Stop Arctic Oil and Gas

Arctic Oil & Gas Corp. is an oil exploration venture company that has filed for the exclusive exploitation, development, marketing and extraction rights to the oil and gas resources of the seafloor and subsurface contained within the ”Arctic Claims“.

A preliminary assessment by the US Geological Survey (USGS) suggests the Arctic seabed may hold up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves.

But the planet’s ecosystem could not absorb without radical change the release of the greenhouse gases their burning would release, nor the seabed’s ecosystem survive the mining.

It is madness and craziness beyond belief to exploit this resource.

It is absolutely vital that the world agree, as it did fifty years ago with Antarctica, to set aside a large percentage of the world’s surface as inviolable conservation areas, and it must be made financially worthwhile by their host nations to do so, along the lines of the agreement to pay countries with rainforests not to chop them down in return for carbon credits, in the post-2012 climate negotiations.

But this company does not care about this. Its email to me asked me to invest in the chance to make trillions of dollars from exploiting "the last frontier". It boasted greedily of how the area has more promise than Iraq.

An Exclusive Rights Claim to the Hydrocarbon Resources of the Arctic Oceans Commons was formally lodged by the Company and its partners with the United Nations and the five Arctic countries on May 9th 2006.

The Company intends to operate as the ”lead manager“ tasked to create a multinational joint venture consortium of major oil companies, whose technology and managerial expertise will be vital to recovering the oil and gas from the harsh, deep waters of the Arctic in an environmentally safe manner.

Its contact details are here:

Corporate Address:
Arctic Oil and Gas Corp.
8350 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 200
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Investors and Press phone: 702.953.9688
Corporate phone: 323.556.0643
Email: ir@arcticoag.com

The company is obviously aware of the "sensitive" nature of its activities. Reading its policy on "corporate governance" is illuminating:

Arctic Oil & Gas Corp. is also committed to the highest possible standards of openness, honesty and accountability. In line with that commitment, we expect employees and others that we deal with who have serious concerns about any aspect of the company‘s work to come forward and voice those concerns.

Employees are often the first to realize that there may be something seriously wrong within the company. However, they may decide not to express their concerns because they feel that speaking up would be disloyal to their colleagues or to the company.

They may also fear harassment or victimization. In these circumstances, they may feel it would be easier to ignore the concern rather than report what may just be a suspicion of malpractice.

For this reason, the company has instituted a Whistle Blowing Policy is that is intended to encourage and enable employees to raise serious concerns within the company rather than overlooking a problem or seeking a resolution of the problem outside the company.

Then, presumably, they can be silenced.