Shell will despoil the Arctic. But Barack Obama is the real villain here | John Vidal
The Arctic sea ice starts about three days' steaming north of Norway's Svalbard archipelago. Small, sporadic floes grow larger, the great Atlantic swells flatten out, the bitter polar winds are stronger and the utter stillness begins. If you can handle the monotony of the vast ice-scape that unfolds, it is possible to navigate a ship with a strong hull and a good lookout nearly to the north pole at this time of year.
Three years ago, I got to within a few hundred miles, alongside Greenpeace and a group of international ice researchers. We might have pressed on through the thick sea ice that forms and melts every year, but no one, least of all the scientists, expected that year's record ice loss, and only a fuel shortage and time forced us back.
Continue reading...