Here are 5 reasons to support a moratorium on oil and gas developments in the Arctic:

• As seen with BP Oil in the Gulf of Mexico, there is no surefire way to guarantee against a massive oil spill.

• A spill will devastate the fragile Arctic ecosystem.

• Further Arctic oil and gas development and a spill stands to have devastating impacts on local Indigenous Peoples including on food security and cultural needs.

• Melting ice in the Arctic shouldn’t be seen as an opportunity for Big Oil to increase their profits with new projects – it is a serious warming signal of the climate crisis.

• A moratorium is a logical first step in a just transition to sustainable jobs, energy and an improved environment for everyone.

TAKE ACTION: Use the Council of Canadians  action alert to send an email demanding a moratorium on oil and gas exploration and drilling in the Arctic!

TAGS: Arctic, oil drilling, moratorium, Council of Canadians

The U.S. knew of Gulf oil spill risk a decade ago. A decade ago, U.S. government regulators warned that a major deepwater oil spill could start with a fire on a drilling rig, prove hard to stop and cause extensive damage to fish eggs and wetlands because there were few good ways to capture oil underwater. The disaster scenario -- contained in a May 2000 offshore drilling plan for the Shell oil company is now a grim reality in the Gulf of Mexico. The greatest irony is that the author of the document was the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, the regulatory agency that's been so severely criticized after the BP spill for being too cozy with industries it was supposed to be regulating. More here

Also today The Huffington Post has an article decribing in great detail how BP's Approved Spill Plan was "Riddled With Omissions and Glaring Errors." 

TAGS: BP, Gulf of Mexico, oil spill, more blunders, oil spill risk known, BP's Spill Plan, Glaring Errors, sustainable, fisheries

On Oceans Day, 2010, more than 245 marine scientists (PDF) from 35 countries are calling for the establishment of a worldwide system of very large, highly protected marine reserves as "an essential and long overdue contribution to improving stewardship of the global oceanic environment." They argue that large reserves—comparable to large national parks on land—are necessary to better protect sea life in our oceans, which cover 71 percent of the planet. The statement was issued by Global Ocean Legacy, a project of the Pew Environment Group.

More here

TAGS: Global Ocean Legacy, Pew Environment Group, marine scientists, marine reserves, Marine Protected Areas

In mid-May the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council approved a conditional peak bycatch cap of 60,000 chinook salmon for the Bering Sea Aleutian Islands pollock industry. The bycatch limit on chinook, a prohibited catch species, which takes effect in 2011, has generated controversy in Alaska. The North Pacific council is caught between the interests of the pollock industry and Yukon subsistence fishing communities. The council's decision was protested by Western Alaska villages and fishermen. They have been devastated by the collapse of the chinook runs in the Yukon fishery, where the subsistence quota was lowered to an unprecedented 45,312 in 2008, less than the new pollock bycatch cap.

More here

TAGS: Alaska pollock, chinook bycatch limit, North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, Yukon chinook collapse, sustainable, fisheries