The jumped-up Tea Party congresscritter Pompeo--sees melting ice as an opportunity to drill more.

[riversedge]

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Maybe Mike Pompeo Isn't the Brightest Secretary of State Ever to Hold the Office



https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27396560/mike-pompeo-northwest-passage-ice-melt-canada/
The jumped-up Tea Party congresscritter sees melting ice as an opportunity to drill more.




By Charles P. Pierce
May 7, 2019


FINLAND-US-DIPLOMACY




...........................As for Pompeo, well, he sees the climate crisis as it pertains to the Arctic sea ice as a rare opportunity to get at deposits of those fossil fuels that are at the root of the climate crisis in the first place. Everything's coming up oil wells! From CNN:

"The Arctic is at the forefront of opportunity and abundance," Pompeo said in remarks in Rovaniemi, Finland. "It houses 13 percent of the world's undiscovered oil, 30 percent of its undiscovered gas, an abundance of uranium, rare earth minerals, gold, diamonds, and millions of square miles of untapped resources, fisheries galore...

Of course, fisheries, galore or not, often do not react well to the presence of oil and gas wells, to say nothing of nearby gold and uranium mining. (One might check with some shrimpers in and around Louisiana for details on this.) What in the hell is this man talking about?

[zipplewrath]

1. Not in his defense

It's not so much in his defense, because a Sec State should really be trying to negotiate severe limits on these things. But he didn't originate these thoughts. Both the Chinese and the Russians have been trying to establish rights to various areas in the melting polar caps for the expressed purpose of accessing oil, gas, and mineral rights to the exposed areas. I seem to remember some Russian submarine planting a flag somewhere (under water) trying to establish claims.