Earth Equity News

Arctic Drilling Battle Halts Abruptly as Shell Dries Up. By Ben Geman, National Journal, 9/28/2015. "Shell will now cease fur­ther ex­plor­a­tion activ­ity in off­shore Alaska for the fore­see­able fu­ture,” Shell said in a state­ment Monday.Shell’s white flag is wel­come news for en­vir­on­ment­al­ists who have spent years bat­tling to keep the area off-lim­its to oil rigs, ar­guing that off­shore oil and gas de­vel­op­ment there presents huge risks to an eco­sys­tem that provides a hab­it­at for po­lar bears, bowhead whales, and oth­er fra­gile spe­cies.

“Shell’s an­nounce­ment is very good news for the mar­ine en­vir­on­ment, sens­it­ive coastal lands, and the Arc­tic com­munit­ies that would be dev­ast­ated by a ma­jor oil spill,” said Lois Ep­stein, dir­ect­or of the Wil­der­ness So­ci­ety’s Arc­tic pro­gram.