The end of the road for Yasuni National Park

In the last week the news has finally come out that Ecuador has signed official agreements with regards to drilling for oil in the Yasuni National Park. We all knew this was coming after recent leaks telling us that the government was in negotiations, but this is still an extremely sad day for those of us who value the environment and look to promote cleaner energy sources. This drilling agreement reflects badly on all of us, not just the Ecuadorian government – it essentially represents a failure of imagination on the part of the international community.

Yasuni, on the eastern border of Ecuador with Peru, is considered one of the most biologically diverse regions on the entire planet – in fact, by many standards it is literally the most diverse place in the world. Even in terms of human beings, the area contains at least two completely uncontacted tribes, uncorrupted by modern human civilization. Unfortunately, as well as containing all sorts of plants, animals, birds, and humans, it also contains a lot of oil – something that we as a society seem unable to resist. Drilling could now take place as soon as 2016, destroying the pristine environment of this beautiful place.

The Ecuadorian government had initially tried to avoid drilling through a very modern method – essentially crowdsourcing the money required to make it worthwhile not to drill. They claimed that if they were paid a total of $3.6bn over a number of years by the other countries of the world, then Ecuador could enjoy the developmental benefits that the oil would bring without having to actually extract it – allowing the rest of the world to benefit from the continued biodiversity of the region and the huge levels of carbon emissions that would not be released if the oil was kept in the ground. This was a potentially revolutionary idea, taking in concepts of climate justice and sustainability, and encouraging the world to work together to protect our natural environment.

Of course, it didn’t work. Despite a large amount of press when President Rafael Correa first announced the initiative, very few countries showed any serious interest in it – with Norway being the main honourable exception. Unfortunately, Norway alone cannot carry the burden for the whole world, and in the recent announcement Correa claimed that only $13m had been procured. Ultimately, the lack of cooperation of certain countries was too great a barrier. The oil industries of the US and Europe stood to gain too much from the chance to drill in Yasuni, and would have attacked any politicians that agreed to provide funding. The growing Chinese demand for fuel and their difficulties with managing their rapid growth in the coming decades meant that they too wanted access to Yasuni. And none of the developed nations wanted to set a precedent for accepting their responsibility for climate change or helping poorer countries deal with the changes that need to be made to avoid it.

Ecuador is not completely without blame, of course. They could still have taken a different approach to development, deciding not to drill anyway, and focusing on the many alternative sources of energy they have access to – abundant sunshine, geothermal energy, huge potential for hydroelectricity, and so on. It is a shame that Correa’s imaginative ideas did not extend to providing this kind of example to the world. But ultimately, we must all take responsibility for what will happen in Yasuni – we had the chance to show a commitment to the environment, to sustainability, to alternative energy, to a different way of doing things in general. And we shamefully failed to take it.

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Extreme extraction

A few weeks ago, during the latest round of international climate negotiations, the Polish delegation (who were hosting the meeting) claimed that climate change might actually be a good thing – particularly because it could melt much of the ice in the so-called northwestern passage between Canada and the Arctic. This, they argued, would make international shipping easier, but would also provide better access to much of the offshore oil that is thought to lie under the Arctic Ocean.

This is obviously a ridiculous position for a nation state to hold, especially one that was supposed to be hosting an international meeting on climate change at the time. However, while Poland's idea was seen as risible, the general idea that we should continue to dig up oil from anywhere that we possibly can holds firm among many people. A large number of countries and companies have no problem with the idea of extracting oil from ever more extreme places.

This is the mindset that has led to the tar sands developments in northern Alberta, Canada. Tar sands are difficult to get out of the ground, and still take a huge amount of processing even once they've been dug up – yet we seem happy to pay the price, as long as we get more oil. It is the mindset that has led companies from Russia and the UK to start drilling in waters in the Arctic Ocean. An oil spill in these regions would be disastrous to local wildlife and incredibly difficult to clean up, but this seems to be of no matter to these corporations – indeed, Russia went as far as arresting 30 people in international waters after they protested against one of the offshore drilling rigs. It seems the power of the state is just as strongly invested as the corporations in the continuation of the oil age.

This is because both the states and the companies desire the continuation of the status quo by any means necessary. They benefit from a society which is hooked on cheap fuel – cheap fuel which supports the production necessary for a consumer society, and helps maintain the dominant position of certain people and certain countries, and the subjection of others. There are a few clear winners from this state of affairs, but there are just as many losers around the world – and I don't just mean the people who will be most affected by the climatic changes caused by burning all those fossil fuels.

The Arctic, and other remote but oil-rich regions like the tar sands area around the Athabasca river in Canada, have people living in them. These people have led simple but dignified lives in these areas for centuries, if not millennia. The Inuit, for example, have built their lives in some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth by following nature's rhythms and catching fish and mammals. This way of life is threatened by oil drilling that will destroy the natural order of ecosystems in the area. Even those of us living more conventional lives lose out from this rush for oil – we pay more and more at the gas pump just to get to and from work, we breathe in more and more pollution from the air around us, and we see more and more government money go on supporting the oil industry rather than providing essential services to people who need them.

This is what NRGLab is struggling against, particularly with our work on alternative energy. We don't believe human civilization should be so reliant on such an outdated form of energy, one which causes such destruction to the environment, and requires such damage to human lifestyles and livelihoods the world over. And we'd love to hear from you if you agree with us, and if you think you have the necessary skills to help fight back.

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