In early June, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled on a Norwegian research trawler to see firsthand the growing damage from climate change. ‘Many of the predictions about warming in the Arctic are being surpassed by the actual data,’ she said, describing the sight as ‘sobering.’ But the discussions she traveled to Scandinavia to have with other foreign ministers were mostly about how to make sure Western nations get their share of the estimated $9 trillion in oil (that’s more than 90 billion barrels, or 37 gigatons of carbon) that will become accessible as the Arctic ice melts. Last month, the Obama administration indicated that it would give Shell permission to start drilling in sections of the Arctic.

Bill McKibben, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” (via sigma-x)

(via bostonreview)