Dixon 
looks at the differing Scottish and 
English newspaper responses to 
the first confirmed case of H5N1 
bird flu in the UK.

A flap over bird flu
very competently. Some of the 
most impressive efforts to avoid 
over-reaction were in the Scottish 
newspapers, nearest to the scene 
of the discovery, rather than in 
those published in London.

Eschewing the sort of headlines 
brandished by two especially 
colourful London-based papers, 
The Scotsman’s front page read: 
“Bird flu — Answers to the key 
questions…Leading experts 
assess the human threat and 
give practical advice.” This was 
followed by eight pages on every 
aspect of the story. In addition to 
local coverage of the situation in 
Cellardyke, Fife, where the swan 
was found, there were detailed 
accounts of the measures taken 
in the entire at-risk area and the 
reasoning behind them. A sober 
chronology of the detection of the 
H5N1 virus in various countries 
since its initial appearance in 
China in 1997 was coupled with 
an explanation by virologist John 
Oxford of the low risk to human 
health.

There was cool coverage too in 
the Aberdeen Press and Journal, 
under the page one banner “UK’s 
united front to fight bird flu scare”. 
Again, the paper presented 
a comprehensive dossier of 
well- informed material, ranging 
from wildlife issues to the pros, 
cons and feasibility of vaccination 
for both chickens and humans. 
The only fevered note was a 
report of an attack by the Scottish 
parliament’s environment minister 
most of the year kept prospectors 
at bay, there was little to regulate.

But as global warming thaws 
the ocean’s layers, oil giants, 
shipping companies and even the 
odd enterprising tourist operator 
are casting their eyes towards the 
high north.

The biggest boom could be in 
oil and gas. The US Geological 
Survey surprised some experts 
when it declared that a quarter of 
the world’s undiscovered reserves 
lay under the Arctic Ocean. As 
the ice retreats, oil companies are 
scrambling to open a new frontier.

Attempts to open up the Arctic 
national wildlife refuge in Alaska 
to drilling remain deadlocked in 
the US Congress, but several 
companies have dipped more 
than a toe in the chilly Arctic 
Ocean further north. BP Amoco 
is developing an Alaskan offshore 
oil deposit called Northstar and 
Statoil is working on a gas field 
90 miles across the Barents Sea 
from its most northerly outpost, 
Hammerfest. Called Snow White, 
the project is expected to start 
pumping liquefied natural gas to 
the US and Europe next year.

Environmental campaigners are 
viewing the creeping development 
of the Arctic with mounting 
concern. Norway announced 
last month that it will limit 
drilling in some areas to protect 

At  sea: A signature Arctic species, the 
walrus, is under growing threat from 
summer fragmentation of sea ice. (Photo: 
Daniel Cox/Photolibrary.)
fragile ecosystems. The 31-mile 
exclusion zone in the Barents Sea 
has large supplies of fish. But 
the embargo expires in 2010 and 
drilling elsewhere is being stepped 
up, with the granting of 13 gas 
and oil licences to 17 companies.

Stephanie Tumore, a climate 
campaigner with Greenpeace, 
said: “Haven’t we learnt anything? 
Why are we going looking for 
more fossil fuels when what’s 
happening in the polar regions just 
proves that it is devastating and 
we cannot continue to do that.”

The present energy crisis results 
from a sharp rise in consumption 
that has outrun a tightening supply, 
writes Peter Canby in a recent 
issue of the New York Review 
of Books. “Most of the oil in the 
United States is used for fueling 
the cars and trucks that have been 
almost entirely responsible for the 
growth in demand over the last few 
decades.”

Now, 1,000 square miles of 
Arctic tundra on Alaska’s North 
Slope is home to one of the world’s 
largest industrial complexes, with 
28 oil production plants, 4,800 
exploration and production wells, 
1,800 miles of pipes and 500 miles 
of roads. The spread of this sort 
of development around the Arctic 
raises many new fears.