Environmentalists push to keep U.S., others from oil drilling in Arctic

Environmentalists are toiling to stop a modern-day gold rush at the top of the world, as the U.S. and four other countries scramble to stake claims to potentially vast oil riches under the frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean. Environmental activists such as Greenpeace are opposed to any resource extraction in the region. “Greenpeace has been protesting on all Arctic ice drillings since 2000,” said Truls Gulowsen, program director of Greenpeace Nordic. “We believe it’s high time to put some bars on the industry’s push into the area. It’s too vulnerable, and there is no way to clean an oil spill out of ice.” The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the Arctic region contains 90 billion barrels of oil, representing about 13 percent of the undiscovered petroleum in the world. The region could yield about $8.3 trillion in oil revenue at today’s prices. Some oil experts say the oil fields off the Arctic coasts of the United States, Canada, Norway, Russia and Greenland, which is part of Denmark, could be more than double the USGS estimate...more