Arctic

Coast Guard Commandant Paul Zukunft says if Shell is allowed to drill in the Chukchi Sea this summer, the Coast Guard will be there with five ships and two aircraft.

Dial-up Internet access is a distant memory for most of us. But slow connections to the web are still a fact of life in much of the far north.

Billions of dollars worth of drilling equipment and support vessels operated by Royal Dutch Shell are sitting out in the Bay in front of Dutch Harbor this week.

According to the letter, Shell must maintain a 15-mile buffer between its two rigs while drilling takes place.

World leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, have talked of the Arctic as a zone of peace and co-operation. But continued tranquility is just one forecast for the region.

There’s very little opposition in the tiny Alaskan town in comparison to that in Seattle, where some environmental activists went so far as to chain themselves to one of Shell’s Arctic drilling support vessels last month.

Environmental groups say they’ve found a fundamental flaw in Shell’s plan to drill in the Chukchi Sea this summer and they’re asking the government to rescind its approval.

The U.S. Arctic Research Commission is looking for feedback on any type of research being done in the Arctic—from behavioral health or indigenous languages, to climate change and marine mammals—so they can make funding recommendations to the federal government.