Victoria's Green Matters - 15th October 2015

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

One of the best news stories of recent weeks has to be the one where Shell announced that it will abandon its exploration for oil in the Alaskan Arctic. This has been received with great joy all around the world.

Shell has invested about £4 billion in the search for Arctic oil despite falling oil prices which has always meant that if any oil was discovered it would cost far too much to bring it to the surface, never mind the ever present risk to the pristine environment which is home to many species.

Millions of people around the world have protested in many ways against this operation from signing petitions, writing letters and demonstrating. Environmental group Greenpeace led this protest with its ‘Save the Arctic’ campaign and is now victorious after three years. Let us hope that President Obama will use the last year of his presidency to ban any further drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic.

Despite the fact that there is a great movement away from fossil fuels and much of the industry realises this, Shell decided to continue with its exploration for yet more oil than the climate can afford for us to burn. Why does the company not invest in renewable technologies and become part of the future instead of staying stuck in the past? Maybe now it will do just that as it has to somehow recover the vast amounts of shareholders money invested in this foolhardy venture.