Al Gore on Obama’s Plan for Arctic Drilling: It’s ‘Insane’
(COMMON DREAMS) Nadia Prupis — Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Thursday criticized President Barack Obama for allowing fossil fuel drilling in the Arctic, calling a recently approved Royal Dutch Shell project “insane” in a video interview with the Guardian.
“I think the Deepwater Horizon spill was warning enough,” Gore said of offshore drilling while speaking in Toronto with the Guardian‘s environmental correspondent Suzanne Goldberg. “The conditions are so hostile to human activity [in the Arctic]…. I think it’s a mistake to drill for oil in the Arctic. I think that ought to be banned.”
The Obama administration gave Shell conditional approval in May to drill for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, prompting outrage from environmental groups and a wave of actions on the ground—and in the water—in Washington State and Alaska to stop the fossil fuel giant from drilling in the pristine and vulnerable waters.