arctic inhabitation: disgusting

i have become quite disturbed at an article i read in the nytimes yesterday (re: As Polar Ice Turns to Water, Dreams of Treasure Abound. self-absorbed entrepreneurs have decided to profit from man’s destruction of the earth and the melting of the polar ice caps… revealing new land that was once uninhabitable. countries are flocking to new islands in order to setup profiting sea trading ports to boost their economies… feeding off the little wilderness we have left in this world. all for what? well, apparantly there’s “treasure”:

“Last year, scientists found tantalizing hints of oil in seabed samples just 200 miles from the North Pole. All told, one quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas resources lies in the Arctic, according to the United States Geological Survey. The polar thaw is also starting to unlock other treasures: lucrative shipping routes, perhaps even the storied Northwest Passage; new cruise ship destinations; and important commercial fisheries.”

so we are willing to lose our remaining wilderness, kill off thousands of arctic species and habitats, destroy regional ecosystems for our continued destruction of our planet? WTF! i’m embarrassed to be a part of this damn species known as man… it’s fucking ridiculous. the arctic regions exist as earth’s way of balancing inequal distributions of energy around the world. we destroy that, and you can bet we will be causing more harm than benefit. i hope soon we will severely pay the price… nature is beginning to fight back (look at this year’s record hurricane season) and i hope it gets worse as that may be the only thing that will make us realize what we are really doing. let us have more katrina’s slam into coastal regions… more widespread floods… more natural disasters. will we ever learn? it’s evident that we still didn’t from katrina this year even though gas prices are at record highs.

yes… i’m going insane in an insane world.