STUDENT CASE STUDY—SINGH

To Drill or Not to Drill? A Dilemma in the Context of Climate Change in the Arctic

Case Study Developed for the AAC&U STIRS Program

Vandana Singh, Associate Professor of Physics, Framingham State University, Massachusetts

STUDENT CASE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Student Pre-Discussion .......................................................................................................3Prerequisite and Learning Objectives ................................................................................3Introduction ........................................................................................................................3 Narrative 1 ........................................................................................................................3 Narrative 2 ........................................................................................................................6 An Elder Tells a Story ........................................................................................................7 The Community’s Decision ..................................................................................................8 The Consultants’ Charge ...................................................................................................9Ethical Code .........................................................................................................................10Part I: The Place and the People ........................................................................................13 Iñupiaq Culture, Native Knowledge and the Changing Climate ........................................14 Alaska Native Tribes, Land Rights, and the Oil and Gas Industry ......................................16Part II: Climate Change in the Arctic ..................................................................................18 Why the Arctic is Important for Global Climate: The Ice- Albedo Feedback .....................18 Decline of Sea Ice in the Arctic .........................................................................................19 Permafrost in the Arctic....................................................................................................21 Sea Ice and Biodiversity ....................................................................................................23Part III: Oil and Gas Activity in the Arctic ...........................................................................24 Projections of Increased Activity in the Arctic ..................................................................24 Environmental Impacts of Oil and Gas Drilling in the Arctic .............................................26 Responses of Industry, Native Communities, and Environmentalists to Oil and Gas Activity Potential Impacts ....................................................................30Part IV: Renewables in Alaska ............................................................................................32 The Big Picture: Motivation for Renewables Worldwide ..................................................32 Alaska: The Case for Renewable Energy ...........................................................................34Part V: Planning for an Uncertain Future ...........................................................................36 Final Group Activity and Presentation ..............................................................................38

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Student Post-Discussion and Debriefing ...........................................................................39Notes and References .........................................................................................................39Picture Credits .................................................................................................................... 40Further Reading ..................................................................................................................40About the Author ............................................................................................................... 41

Note 1: Additional Readings and Viewings marked in green type are intended for a longer, more in-depth study. Your instructor will let you know which option to select for study.

Note 2: Please read the document “Learning with the Case Method: An Invitation to the Student” before embarking on this Case Study. Your instructor will make it available to you.

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Student Pre-Discussion: Before embarking on this case study, participate in an informal discussion guided by your instructor about what you currently know about the Arctic, the Iñupiat Eskimos of North Alaska, and about oil and gas drilling and their possible impact on the economy and the environment.

Note on Preparation: It is helpful if you read through each section of the Case Study before it is addressed in class. Before the first class, read: “Learning with the Case Method: An Invitation to the Student.” Your instructor may assign you other readings beforehand as well.

Prerequisite and Learning Objectives

Before embarking on the case study, your instructor will have introduced you to the basic science of climate change. This would include:

The Greenhouse effect on earth and the main greenhouse gases Evidence for anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change Current impacts of climate change Projected impacts of climate change under low, moderate and high emissions scenarios Global limits to carbon dioxide emissions based on a 2°C temperature rise by 2100 You will also have completed a brief introduction to the science of complex systems, which

will help you look at the climate system as well as the human interaction with it in a new way. Thus it is not enough to know about, say, sea ice and Iñupiat culture without also knowing how the two relate to one another.

The Learning Objectives of this Case Study are listed below, with broader learning goals in italics within parentheses. By the end of the case study you should be able to:

1. Summarize the essentials of climate change science, evidence and impacts, including planetary limits (be an educated citizen on a major global issue; develop the skill to identify, on the basis of evidence, a problem and its causes and effects)

2. Explain why the Arctic is disproportionately affected by global temperature rise, and what these effects are (develop evidence-based and conceptual reasoning skills)

3. Describe the multidisciplinary nature of the climate disruption scenario and its mitigation/ adaptation (develop integrative thinking skills)

4. Analyze and discuss the impact of oil and gas drilling (off-shore and land-based) on the economy, livelihood, and culture of the Iñupiat people (develop integrative thinking skills, practice evidence-based reasoning, identify factors that affect decision-making for real-world issues)

5. Explain the positions taken by indigenous communities, oil companies, government, and environmental organizations, as well as differences and ranges of opinion within each group

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(consider an issue from multiple perspectives; identify factors that affect decision-making for real-world issues)

6. Discuss how ethical issues intersect with science, technology and development (practice ethical thinking and integrative thinking)

7. Express complex relationships through the use of concept maps, and employ these in group discussions and brainstorming sessions (practice complex or systems thinking)

8. Distinguish between reductionist thinking and systems thinking through explanations and examples (practice complex or systems thinking)

9. Create possible future scenarios of human societies in the context of climate change, based on current evidence, trends, and imaginative extrapolations of new social and technological developments (learn how humans can adapt in the face of change, but also how we can be change-makers; practice complex or systems thinking)

INTRODUCTIONThrough the following two fact-based but fictional Narratives, we travel to a remote village of 800 people, mostly Iñupiat Eskimos, on the North Slope of Alaska, at the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

Narrative 1: A Very Important Meeting

There was whiteness everywhere. Pani’s breath froze into little clouds of ice crystals as she stepped out the door and down the steps. There was the white road, on the white background, and the four-wheeler turning into the small driveway. A grinning, fur-lined face; Siki waved, slowed down, and she leaped up beside him. She felt a thrill of pride. Her first parka, made of caribou skin, sown just like her grandmother had taught her, now kept her brother warm.

“They’ve cut the trails,” he shouted over the wind. “We go whaling as soon as the weather cooperates.”

“It’s the earliest we’ve ever been able to go whaling,” Pani said, echoing her grandmother’s words that morning. “Only a few years ago we would have to wait until May, and now it’s barely April.”

“Yes, yes, climate change, I know,” Siki said. There was something so positive about Siki, so cheerful, that Pani felt her spirits lift. “The scientists that came last week – they’ve been talking to the elders. Never in ancestral memory has the sea ice melted this early in the year … but we may be able to catch more whales this way. The big towns always get more whales than we do, but now that the ice is going so fast…”

“Maybe we’ll get more whales this year,” Pani said. “Lots of meat and muktuk for everyone.”

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They were both silent, remembering the hard times five years ago that took their father from them. He had been one of the best, most experienced whalers in the settlement. When the ice took him, that summer the community had caught no whales. Other towns had brought whale meat to share.

Sea ice was a dangerous thing. There was less and less of thick, multi-year ice every year. Because the ice was thinner, it was more dangerous to work on it. Out on the ice, if you didn’t pay attention to the smallest detail, you could lose your life. The wind or currents might change, causing a sheet of sea ice to break off shore and float away into the Arctic ocean. Or, as had happened with their father, the ice could be driven shorewards, cracking, piling up, roaring, like a horizontal avalanche. Their father had been making sure everyone got to safety the moment the winds changed, but it had been too late for him. The next thing anyone knew, the ice was on the move, and he was pulled under into the freezing water. There was no chance of rescue, given how fast the ice was moving.

Pani and Siki had been in the little community school when the news came.

Now Pani pulled her snow goggles on – even on a cloudy day it was bright enough to risk snow blindness. The silhouette of the school building arose before them. Other four-wheelers and a couple of battered trucks were already pulled up. The meeting would be well attended.

As they walked up to the doorway, they heard voices. Voices edged with anger, frustration, mingled with the quieter ones. They could tell that this would not be an easy or relaxed discussion. Change had come to their community with the thinning of the sea ice. Just last week the oil company Fossil Pro had discovered a vast oil reserve a few miles out to sea. As required, they had come to let the community know two days ago. With so much of the ice gone, it was easier to drill than it had ever been. The company, FossilPro, also wanted to drill on Iñupiat land for the rich supply of natural gas and oil under the tundra. The community had to decide whether to oppose the prospect of off-shore drilling or not. They also had to decide how to react to the proposal to drill on their land. Already the tiny new power plant took natural gas from beneath the ground and used it to generate electricity that kept the houses warm. It was so wonderful to have warm homes and stoves to cook with. But with the lease money the village could do so much more! They could expand the school building, get a youth center started, do the kinds of things that the towns to their east were able to do with their oil lease money. The youth center was Pani’s dream. In the winters, when there would be near-darkness for twenty-four hours, there was little for young people to do. They got restless and depressed. The old ways were disappearing, and there were not enough new ideas to keep the young occupied. Pani had been to those places on the Arctic North Slope where oil and gas money had transformed the economies. She had spent two years in a college there. Coming back to teach,

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she had been struck by how difficult life was in the village where she had grown up. Certainly money from oil would make things easier.

But what about the whales? Whaling was part of Iñupiat identity, part of their attachment to the land they loved. Seismic testing, some people said, had already driven whales away from the shore. Wouldn’t drilling and the increased activity on the water make things even worse?

Narrative 2: Extracts from Letters to the Editor in the Arctic Voice, the village newsletter [1]

I wish to state that the people excited about oil development are forgetting some important things. My father is an elder, and I am speaking for him as well as myself. The old ways are going, my own children don’t speak Iñupiaq, and we are forgetting words that stand for important things. If we don’t put up a fight against the off-shore oil drilling by FossilPro, we stand to lose one of the most important things for our culture: whaling. Iñupiat people have been whaling for thousands of years. The whales come to us, my father says, and we only take what we need. I have already seen how oil exploration disturbs the whales – seismic testing deafens them, so they move far away from where we can hunt them. They do not come to us in the numbers they used to. And what if there is an oil spill? What will happen to the fish we catch and the seals we hunt?

We should consider as a community what is important to us. Oppose offshore drilling. About drilling on land, well, our people to the east allow it. And they are doing well, so perhaps there is no harm in supporting that. But we must be careful. People who come here to make money off our resources don’t always tell us the truth. They only tell us how great everything will be. We should discuss with other villages and towns and find out for ourselves.

―John A.

I have to say I don’t agree with my friend John. We were raised together. We have gone on whaling expeditions for as long as I remember. Whaling is important to all of us. But our community is not prospering. We need jobs, and a bigger school. Look at the towns and villages to our east. How much better they are! They are preserving our culture because they have money to build a heritage center where children can learn Iñupiaq. I think we should give a chance to both off-shore and on-shore. There are new technologies that can prevent oil spills. We can make a safe zone for whales where no drilling is allowed. We can’t stay stuck in the past. I am so glad I don’t have to live like my grandfather, making whalebone houses, burning seal oil, which is not good for the lungs. We are better off with modern conveniences. As long as we safeguard our interests and don’t let anyone cheat us, we should do very well with both on-shore and off-shore oil and gas drilling. Our communities in the East are ready to help.

―Victor G.

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I am very disappointed with the level of discussion on this issue. Climate change is happening all over the world, and people are talking about moving away from an oil economy. How can we support the same thing that is destroying us? The ice is melting. Will the whales stay, or move away, or die out? Some people in the lower 48 are making their towns and universities divest their funds from oil, coal and gas. There is an investment company that has come up with a fossil-fuel free fund. What if the governments agree to put a limit on how much fossil fuel can be burned? That is good for the earth, but if we set up our economy to depend on oil and gas, we won’t benefit economically once the crash comes. There are so many reasons to say no to both kinds of drilling. So we should think about the earth as a whole, and not be participants in the same thing that is destroying the world.

―Sarah S.

I am very proud of Sarah for graduating from college and coming back to live in the community. But sometimes college education is not enough. Some of us have responsibilities to the community first, before we can make speeches about the world. It is true that fossil fuel burning has caused climate change, and that is making the sea ice melt earlier every year. We have very little multi-year ice, and the conditions are dangerous. But it is not us who created the problem of climate change. The people who caused it should fix it. Let them shift to renewables, in the Lower 48, and in Europe -- but they should let us have our chance. We have to catch up to the same standard of living. It is not fair to ask us to make sacrifices, especially when our ancestors suffered so much. We have fought for the right to govern ourselves, to have ownership of our land. There will always be a demand for oil and gas, because they are the cleanest burning fossil fuels. Why shouldn’t we benefit from it?

―Bob L.

An Elder Tells a Story [2]

One day an avingaq decided to venture outside his hole and assess the rest of the world. When he stood up on his hind legs, lo and behold, to his surprise, he was able to reach the heavens. When he reached down, he felt the ground. When he reached in all directions, he was able to touch the limits of the world. He concluded that he was the largest person on the face of the earth.

In reality, the poor mouse had surfaced from his hole in the ground into an old Iñupiaq boot sole turned upside down. The top of his heaven was the sole of the atungak and the outer limits of his world were the sides of the atungak.

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When I think of this story, I am mindful that I should consider all facets of a situation before I make any conclusions. I should not limit myself to what is around me, but I should explore and search for other information, lest I be like the poor mouse.

The Community’s Decision

There has been a lot of talk about the prospect of offshore and onshore drilling for oil and gas in our area. There has been much disagreement and debate. Our elders remind us that we must look at the situation in its fullness before we can make a good decision. They have come together to remind us how we must act in the face of this challenge. We will be meeting with community members in other towns on the North Slope so that we can learn from their experience. Meanwhile our village has agreed to hire independent consultants to gather information that will help us make the right choice for ourselves.

As a community we all agree that:

Our language and traditions, especially whaling and hunting, are important to us. Without these things we lose our identity.

It is also true that our lives have some challenges. We have one general store that gets supplies by small planes once in two weeks. Everything is expensive, from gas to school supplies. The school and the clinic both need to expand. Our young people need jobs, and a youth center, and ways to contribute to the community.

We must find the right balance between modern and traditional life. We need both. But nobody has a right to tell us which combination is better. It is something only we as a community have a right to decide.

It is important to think about the needs of our community first. But we Iñupiat have always thought about more than what is immediately in front of us. We know that when the land ice melts into the sea it causes sea level rise as far away as the tropics. Some Pacific islanders have made a home in neighboring communities and they have told us this, and we have seen it in the news. We also know that we can’t afford to think only about tomorrow, because the world is changing very fast. We must know the consequences of our actions and the actions of others further into the future, so we can safeguard and prepare our children and grandchildren.

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We see before us four options. We list them below, along with potential benefits and concerns. Thus below we include voices of all those in the community who have spoken.

Option Potential Community Benefits

Community Concerns

Support off-shore and on-shore drilling

Highest economic gains Off-shore: disturbs and harms whales (some say use better technology and create whale-safe zones)

On-shore: possibility of pipeline spills?

Threat to traditions and culture from these, plus from influx of strangers from outside

Oil economy showing signs of slowdown – what if there is crash?

Oppose off-shore but support on-shore drilling

Reduced but still substantial gains; no threat to whales and whaling tradition

Same as above except for concerns about whaling. Many people are in support of this option.

Support off-shore but oppose on-shore drilling

Reduced gains might be offset by deals with FossilPro for jobs and dividends

There will be no tax income from off-shore drilling, plus there will be danger to our habitat and whaling tradition;

Oppose both off-shore and on-shore drilling and come up with alternatives

Find viable model of sustainable development; safeguard our land and animals and traditions; show the way for other communities. We must be able to imagine alternatives before they can become real.

How will we bring prosperity to our community? We need funds now; we can’t wait for some of the things we need. Our youth are at risk. Without money from oil and gas, our community will suffer, and then how will we preserve our traditions? Not all locations are suitable for wind, or tidal energy. Oil and gas are the only things we have that other people want.

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The Consultants’ Charge

You, the students, will serve as consultants to the community. The community has charged the consultants with the following:

1. Develop scenarios based on different climate change projections (from ‘business as usual’ to ‘rapid shift to green energy and better land-use’). What will the conditions be in the North Slope of Alaska in 2030? In 2100? We need information about surface temperature, sea ice changes in thickness and extent, and precipitation. We need to know the impacts of these changes on our environment.

2. Based on the above scenarios, collect information on potential benefits and risks for each option, both short-term and long-term.

3. Specifically we need to know: a) What are the estimated oil and gas reserves on shore and off-shore in the Alaskan

Arctic Coast? b) What are the risks from oil and gas activity, especially oil spills? What about risks

from increased shipping traffic? c) What are the risks to whales and other marine life from oil and gas drilling? d) What are the risks from oil spills on land, especially given that permafrost is melting? e) What are the indications of growth (or not) for the fossil fuel industry that might

affect us economically? f) What kind of alternative energy would work for us? g) Is it possible to build a sustainable economy for our community that is fossil-fuel-

free?

Keep in mind this charge as you read through the background information presented in the next sections.

Important Note: The community does not have the final say in decisions involving land or sea that it does not own. Thus if off-shore drilling is deemed feasible and permissible by authorities, the community will be consulted and informed, but the decision to drill might be made even if the community opposes it. However in recent years Native voices in Alaska have become more powerful and their opinions are taken more seriously.

Ethical Code of Conduct for Student Consultants

1. To take care to do no harm. 2. To take our responsibilities seriously, knowing that our recommendations will have

consequences

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3. To promote accuracy, truthfulness, completeness and transparency in our work, and in presenting our work to the community

4. To be aware of our own biases, personal interests, ignorance, prejudices and worldviews, and to address these so that they do not interfere with our charge to the community

5. To respect the inherent worth and dignity of all people with whom we work, and in particular to respect the community’s right to self-determination.

Introductory Discussion

a) What is the assignment asking you, the students, to investigate? Summarize in your own words.

b) Why did the Elder tell the story about the avingaq? c) Discuss the ways in which the scenario introduced above is relevant, and perhaps

even crucial, to non-Native peoples around the world. Include an example of a similar situation faced by a non-Native community.

d) Discuss the Ethical Code of Conduct. Why is it necessary? What are the possible violations of the code, and how do we prevent these?

e) In this case study you have to gather information to answer the community’s questions. Discuss the kinds of knowledge required to answer these questions. Which are conceptual, and which are likely to involve quantitative reasoning? Which ones have to do with cultural needs and ethics? Which questions might have clearer answers than others? Some answers might be fairly exact, although with uncertainties. Others might be speculative. See if you can distinguish between these. For example, to fully answer question 3 f) above would require a knowledge of the cultural needs of the people, as well as the geography of their land and its suitability (or not) to various kinds of alternative energy. It would also therefore require some conceptual scientific understanding of different kinds of renewable energy sources. In order to fully answer this question, however, the consultants should also provide the community with some data on current use of alternative energy in the Alaskan North Slope. This would be quantitative information.

f) Your instructor will introduce you to the idea of concept mapping. Concept maps are diagrams that show how different aspects of a topic are related. They help us to think about different aspects of a situation as well as the relationships between them, thus enabling us to appreciate the complex nature of the case study. They can also give us a bird’s eye or big-picture view of a complex problem or issue. Depending on the question you are asking, there can be multiple ways to construct useful concept maps.

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A Starting point for a Concept-Mapping Exercise – after your instructor has introduced and motivated the idea of a concept map, and upon completing an example or two, you will have a chance to begin to create one or more such maps for this case study. Begin by creating bubbles of items as they occur to you when you reflect on the Case Study. A possible starting point has been suggested below. This exercise may best be done with sticky notes on a whiteboard. At different points during this case study, you will move the sticky notes around, re-phrase them if needed, and use a dry-erase marker to add linking words and arrows between items. You will add more items as they occur to you. Concept maps help us see the inter-relationships between various aspects of a question or problem, and how it might fit into a bigger picture. Concept mapping helps develop higher-level thinking skills. Note: the map below is incomplete and only provides one possible starting point.

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Oil and gas drilling in the

Arctic

Iñupiat cultural identity/ survival

Economic prosperity

can lead to

Whaling/ subsistence

hunting

is crucial for might threaten

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PART 1: THE PLACE AND THE PEOPLE

We begin with a short reading that will give us a general picture of the Arctic Circle Native Communities and the issues that confront them.

READ: http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/

Figure 1. Indigenous Peoples and Languages Figure 2. North Slope of Alaska and National of Alaska Petroleum Reserve

For the purpose of this case-study we consider an imaginary community of 500 Iñupiat people modeled on similar communities in the region. Figure 1 shows the native communities of Alaska organized by language group. The Iñupiat people, whose language is Iñupiaq, occupy the pale blue-colored, northernmost region at the edge of the Arctic Ocean. The part of the region we are concerned with is the North Slope Borough.

We locate our imaginary community outside the Western edge of the National Petroleum Reserve, on the coast of the Chukchi Sea of the Arctic Ocean, between Wainwright and Point Lay. See Notes and References [3]. Mark its position on Figure 2.

The map on the next page is from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is part of the U.S. Government’s Department of the Interior. BOEM receives requests from oil companies to explore for oil and gas, and to drill, when these resources are found. Companies must take many steps before drilling can actually start; throughout the process they must also keep local communities informed. Locate and mark the position of our fictional community on the BOEM map.

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Figure 3. Oil lease areas map from BOEM

Iñupiaq Culture, Native Knowledge and the Changing Climate

In this section we learn about the culture of the Iñupiat Eskimos of the North Slope of Alaska, and in particular, understand the importance of the subsistence hunting tradition. Note: “Iñupiat” refers to the people and is plural; “Iñupiaq” is the singular and is the name of the language, as well as an adjective (e. g. “Germans” and “German”). “Iñupiat” means “people,” or more specifically, “real people” or “our people.”

READ: http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/big-ideas/the-people-of-the-arctic/the-Iñupiaq-people-of-barrow-alaska/

The cultural and spiritual relationship between many Native cultures and their traditional lands (and oceans, for coastal people) is important, and despite modern influences this relationship remains crucial to their well-being. Thus threat of loss of ancestral land, including sea ice in the case of the Iñupiat, is deeply felt.

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Figure 4. The Iceberg Analogy for Indigenous knowledge. Most people outside indigenous cultures only recognize a few surface aspects of these cultures.

As an example of the close relationship between the Iñupiat and their environment, consider the importance of the whaling tradition. In this PBS Learning Media video, we learn from a whaling captain in Barrow what whales and whaling mean to the Iñupiat:

VIEW: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/echo07.sci.life.coast.eskimo/Inupiaq-whale-hunt/

Iñupiaq culture confers great respect on the community elders. Elders hold traditional knowledge carried down from thousands of years and many generations and pass it on to the community. Here is one Iñupiat Elder recalling her debt to her elders in the context of traveling across the sea ice.

Traveling like a nomad is so hard for anyone, but our subsistence livelihoods meant we had delicious food to keep healthy. This is crucial in the Arctic. I respect our Elders so much that I get a lump in my throat when I think about them. Even children had to do their share of the work to have the Elders rest their weary bodies… I would never exchange my life experience for the Western world ways. My very body has been fed wild game, love, and the spiritual ways passed on by our beloved Elders. [4]

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On the website below, read the section titled Traditional Knowledge Systems in the Arctic.

READ SELECTED PORTION: http://www.nativescience.org/html/traditional_knowledge.html

Traditional knowledge includes highly detailed observational skills, the ability to recognize patterns and rhythms in nature, and an intimate knowledge of the connections between people, animals, the land and the climate. Native knowledge and Western science are being increasingly recognized as important complementary systems of knowing that can enrich our understanding of the changing climate. Read the Abstract, Introduction and Section 2 of the article “Indigenous Frameworks for Observing and Responding to Changes in Climate in Alaska.”

READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://www.lter.uaf.edu/pdf/1733_Cochran_Huntington_2013.pdf

Discussion 1:

a) What is the historical background of the Iñupiat in Barrow, Alaska? b) What did you learn about attitudes and practices that are important to the culture of

the Iñupiat? c) How did contact with the outside world change the culture of the Iñupiat? What

cultural attitudes and traditions remain important today? d) What did you learn from the video about the relationship between the Iñupiat and the

bowhead whale? What aspects of the Iñupiat cooperative tradition were apparent in this video?

e) “When an elder dies, a library burns.” Explain this statement in the context of traditional knowledge among the Iñupiat.

f) In what ways does Native traditional knowledge differ from formal Western ways of knowing (such as, say, a typical college education)?

Alaska Native Tribes, Land Rights and the Oil and Gas Industry

How do the Alaska Native tribes relate to the lands on which they live, economically and politically? That relationship must be seen against the backdrop of oil and gas development in the state. Below is a brief history.

Alaska was a part of Russia until its sale to the United States in 1867. In 1958 Alaska was granted statehood and the U.S. Congress acknowledged the rights of Native peoples to their lands. However these land rights were in constant jeopardy due to the state’s power to take over land from the public domain for its own use. After the discovery of oil in Alaska in 1957, when the potential for oil production became reality, the issue of Native rights to their land intensified the conflict. In 1966 over 250 leaders of various Native and American Indian groups

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came together, overcoming mutual differences to demand a freeze on federal land transfers until the issue of Native rights was settled. Thus the Alaska Federation of Natives was born.

The struggle for the land rights of Alaska’s Natives has a complex and convoluted history. Among the Native leaders were different opinions about oil, development, and land rights. Some groups pushed for Native lands to be held in trust by the Federal government and managed by local tribal governments as per the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, a Federal government ruling. Others were in favor of a corporate model that would bring Natives into the mainstream of economic development. Ultimately, conflict and compromise resulted in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. All Native land claims to most of Alaska were given up in exchange for about one-ninth of the state’s land and compensation from the Federal treasury and oil revenue sharing. Twelve regional Native corporations were created as part of the settlement. Thus the socioeconomic relationship of the Native to the land changed – rather than being co-owners of shared land, Natives became shareholders of corporate land.

In the Alaskan North Slope, currently three civic and economic entities are involved. First, the North Slope Borough, which is a county of the state of Alaska governing much of the North Slope of Alaska and is led by a Mayor. Its responsibilities include community services, planning and permits, a wildlife department for advocacy and research, and revenue, including oil revenue. Second, the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC), which is one of the aforementioned twelve regional Native Corporations, in which Natives are shareholders and receive dividends. The ASRC is one of the highest-revenue Alaska-owned businesses; it owns title to 5 million acres of land that enables it to gain funds from leases to oil companies, has numerous subsidiaries, and also makes investments like any other corporation. Third, the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS), which is the regional tribal government under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) (Federal) of 1934; it came under the umbrella of the IRA in 1971. Its mission includes conservation of tribal land and resources, support of subsistence hunting and environmental issues, and management of justice systems.

READ: http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/SEEJ/Landclaims/ancsa1.html and references therein.

Discussion 2:

a) What dilemmas did the Iñupiat have to face during their struggle for land rights? How did their socioeconomic relationship to the land change after 1971? b) What are the roles and functions of the North Slope Borough, the ASRC and the ICAS?

How have the oil and gas industry affected the economy of the Iñupiat? Since there is a lot of overlap between the National Petroleum Reserve and the North Slope Iñupiat community, there has been substantial development of land-based oil and gas resources, particularly in the

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area of Prudhoe Bay, which is America’s largest oil field. You can get an idea of the extent and pace of development through a series of maps on this site:

EXAMINE: http://www.north-slope.org/departments/wildlife-management/other-topics-of-interest/oil-and-gas-activity/history-oil-development-alaskan-arctic

Discussion 3:

a) What is the time range of the information on the site? b) What are the maps showing? c) What do you conclude from the maps?

The Alaska Oil and Gas Association, a trade association of oil companies working in Alaska, has the following information about how oil and gas activity has contributed to the economies of the North Slope Borough.

READ: http://www.aoga.org/facts-and-figures/economic-impact-reports/2011-north-slope-borough

Discussion 4:

a) How many jobs were generated by the oil and gas industry among North Slope Borough residents in 2011?

b) What was the total annual payroll for these residents, and where did most of the money come from?

c) What were the oil-related property taxes in 2010, and what percent of the Borough’s total property tax did these represent?

PART II: CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE ARCTIC

Why the Arctic is Important for Global Climate: The Ice-Albedo Feedback

The Northern polar ice cap consists entirely of ice floating in the Arctic Ocean. Since ice and snow have a high reflectivity or albedo, much of the sun’s radiation that falls on it is reflected right back into space and very little is absorbed. Because of this, the polar ice has a cooling effect on Earth’s average global surface temperature.

When we burn fossil fuels, we increase the amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere, which warms the land and the oceans. This causes sea ice to melt. The albedo of the darker sea water is much lower than that of sea ice. Thus less of the sun’s radiation is reflected back into space, and more is absorbed, causing more warming. Greater warming causes more ice to

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melt, which results in a repeat of the above cycle, so that sea ice melts faster and faster, and temperatures rise faster too. This is known as the ice-albedo feedback [5]. From your survey of complex systems, you will recognize that this is an example of a positive feedback loop.

The Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the rest of the globe [6]. This Arctic Amplification is due to positive feedback loops like the ice-albedo feedback. Since the Arctic is a crucial moderator of Earth’s climate, the melting of sea ice is likely to have profound consequences for global climate as a whole, as well as for local people and animals.

Draw a clear, labeled diagram illustrating the ice-albedo feedback.

Decline of Sea Ice in the Arctic

First you should understand some ice terminology [7]:

Sea ice is frozen sea water. When salt water freezes, it forms ice crystals that float up to the ocean’s surface and collect there, hardening into ice sheets. The ice expels salt into microscopic brine channels when it freezes. (For a photograph of what brine channels look like, and further reading, see here: http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/characteristics/brine_salinity.html).

Sea ice may be free-floating, or it may be grounded, usually in shallow areas near the shore. Shorefast or landfast ice is sea ice that has been pushed up against the shore due to wind and currents and has attached itself to the ground.

Sea ice chunks pushed against each other due to the action of wind and water form pressure ridges. Multi-year ice is ice that has not melted during the summer and has thus lasted more than a year. It usually forms higher ridges, and because it has had a chance to release more brine from its brine channels due to partial summer melting, it is a good source of fresh water for local communities, especially when they are in whaling camp.

First year ice is sea ice that has formed less than a year ago. It tends to be thinner and more prone to being broken up by ocean currents and wind.

Sea ice starts forming in the fall, and melts back in the summer. The kinds of measurements scientists are interested in making include sea ice extent (defined as 15% or more ice cover), and sea ice thickness, volume and age.

Figure 4 shows the record low of sea ice extent in summer 2012. The yellow line is the average minimum extent over the past 30 years. However ice extent for one year does not give us an idea of the trend. To see the trend, view the following website and click the buttons at the bottom of the pictures to see how summer and spring sea ice extent has changed through the years.

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VIEW: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php.

Figure 4. Arctic Sea Ice extent, September 2012

Discussion 5:

a) In which season, summer or spring, has there been more change in the sea ice extent? b) The text says that “Half of the extents over the time period were larger than the line,

and half were smaller,” but concludes that there is an overall decline in Arctic sea ice. How might one reach this conclusion?

c) There are natural cycles at work in the Arctic. What does this website say about the role of natural variability in the decline of sea ice?

The graph below is another way to see the trend. The colored lines represent sea ice extent predictions from climate models assuming different emissions scenarios. The black line represents actual data. Notice that both lines indicate a downward trend. However, observed decrease in sea ice extent is happening faster than models predict.

Figure 5. Sea Ice Extent, climate models compared to observations

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Sea ice also affects ocean circulation but this and other factors will not be considered in this case study.

VIEW: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/echo07.sci.life.coast.climate/arctic-climate-perspectives/

OPTIONAL: Read section 3 of the article “Indigenous Frameworks for Observing and responding to Climate Change in Alaska.”

READ: http://www.lter.uaf.edu/pdf/1733_Cochran_Huntington_2013.pdf

Discussion 6:

a) What are some of the changes in the environment as observed by the Iñupiat in the video?

b) Discuss the impact that these changes are having on Iñupiat life and culture.

Permafrost in the Arctic:

Permafrost is defined as ground (rock, soil, sediment, ice, organic material) that stays below 0°C for two years or more. The map below shows permafrost in the Arctic (purple regions).

Figure 6. Arctic Permafrost map

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This short video from NASA explains why melting permafrost is a problem for climate change, and introduces a NASA project called CARVE:

VIEW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZSM8GcmJKg

Discussion 7:

a) How much of the earth’s organic carbon (i.e. carbon from the remains of once-living organisms) is stored in the Arctic permafrost? What proportion of the world’s total organic carbon does this represent?

b) Discuss this statement in the video: “Looking at the Arctic is like looking at a canary in a coal mine.”

c) Did you recognize another positive feedback loop in the video? Draw and explain. d) What is the purpose of the CARVE program?

[Note: OPTIONAL – the text of the video is here http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20130610.html#.U3vmArR8SSp].

[OPTIONAL: Climate change is a complex phenomenon. Could it be that the greening of the Arctic tundra due to warmer temperatures could offset the carbon released by warming permafrost? (Plants absorb carbon dioxide). Preliminary studies indicate that will not be the case. http://www.esajournals.org/doi/full/10.1890/13-0602.1 ]

Melting permafrost has additional impact – subsidence, or sinking of land/ sea bed. This can affect the integrity of buildings, pipelines, and roads.

Look at Table 1 in this essay, “Thaw Settlement Related to Permafrost Degradation”, and read the last short paragraphs following the table.

EXAMINE AND READ: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_romanovsky.html

On a related page you can see some photographs; view in particular those labeled “Impact”.

VIEW: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/gallery_permafrost.html.

Discussion 8:

a) What is the permafrost temperature trend in the period 1983-2003 along the route of the Trans-Alaska pipeline? What is the permafrost temperature trend in Barrow in the time range 1950-2003? Compare with what you learned in the NASA video about the CARVE program.

b) Describe some of the impacts on buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure due to melting permafrost.

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Thawing of permafrost, whether from the land or the sea bed, also releases methane, a greenhouse gas more than 20 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat. Scientists do not agree on the significance of methane release since it stays in the atmosphere only about ten years, oxidizing to form carbon dioxide and water. However some scientists think that methane outgassing is significant and may become a major problem. Research is ongoing, for instance at the University of Alaska’s International Arctic Research Center. This case study does not consider the potential effects of methane outgassing, although this may be a concern as more research is done. [8]

OPTIONAL: See here for a news release on the work of Dr. Natalia Shakhova and colleagues at the University of Fairbanks: http://uafcornerstone.net/esas2013/ and here for the abstract of their 2010 paper in the journal Science: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1246.abstract. Also useful is a somewhat technical but accessible post in RealClimate, a blog by a group of well-known climate scientists. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/01/an-arctic-methane-worst-case-scenario/.

Sea Ice and Biodiversity

Sea ice is important not only for climate dynamics, but also for life in the Arctic Ocean. Despite extremely cold temperatures, the Arctic is teeming with life.

The brine channels inside the sea ice host a complex micro-ecosystem. The undersurface of the sea ice is greenish-brown with ice algae. Ice algae and phytoplankton are the basis of the Arctic food web. You can see ice algae in this video clip, in which a camera is lowered into a hole through the ice layer.

VIEW: http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2013/05/19/what-lies-beneath-arctic-ice/

Here is an animation of the Arctic food web from the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

VIEW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zhbEXBT0WE&list=UUrFLBwtB98DaY01b_NY6c8A

Examine the diagram of the Arctic Food Web from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, where you can click on each animal to learn more about it.

EXAMINE: http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/arctic/ecosystem.html

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Here is an essay by two oceanographers, Christopher Krembs and Jody Deming, at the NOAA site. Please read paragraphs 5, 6, 7. OPTIONAL: Read the full article.

READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_krembsdeming.html

Discussion 9:

a) Draw a picture of the Arctic food web and explain how it works. b) How is the life of a polar bear dependent on the existence of sea ice? c) How does sea ice melt in the summer contribute to the ecosystem? d) What is the importance of sea ice in the winter?

Figure 7 is a 2011 map from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, is based on satellite tracking data, and shows the range of the bowhead whale around Alaska. Iñupiat Eskimo people hunt the bowhead according to a quota system set by the International Whaling Commission. The bowhead, too, feed on plankton – they are baleen whales. Instead of teeth they have fringes of a material called baleen that serves as a filter, capturing millions of tiny crustaceans.

Figure 7. Bowhead Whale Range

[OPTIONAL: Detailed information about bowhead whale subsistence hunting is available from this site from the North Slope Borough. http://www.north-slope.org/departments/wildlife-management/studies-and-research-projects/bowhead-whales/bowhead-whale-subsistence-harvest-research].

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PART III: OIL AND GAS ACTIVITY IN THE ARCTIC

Projections of Increased Activity in the Arctic

As sea ice retreats, the Arctic is expected to become more navigable. Although it will remain a harsh and difficult environment for a long time – due to storms, the treacherous ice pack, and the extreme cold – the retreat of the ice is already making it possible to look for and drill for fossil fuels on the Arctic sea bed. The picture below shows Russia’s Polar Star, an oil rig that commenced production in the winter of 2013.

Figure 8: Oil Drilling Rig Polar Star in Russian Arctic Ocean

The United States Geological Survey, released a one-page report in 2008 on the potential for oil and natural gas extraction in the Arctic Circle.

READ: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1980#.U3rV0bR8SSo

Discussion 10:

a) How much technically recoverable oil is estimated to exist within the Arctic Circle? How much natural gas and natural gas liquids might be recoverable?

b) Of the world’s estimated undiscovered, technically recoverable resources, what percent does the Arctic estimated reserve comprise, for oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids?

c) Of the estimated Arctic resources, what percentage is expected to come from the ocean?

The map below (from 2006) shows (in pink shading) the oil and gas reserves projected and available, that will become more accessible as the Arctic ice melts. Sites for oil production, gas production and mining (green, red circles and blue squares respectively) are also shown.

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Figure 9. Projected and Available Oil and Gas Reserves in the Arctic

The melting of the ice cap is also expected to allow the Arctic to become more navigable. The map shows the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage (Northern Sea Route). In 2007, for the first time in human history, the Northwest Passage was free of ice in a single summer, allowing ships to sail through.

Figure 10. Major Arctic Sea Routes

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To understand some of the incentives behind oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, read this article in Oil and Gas Journal, a major publication of the Petroleum industry.

READ: http://www.ogj.com/articles/2013/07/energy-consumption-to-escalate.html

Discussion 11:

a) What is motivating the drive to find new fossil fuel reserves? b) What does ‘prosperity’ mean? Is the meaning of the word different for different

societies, or is there one global definition? Is prosperity always material, or does it include other aspects of living well? Note: this is a preliminary discussion that will be revisited later on.

c) From what you know about global climate disruption, discuss what might be the effect of continued fossil fuel combustion.

d) Examine this statement: “Fossil fuel burning is the major contributor to global climate disruption, which causes Arctic sea ice to melt, which allows more fossil fuels to be accessible for more burning…” Can you draw this process? What familiar aspect of complex systems does it remind you of? Name it.

Environmental Impacts of Oil and Gas Drilling in the Arctic

Your client, the community that has hired you, depends on its environment for cultural and physical sustenance. We therefore examine two key potential threats to the Arctic environment from oil and gas drilling.

a) Anthropogenic noise due to oil exploration, drilling and increased shipping trafficb) Oil spills

To understand whether and how noise pollution might affect whales, we first recognize that whales communicate with each other through sound. Sight and smell are not reliable senses in the water over long distances, and since the speed of sound in water is greater than that in air, it makes sense that whales communicate acoustically. As complex, intelligent, social mammals, their communications are likely to be important to their survival.

At the site below, you can hear the vocalizations of the bowhead whale, and compare that to anthropogenic (human-caused) sound sources.

LISTEN: http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2013/impact-of-manmade-noise-on-arctic-marine-mammals

Anthropogenic noise comes from many sources: air guns used for mapping the sea floor produce loud, low frequency sound blasts; exploration drill ships and oil drilling platforms produce continuous, low frequency sounds; and propellers of large ships and tankers add to the noise pollution under water. Studies have been done on the effects of these sounds on whales

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since the 1980s and are summarized in a report written by Kate Stafford, Principal Oceanographer at the Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington in Seattle.

Read the section “When Does Sound Become Noise,” starting on Page 8.

Next, look at Figure 1 on page 11 that shows various sources of anthropogenic sound in the marine environment, and also at Figure 2 on page 13, which shows the frequency overlap between whale vocalizations and anthropogenic noise.

Finally, read the section “How Does Anthropogenic Noise Affect Marine Mammals?” starting on page 12.

READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/Imported-and-Legacy/oceans_north_legacy/attachments/arcticnoise_final_web_1.pdf?la=en

Discussion 12:

a) What are some of the difficulties, uncertainties and unknowns about the effect of anthropogenic noise on whales?

b) What do studies show so far about how whales are impacted by oil and gas exploration and increased shipping traffic?

c) Look once more at the maps of the Northwest Passage, the projected oil and gas reserves of the Arctic and the range of the bowhead whale in Alaska, presented in previous pages. Is there an overlap? Is the region where our hypothetical community exists impacted?

Now we consider the second potential environmental hazard in the Arctic: Oil Spills

What are the possibilities for an oil spill in the Arctic? What effect might an oil spill have in such a cold environment? Before investigating these questions, we first look at the worldwide records for accidental oil spills from different sources.

The joint report (2012) from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, both of the US Department of Interior, is below. “Update of Occurrence Rates for Offshore Oil Spills:”

READ Abstract: http://www.boem.gov/uploadedFiles/BOEM/Environmental_Stewardship/Environmental_Assessment/Oil_Spill_Modeling/AndersonMayesLabelle2012.pdf

Note that 1 barrel of oil (bbl) = 42 U.S. gallons, and that a Bbbl is one billion (1 x 109) bbl. A spill of greater than 1000 bbl is considered ‘large.’

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Discussion 13:

a) What are the different sources of accidental oil spills considered in this report? b) What is the trend for spills greater than 1000 bbl from U.S. Outer Continental Shelf

platforms? c) What is the trend for spills greater than 10,000 bbl from U.S. Outer Continental Shelf

(OCS) platforms?d) How do the trends for the last 15 years compare with the overall trend? e) Summarize trends for OCS pipelines and tankers. What regulatory measure may have

contributed to the change in tanker spill rates over the past 15 years? f) Suppose that the number of oil spills per year (instead of per Bbbl) increased, but at the same time the volume of barrels handled increased disproportionately. What would happen to the occurrence rate as defined in this report? Comment on how and under what circumstances the “number of oil spills per Bbbl handled” is useful as a unit or measure, and when it is not.

Now moving specifically to the Arctic Ocean, read this short report from the National Ocean Service of NOAA: Preparing for Oil Spills in the Future Arctic, and an article from the journal Science, from April, 2013.

READ: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/features/jun09/arctic.html and also an article from the journal Science, from April, 2013.

READ: http://news.sciencemag.org/earth/2014/04/panel-says-u.s.-not-ready-inevitable-arctic-oil-spill

Discussion 14:

a) Why do you think these reports talk about the increasing likelihood (“inevitable”) of an oil spill in the Arctic? If the BOEM-BSEE report Abstract shows declining trends for worldwide and US (non-Arctic) oil spill occurrence rates, why is there concern about an oil spill in the Arctic?

b) What did you learn from these reports about a) the challenges of oil activity in the Arctic, including challenges involving rescue operations, and b) concerns about impact of oil in the cold waters of the Arctic?

This news report describes the grounding of Shell’s Kulluk Oil Drilling rig near Kodiak island in southern Alaska (not Arctic) in December 2012:

READ: http://www.adn.com/2014/04/03/3408251/kulluk-grounding-coast-guard-report.html

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To understand what the effects of a large oil spill may be like, read the following short summaries regarding the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, the largest in U.S. history, which happened to be carrying oil from Alaska’s North Slope:

READ: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/significant-incidents/exxon-valdez-oil-spill/

Of particular interest is the timeline for recovery of marine life and habitats, 25 years after the spill:

READ: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/significant-incidents/exxon-valdez-oil-spill/timeline-ecological-recovery-infographic.html

This article describes the effect of the oil spill on the town of Cordova, 25 years later.

READ: http://www.npr.org/2014/03/24/292411071/25-years-after-spill-alaska-town-struggles-back-from-dead-zone

Discussion 15:

a) Are good management and better technology sufficient to prevent an oil spill in the Arctic? Another way to consider this question is to ask what factors increase the chance of an oil spill in the Arctic. For instance robust technology, good management and ethical practices could be put in place, but there are also physical factors. To what extent are these various factors controllable?

b) The timeline of recovery for marine life gives a broad overview of the effect of the Exxon Valdez spill on the environment. Contrast that with the specificity of the experiences of the Cordova residents. What does ‘recovery’ mean for those at ground zero of an environmental disaster, whether human or animal?

c) If an oil spill does occur, the cleanup involves management of people and resources as well as technology (special equipment). The risk to communities depends on what communities consider an acceptable risk. For instance, some communities might consider that the risk of a large oil spill is worth it if they depend on an oil and gas economy. Others may not think the risk is worth taking. If your hometown was in a coastal area that suffered an oil spill, what would be your community’s reaction? Note that the community that has hired you will not necessarily share the same values and priorities as your home community.

d) To what extent should we consider the impact on wildlife and the environment when weighing the risks of an oil spill? How might the Iñupiat community that has hired you differ from other communities in the U.S. or around the world on this question?

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e) Note that there are two readings where the word ‘inevitable’ is used. One, on page 15 of Kate Stafford’s report on anthropogenic sounds and bowhead whales (“Given the inevitability of increasing anthropogenic sound in the Arctic…”) and two, in the opening sentence of the second reading on oil spills in the Arctic, from the website of the journal Science (“the threat of a major Arctic oil spill looms ever larger—and the United States has a lot of work to do to prepare for that inevitability…”) Contrast the use of ‘inevitable’ in these two instances. We know that if you let go of a rock from the top of a cliff, it is inevitable that it will fall. This inevitability comes from physical law. Are social and economic trends ‘inevitable’ in the same sense? Are there examples from society and history that indicate that something once considered inevitable may have turned out not to be? What about ‘inevitability’ with regard to an Arctic oil spill? On what factors -- social, economic, cultural, physical -- might the use of the word be based?

Responses of Industry, Native Communities, and Environmentalists to Oil and Gas Activity Potential Impacts

Industry Response to the impact of anthropogenic sound on whales

Industry and government projections consider further oil and gas exploration in the Arctic to be inevitable. From this perspective it is worthwhile to investigate technological and other options that could minimize damage to whales. This four-page article from the oil company Conoco-Phillips describes the industry response to concerns about anthropogenic sound adversely affecting marine mammals:READ: http://alaska.conocophillips.com/Documents/SMID_056_Bowhead_Whale_Fact_Sheet.pdfand watch a short video (#2) on this page where a scientist working with British Petroleum talks about her work on bowhead whales and anthropogenic sound : VIEW: http://cetus.ucsd.edu/voicesinthesea_org/videos/videoBowheadMeet.html

Discussion 16:

a) What are some of the ways in which oil and gas activity in the Arctic can be adjusted around the needs of marine mammals? What kinds of technological solutions, if properly implemented, could decrease damage to whales?

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Industry Response to the possibility of Oil Spills in the Arctic

Read Exxon-Mobil’s response to the challenge of drilling in the Arctic, specifically pages 6-7 on Oil Spill Prevention and page 10 for a diagram of an oil spill and oil dissipation in the environment. Pages 12-14 cover Oil Spill Response Preparedness and Pages 15-25 cover Oil Spill Response Options. These need not be covered in detail, but with sufficient attention to understand that oil spill cleanups are complex, expensive and time-consuming.

READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/~/media/Brochures/2013/news_pub_2013-arctic-spill-prevent.pdf

Range of Responses of Native Communities

In the absence of a scientifically conducted survey, we cannot say how many people are for or against oil and gas drilling, either among Native communities globally or on the North Slope of Alaska. However the following references give us an idea of the range of opinion, and some insight into why people hold them.

In 2009, the Indigenous People’s Summit on Climate Change was held in Anchorage, Alaska. The declaration is here:

READ: http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/smsn/ngo/168.pdf.

This news item gives an idea of some of the divisions with regard to oil and gas drilling. Note that both this reference and the previous one reflect the views of indigenous peoples from 80 nations, not just Alaskans.

READ: http://phys.org/news159860957.html

More recently, in 2014, this news report describes differences in opinions among communities of the Arctic Slope.

READ: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20140223/alaska-north-slope-communities-divided-arctic-drilling-delayed

An Environmentalist Organization’s Response to Oil and Gas Drilling Impacts on the Arctic

The environmental group Greenpeace has called for the Arctic to be off-limits to oil and gas drilling. Learn about their position on the page below (scroll down).

READ: http://www.savethearctic.org/

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Discussion 17:

a) From your readings, what are the positions of the fossil fuel industry, the native communities and the environmental group Greenpeace with regard to the potential impact of oil and gas activity in the Arctic?

b) What are the justifications that each group has for their positions(s)? Note that when there are different opinions within one group, such as the Native communities, you should clearly understand what they are, and why people feel that way.

PART IV: RENEWABLES IN ALASKA

Figure 11. Wind turbines installed in Kwigillingok, Alaska, as part of the Chaninik Wind Group Multi-Village Wind Heat Smart Grid Project.

We first explore briefly why renewable energy sources are important globally. We examine two motivating factors for renewables.

The Big Picture: Motivation for Renewables Worldwide

1) Concerns about Climate Disruption In the Climate Change unit preceding this case study, you learned about planetary

limits to carbon dioxide emissions that would keep the global average surface temperature from rising above 2°C by 2100. Review the key arguments and figures by re-reading this summary article. REVIEW: http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20140213/climate-change-science-carbon-budget-nature-global-warming-2-degrees-bill-mckibben-fossil-fuels-keystone-xl-oil

Read also this summary of the UN’s IPCC Report of March, 2014

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REVIEW: http://www.un.org/climatechange/blog/2014/03/ipcc-report-severe-and-pervasive-impacts-of-climate-change-will-be-felt-everywhere/

To understand how renewables might help mitigate the effects of climate change, read this press release from the UN’s IPCC Special Report on Renewables, 2011. READ: http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/press/content/potential-of-renewable-energy-outlined-report-by-the-intergovernmental-panel-on-climate-change

2) Concerns about the potential for decline in fossil fuel production, revenue and investment This Washington Post article titled “Oil is Getting Harder and Harder to Find”

READ: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/most-of-the-worlds-oil-comes-from-aging-fields/2011/12/13/gIQAaM6CsO_blog.html

This 2014 article in the New York Times reports falling quarterly earnings of oil companies due to lower production of oil and gas. READ: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/business/fourth-quarter-earnings-fall-at-exxon-mobil-and-shell.html?_r=0

Concerns about a financial ‘carbon bubble’ or ‘stranded assets’ come from the Grantham Institute at the London School of Economics, and the Carbon Tracker Initiative. Read the Letter to Readers on page 3, and the Executive Summary on pages 4-5. READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/PB-unburnable-carbon-2013-wasted-capital-stranded-assets.pdf

This news article describes concerns about the carbon bubble expressed by a House of Commons report in the U.K.

READ: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26455763

Concerns about climate change and the carbon bubble have led to a movement for divestment from fossil fuels that includes college students and religious groups. An Oxford University study [9] states that although the financial effect of divesting from fossil fuel stocks will be negligible, the symbolic value of the growing movement may, in conjunction with other initiatives on climate change, have an impact. Here is a 2013 news article from the Washington Post. READ: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/2013/11/25/45a545e6-52fc-11e3-a7f0-b790929232e1_story.html. In April, 2014, two major financial investment companies, Blackrock and FTSE, created a fossil-fuel free investment fund. Read this short news article.

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READ: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/financial-firms-launch-fossil-free-173628020.html

Note that Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest fossil fuel company, disagrees with the notion of a carbon bubble. Read Page 1, especially paragraph 3 of its response to stakeholder concerns about stranded assets. READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://cdn.exxonmobil.com/~/media/Files/Other/2014/Report%20-%20Energy%20and%20Carbon%20-%20Managing%20the%20Risks.pdf

Discussion 18:

a) What are some compelling reasons for considering renewable energy? What does the UN report referenced in this section estimate with regard to the percent of the world’s energy demands that renewables can meet by 2050?

b) What is the trend with regard to oil production and earnings? c) What do the terms ‘carbon bubble’ and ‘stranded assets’ mean? What would happen to

the worth of fossil fuel stocks if the idea of the carbon bubble is real? What is the response of the oil industry giant Exxon Mobil?

d) Discuss the divestment movement as a response to the carbon bubble. What considerations might motivate such a movement? Ethical? Economic? Other?

Alaska: The Case for Renewable Energy

This section contains references that give a general, qualitative idea of why and to what extent it might make sense to consider renewable energy such as wind, solar, geothermal and ocean sources in Alaska. Since the terrain and climate of Alaska differ from place to place, the choice of renewables will depend on what will work best in a particular region. For instance tides are quite small on the North Slope of Alaska, so tidal energy is not a plausible alternative there; however tidal energy appears more feasible in the Bering Strait region.

Read this 2012 summary report from a U.S. government agency about oil production in the North Slope: READ: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7970

A 2013 “Renewable Energy Atlas of Alaska” provides information on current energy sources in the state, as well as the possibilities for different kinds of renewable energy in various locations. Read the Introduction, “Why Renewable Energy is Important,” and then look at the current energy profile of the state via the map on page 3. The information in terms of percent is expressed as a pie chart at the top of page 5. Look at the map on page 15 and consider the potential for solar energy, knowing that for six months of the year, the North Alaskan winter is almost devoid of sunlight. Now consider the map on page 17, which displays the wind power

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potential in the state. Might wind power be feasible for our fictional community? View also the map on page 27 showing energy efficiency programs, and read the Rural Alaska Case Study on Page 27.

READ AND VIEW SELECTED PORTIONS: http://alaskarenewableenergy.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/2013-RE-Atlas-of-Alaska-FINAL.pdf

A Report, “Stranded Renewable Energy Resources of Alaska,” from the Alaska Center for Energy and Power and UAF for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, 2012, gives an idea of the range of renewable energy possibilities in Alaska. Read pages (i) through the first two paragraphs of page (iv) of the Executive Summary.

READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://www.uaf.edu/files/acep/Standed-Renewables-Report-Final.pdf

Below is a link to a report by a company called V3 Energy LLC is a feasibility study for wind energy at Wainwright, a settlement not far from the location of our fictional community. Consult the map on which you marked the fictional village, and note the location of Wainwright. Read the Executive Summary on Page 1 and Pages 2-3 of the Introduction.

READ SELECTED PORTIONS: http://www.v3energy.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/v3-energy-wainwright-feasibility-study.pdf

Discussion 19:

a) What might be some compelling reasons to consider sources of renewable energy in Alaska?

b) What is a “stranded renewable energy resource?” Of the ones listed in the third reading above, which as yet underdeveloped resources might meet or exceed regional and state-wide energy needs?

c) What is the current source of energy for Wainwright? How much of the energy needs would wind energy meet for this community?

d) From the Alaska Atlas of Renewable energy, what kinds of alternative energy might work for the people of our fictional community? Consider a mix of energy sources, not necessarily a single source. Include energy efficiency.

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PART V: PLANNING FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Figure 12. Polar Bear at Barrow High School Athletic field, near Barrow, Alaska.

A glance at the concept maps on pages 8 and 9 of this case study indicates that you have, by now, studied, researched and discussed the topics in each bubble of the map. You are now in a position to put your knowledge and understanding together (recall the links between the bubbles) so that you can advise the community on each option laid out in the table on pages 6 and 7 of this case study. Recall that you are charged with providing long-term as well as short-term scenarios, and local as well as global perspectives for each option.

Before undertaking the last step of this case study, it is important to become familiar with some terms and concepts relevant to planning about the future, since you will be using them in your final report. Read through the list below.

Keywords: risk, risk assessment, acceptable risk, precautionary principle, scenario-based planning

Risk assessment: the quantitative or qualitative calculation of the risk of occurrence of certain negative events. For instance, insurance companies assess the risk of flooding for a house in a low-lying area. Another everyday example is the risk of rain on a certain day.

Acceptable risk: A risk of an activity or outcome is judged acceptable if the perceived benefits outweigh the costs. For instance if the risk is below a certain quantitative value, it might be considered acceptable. Whether a risk is acceptable or not is a judgment of the person or persons involved. For instance if you step out without an

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umbrella because you think getting soaked is worth not carrying the umbrella around, that is your personal decision based on your values, or what you think is important in that given situation.

Precautionary principle or precautionary approach – “In decision making, the precautionary principle is considered when possibly dangerous, irreversible, or catastrophic effects are identified, but scientific evaluation of the potential damage is not sufficiently certain, and actions to prevent these potential adverse effects need to be justified.” This is from a section titled “Precautionary Considerations” from the IPCC working group on mitigation.

READ: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg3/index.php?idp=437

Scenarios Planning – “Scenarios are essentially a collective set of assumptions about possible futures, intended to give the decision-maker a strategy-planning framework.” [10] You will recognize that you have come across scenarios before, in the unit on climate change that preceded this case study. The IPCC presents future emissions scenarios that range from stopping emissions in 2020 to ‘business as usual.’ Note also that climate models give reasonable predictions for long time scales and large regions. But the model grid sizes are only about 100 km x 100 km in 2014. Most communities exist in smaller regions than this, and planning and preparation for climate change occurs at these smaller scales. Yet model predictions on small scales have very high uncertainties, due to both inherent variability in the climate system and the limitations of the models. So how might communities plan for the future? By developing various scenarios of the future, and planning adaptively for them. To get an idea, look at this page from the Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning.

EXAMINE: http://www.snap.uaf.edu/

OPTIONAL: Read Section 5, ‘Preparing for the Future,’ of the paper “Indigenous Frameworks for Observing and Responding to Climate Change in Alaska.”

READ: http://www.lter.uaf.edu/pdf/1733_Cochran_Huntington_2013.pdf

Just as the IPCC does not have any decision-making powers – it can only present to people what the impacts and possibilities might be for an array of future scenarios – the purpose of this case study is not for you, the student-consultants, to make decisions for the community that has hired you. Your job is to gather reliable sources of information, assess them, and respond to the possible future scenarios. For instance, one scenario is that the community supports off-shore and on-land oil and gas drilling. What are the risks from these activities, and what are the

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benefits? How might things play out in the long term? In what way does the global picture affect the local? For the purposes of this student exercise, we will not be assessing risks formally or quantitatively, but we will be able to summarize what is known about the risks (for example) of off-shore drilling. Because we know what is important to the community (e.g. the whaling tradition) we will be able to speak to that concern based on information grounded in research.

Review the Concept Map on Page 10. Below is the table of options considered by the community. Review the Potential Community Benefits and Community Concerns.

Option Scenario, short and long term

Support off-shore and on-shore drilling

Oppose off-shore but support on-shore drilling

Support off-shore but oppose on-shore drilling

Oppose both off-shore and on-shore drilling and come up with alternatives

Group Activity:

Your instructor will divide you into four groups, one for each option. Each group will brainstorm the option it has been assigned by developing a short-term and long-term scenario for that option. The key features of the scenarios will be written on post-it notes of a particular color that will then be posted to the classroom wall. By the end of this exercise, you will have four different-colored collections of post-it notes on the wall.

Each group will then review the others’ works, and there will be a constructive critique session where any omissions or errors may be corrected.

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Finally, you will have an opportunity as a group to present your scenario to the class, either as an oral presentation or in the form of a poster, as though you were presenting to the community that hired you.

Post-Case-Study Final Discussion/Debriefing:

Recall your informal discussion at the start of this case study. Discuss:

a) What you learned since then about climate disruption in the Arctic, Iñupiaq culture and traditions, and oil and gas activity in the Arctic

b) Your thoughts on evidence-based learning, making decisions and forming opinions based on evidence from reliable sources

c) Your thoughts on different arenas of knowledge, and how one might integrate them to understand real-world situations

d) Your thoughts on complexity as it plays out in global climate and human systems e) The use of concept maps and group exercises in order to gain a broad understanding of

how different issues and knowledge systems might intersectf) Any closing thoughts on this case study

NOTES AND REFERENCES

[1] Like the narrative and the community, this newsletter is fictional.

[2] The story appears here http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/intro.html where it is attributed to Iñupiaq educator and academic Dr. Edna MacLean

[3] In reality the location of our fictional community would fall within the North Slope Borough, a province of the state of Alaska, but for the purposes of this exercise we assume that this community is outside the NSB.

[4] Nancy Neakok Leavitt, as quoted in The Meaning of Ice: People and Sea Ice in Three Arctic Communities, edited by Gearheard, Holm, Huntington, Leavitt, Mahoney, Opie, Oshima and Sanguya, International Polar Institute, August 2013.

[5] Ice-Albedo Feedback http://umaine.edu/maineclimatenews/blog/2011/07/06/loops-of-change-the-positive-feedback-loops-that-drive-climate-change-part-i/

[6] Arctic Amplification http://news.sciencemag.org/2013/08/scienceshot-arctic-warming-twice-fast-rest-world

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[7] Sea Ice terminology http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/index.html and links therein

[8] Arctic Methane outgassing http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1246

[9] Fossil Fuel Divestment http://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/research/stranded-assets/SAP-divestment-report-final.pdf

[10] As quoted in “Scenarios as a tool to understand and respond to change,” by John E. Walsh, Marc Mueller-Stoffels and Peter H. Larsen, in North by 2020: Perspectives on Alaska’s Changing Social-Ecological Systems, eds. Lovecraft and Eicken, University of Alaska Press (2011)

PICTURE CREDITS

1. Figure 1: http://www.uaf.edu/anla/collections/map/; 2. Figure 2: http://www.blm.gov/ak/st/en/prog/energy/oil_gas/npra.html3. Figure 3, http://www.doi.gov/news/doinews/2010_03_31_news.cfm4. Figure 4, NASA http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/sea_ice.php5. Figure 5, Sea Ice Extent Graph:

http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/tag/arctic-sea-ice/page/2/6. Figure 6, Permafrost map: https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/frozenground/whereis_fg.html7. Figure 7, Bowhead Whale Habitat Extent:

http://frontierscientists.com/2013/01/endangered-bowhead-whale/8. Figure 8, Gazprom Drilling Rig photo:

http://www.gazprom.com/press/news/2012/august/article141277/9. Figure 9, Arctic Oil and Gas reserves Map, UNEP/Grid-Arendal

http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/fossil-fuel-resources-and-oil-and-gas-production-in-the-arctic_a9ca

10. Figure 10, Arctic Passages. UNEP/Grid-Arendal http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/arctic-sea-routes-northern-sea-route-and-northwest-passage_ba56

11. Figure 11, Wind Turbines in Alaska. http://energy.gov/indianenergy/articles/winning-future-chaninik-wind-group-pursues-innovative-solutions-native-alaska

12. Figure 12, Polar Bear at Barrow High School Athletic Fields Near Barrow, Alaska. http://www.thewizofodds.com/the_wiz_of_odds/barrow_whalers/page/2/

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FURTHER READING:

Specific References are embedded in the Readings and Viewings. For general references, see below.

On Iñupiat Eskimos:

1. The Meaning of Ice: People and Sea Ice in Three Arctic Communities, edited by Gearheard, Holm, Huntington, Leavitt, Mahoney, Opie, Oshima and Sanguya, International Polar Institute, August 2013

2. Gift of the Whale: Iñupiat Bowhead Hunt, a Sacred Tradition, by Bill Hess, Sasquatch Books, September 1999

On Climate Change in general:

1. A 1-page overview of the science from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency:

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/overview.html

2. Key indicators of climate change http://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators/3. Evidence that climate change is occurring http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/4. Causes of global climate disruption http://climate.nasa.gov/causes/5. Current and future consequences http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/6. The Consensus: 97% agreement. http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/7. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (released in 2013-2014)

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/ includes a Summary for Policy Makers http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf.

8. “Iconic Graphs of Climate Change” http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/climate-change_iconic-graphs/main.htm. In particular the graph labeled ‘Stories About the Future’ teaches about different emissions scenarios.

9. Planetary Limits on carbon dioxide Unburnable carbon:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mindylubber/2013/06/12/unburnable-carbon-or-no-fossil-fuel-companies-face-a-climate-catch-22/#./?&_suid=1398455313120034324816037507305

Report from the London School of Economics and the Carbon Tracker Institute http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/publication/unburnable-carbon-2013-wasted-capital-and-stranded-assets/

10. Introduction to Complex Systems: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/complexsystems/introduction.html

11. Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast by David Archer. Wiley, 2011

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On Climate Change in Alaska:

1. Climate Change in the Arctic, website of the National Snow and Ice Data Center https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/arctic-meteorology/climate_change.html.

2. International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/3. North by 2020: Perspectives on Alaska’s Changing Social-Ecological Systems, edited by

Amy Lauren Lovecraft and Hajo Eicken, University of Alaska Press, 2011. Table of Contents at http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/publications/eicken/Nx2020_TOC.pdf.

About the Author

Vandana Singh has a PhD in theoretical particle physics and a deep interest in the intersection of science, the environment, and the humanities. She traveled to Alaska (Anchorage, Fairbanks and Barrow) in Spring 2014 as part of the preparation for this Case Study, where she had a chance to walk on the edge of the frozen Arctic Ocean, and where she met with a number of people, including Inupiaq Elders, a whaler, and several scientists and scholars, all of whom gave generously of their time, knowledge and insights. She is an Associate Professor of Physics at Framingham State University in Massachusetts, where she researches creative pedagogies and multidisciplinary approaches to STEM education, with an emphasis on climate change. She enjoys science fiction literature, music from multiple traditions, and learning new things.