ENVIRONMENT: Oil reserves and the Northwest Passage

A) The map speaks for itself.

B) Funny thing, this is one of the only maps like this (altered size based on some trait.. population, land use, etc) where the US is not one of the big players. Why does that strike me as funny?

C) Apparently this does not account for some forms of oil -- "tar sands" "oil sands" arctic reserves, etc. That would be why Russia, Venezuela, and Canada are not big... this is just currently known, self-reported (by the companies, apparently, and it is in their best interest to tell truthful statements about their total amount), pump and clean oil.

D) Looks like a map the neocons might like to have on hand.

Thought y'all might enjoy.

Oh and this:

The green in sea ice, the dark grey is water, the light grey is land.

That's right folks, thanks to global warming, there are now TWO northwest passages... and to think, we just needed to tell the European explorers from three hundred years ago to wait a little while (Artice ice levels are down 1 million square kilometers from their minima in 2006).

All thanks to the Sietch blog.