I was surprised to learn that the late Canadian naturalist, author and part-time misanthropist, John Livingston, wrote a book on Arctic Oil back in 1981, long before hardly anyone knew for sure if or when the ice sheet was going to melt off and how dire the consequences of that would actually be.

On page one of chapter one of Introduction to the Arctic Debate:

“Each of the ‘constituents’—if only because of (even unilateral) individual involvement has a very real vested interest in what is going to happen in the north. But they all have one thing in common. They consist of both northerners and southerners, but they are all people.

“There are still others, however, with legitimate vested interest who neither voice their views nor hear ours. On the admittedly preposterous assumption that a walrus were to achieve standing before some tribunal, no doubt he would have many things to say on behalf of the inarticulate classless clams and mussels of the ocean bed. A shrimp like crustacean called an amphipod might rise on the part of the minute squid like copepods he depends upon, and the sea birds of Lancaster Sound would have a compelling case for the helpless amphipod. Ivory gulls would plead for their benefactors the polar bears, bears for seals, seals for arctic cod. Foxes would argue for lemmings, and lemmings for grasses. Caribou would be represented by wolves, and wolves by ravens, eagles, gulls and jaegers. Grizzly would fight for ground squirrels; snow geese would speak for sedge meadows, which in turn explicate their vested interest in the sun and the rivers and the permafrost itself.

“Arctic beings and processes are not of course voiceless; we simply choose not to hear them. We elect not to recognize them. Complicated as discussion over northern policy has become, it has not yet entertained the addition complication that would arise were it to become anything more than a unidimensional proceeding, with any more than one interest represented. There is after all only one protagonist, and he is talking to himself. The arctic ‘debate’ is not a debate at all; it is a monologue. The singe participant is ourselves. Were the implications and possible outcomes not so tragic, the whole charade could be dismissed as mere absurdity. But of course absurdity is never ‘mere’; it can be dangerous.”