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Why did Joe Biden — who wants to be known as "The Climate President" — seemingly abandon his principles, go back on campaign pledges, and disappoint his (perhaps naive) supporters by approving a massive new project of drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic?

Geoffrey Deihl, known here on Mastodon as Sane Thinker (@gdeihl) has some provocative thoughts for us about that question.

Here are two key paragraphs from his thoroughly researched and impeccably reasoned article. I hope you'll read the whole thing!
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Biden’s words, “No more drilling on federal lands. Period. Period. Period,” delivered to voters in New Hampshire, in February 2020 have proven false. The seriously compromised Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) made enormous concessions to the fossil fuel industry by making renewable energy projects on federal lands and waters contingent on selling new drilling leases, and gaining environmental approvals for ten years. Willow is the most egregious development to date. Why is Biden doing this? I strongly suspect it’s about far more than Senator Murkowski bringing jobs to Alaska.

Not spoken of, but likely in the thinking of this project, is competition with Russia and China. As the Arctic melts, brand new trade routes will emerge, and competition for trillions of dollars of previously unavailable natural resources (planet warming fossil fuels among them) will be tense. Willow makes no sense until you consider it militarily. With the possibility of world supply chains breaking down from climate change, having an oil supply in the region becomes part of national security strategy.
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FULL ARTICLE -- https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/massive-alaska-willow-drilling-project

#Politics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateAction #ClimateEmergency #CO2 #KeepItInTheGround