Shell pauses oil drilling in Chukchi Sea due to stormy weather

by Yereth Rosen andAlex DeMarban

Alaska Dispatch News, August 27, 2015

Crews work to maintain beach barriers protecting Stevenson Street on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015, in Barrow.Brittni Driver

Huge, wind-whipped waves crashed onto the shore at Barrow on Thursday, forcing the closure of a nearby road, the National Weather Service reported. Westerly winds were gusting up to 50 miles an hour, pushing waves up to the top of the beach and causing some erosion, the National Weather Service said.

A National Weather Service employee in Barrow captured still images and video of the high waves and flooding.

RELATED: 

North Slope coastal erosion rates are among worst in nation, USGS reports

The service has issued a coastal flood warning for Barrow until Friday morning, along with a high surf advisory for the western part of the North Slope and a gale warning for much of the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. Seas up to 14 feet were forecast for Thursday in the Chukchi.

The big surf and flooding, which has covered a road that runs between the ocean and Barrow’s lagoon, is “not terribly unusual” at this time of the year, said Ryan Metzger, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Fairbanks. Fall is a stormy season, and the timing -- right around the annual minimum sea ice extent -- allows the surf to build and reach shore, he said.

Thursday’s high waves and flooding are products of a large storm that's being felt as far as Southcentral Alaska, where high winds are forecast, Metzger said.

“It’s a pretty big low-pressure system that’s over the Arctic Ocean,” he said. The front associated with it dumped a lot of rain -- over an inch in one day in Nome -- and, in the Brooks Range, some snow, prompting a notice from the Alaska Department of Transportation about difficult driving conditions on the Dalton Highway, he said.

The Barrow flooding has had some ripple effects, said Mary Sage, a transportation specialist for the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, a tribal government. Ilisagvik College, the local post-secondary institution, is closed because the flooded road is its access route, and some young children are being kept home from local schools, she said.

Barrow residents have come to expect such storms and floods at this time of year, when they "have no protection from the ice,” Sage said.

“Every three to four years, the roads are flooded and wash out in several areas,” she said. “Which is a shame, because sometimes we lose access to the duck and goose-hunting areas and have to wait for the roads to be repaired.”

Out in the Chukchi Sea, the strong wind and waves caused Shell to pause oil drilling efforts because of weather for the first time this summer, said Megan Baldino, a company spokeswoman.

Critical operations, including drilling work on the 400-foot Transocean Polar Pioneer, were “proactively” halted about a day ago, based on forecasts of the storm, she said.

"Safety is paramount," she said. 

The flooding in Barrow -- where crew changes occur for the offshore site -- has also impacted operations. 

With limited lodging in Barrow, Shell is temporarily relocating up to 100 workers who are currently there.

“A road that’s used to transport people to the camp is down to one lane due to high water, and it could become impassable,” said Baldino.  

Some of those workers will be temporarily flown back to Anchorage and others will be flown to Deadhorse. Essential crew members, such as pilots, will remain in Barrow, she said.

Ships in the company’s drilling fleet remain near the Burger drill site, where reports say sustained winds are blowing at about 35 miles an hour and waves are estimated to be about 15 feet high.  

“All our assets are riding out the storm,” she said. “All the crews are all right, but we’ve gotten complaints of a little seasickness, which you can imagine.”

More flooding and erosion is expected in the future as fall sea ice dwindles.

Waves in the Beaufort, Chukchi and Bering Seas have been getting bigger over the past four decades, a recent Environment Canada-led study found.

In 2012, the year of record-low sea ice extent, scientists from the University of Washington measured 16-foot waves in the Beaufort Sea. The highest sea waves ever recorded in the Arctic, at 19.685 feet, were measured in the Barents Sea off Svalbard in 2010.

Thursday’s seas, forecast to reach up to 16 feet, fall far short of those marks. Seas are different from waves; they are measured from waves’ crests to the troughs between them, Metzger noted. Seas are a combination of wind-wave height and swell height, according to the National Weather Service.

http://www.adn.com/article/20150827/high-winds-cause-flooding-barrow-prompt-shell-pause-oil-drilling

Beneath the permafrost, fountains wait to burst forth

Wilderness guide Garrett Jones takes a photo of water fountaining from the tundra near the middle fork of the Chandalar River. (Photo: Ned Rozell)

by Ned Rozell, Alaska Dispatch, June 27, 2015

While tight-roping on tussock heads in a bog off the Chandalar River, two companions and I heard a waterfall. Strange.

Looking through binoculars, we saw a knee-high fountain of clear water in the tundra. The flow was as thick as your leg. We squished over to investigate.

The three of us had never seen water spewing from the ground in such a way. The clear water was so cold it burned, forcing us to pull our hands back after a second or two.

A few days later, on our flight out of the Bush, pilot Dirk Nickisch said yes, he had seen tundra "hydrants" in a few Arctic valleys. When I got back, local experts watched this video.

A fountain in a tussock bog near the Middle Fork Chandalar River.

They theorized that we had seen the effect of high-pressure groundwater finding a way through permafrost.

Permafrost pressure

Dan White is a hydrologist by trade who wears his Xtratuf boots less often now as the University of Alaska's vice president of academic affairs and research. He thinks the hydrant may be an artesian well pressurized by a permafrost barrier.

"Looks like water entering the subsurface from higher on the mountain," he wrote in an email. "That is just the place it found to get out through the frozen ground. My guess is that water is channeling though a thawed ice wedge or something."

The gusher is about 75 miles north of the Arctic Circle, on the south slope of the Brooks Range. That part of northern Alaska has remained cold enough to preserve permafrost — ground that remains frozen through the heat of at least two summers (it often has endured thousands of summers). The area featured other permafrost-related landforms, such as a house-size pingo. We ate lunch on top of the mound one day, noticing the birch trees that grew on it were rare in the surrounding spruce forest.

Permafrost researcher Kenji Yoshikawa said sometimes pingos and frost blisters generate fountains. He thinks what we saw might be related to a frost blister, a pimple caused when freezing ground in early winter blocks groundwater already restricted from beneath by permafrost. The fountain we saw might be what happened when the pimple popped.

'Uncontrolled artesian well'

Water held under pressure by permafrost can be a problem if we try to use it. In 1946, workers for the Army Corps of Engineers drilled a well near the eastern end of Farmers Loop in Fairbanks. They penetrated a permafrost layer and the non-frozen layer beneath it. At about 100 feet, they hit water. It was under so much pressure that a 4-foot gusher erupted from the drill hole.

Water flowed around the well casing in what engineers called an "uncontrolled artesian well." Corps workers pumped cement down the casing to seal the well. They topped it with a 10-foot square of concrete that was 1 foot thick.

"In August 1948, the final loss of control occurred," wrote geologist Troy Péwé in the chilling publication Geologic Hazards of the Fairbanks Area. "Water began escaping from beneath the 10-foot square, and during the summer of 1949 the slab collapsed into an enormous, water-filled thermokarst cavity. Eventually the slab sank as much as 50 feet below the surface."

Two years later, engineers injected refrigerant brine in the ground and installed freeze probes around the wellhead. That refroze the well shaft and reestablished the permafrost seal.

Thirty years later, a drilling company sunk a well in the same area. It flowed out of control all winter, covering a portion of Farmers Loop with 2 feet of ice and inspiring lawsuits from local homeowners whose houses and cars became glaciated.

Ned Rozell is a science writer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute. Used with permission. 

https://www.adn.com/article/20150627/beneath-permafrost-fountains-waiting-burst-forth

Dillingham, Alaska, breaks temperature record for any day of the year, at 86 F; breaks daily record by 9 degrees

Insane Heat Wave in Alaska Put Temperatures Higher Than in Arizona

by Cole Mellino, EcoWatch, June 2015

Alaska, along with the rest of the Arctic, has been warming even faster than other regions of the world due to climate change. That was the findings of a report this spring from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which found that the rate of warming will only continue to increase in the coming decades.

The signs of rapid warming in Alaska were everywhere this past winter. The Iditarod was moved north 300 miles to Fairbanks because Anchorage had record-low snowfall. A ski resort outside of Juneau had to close because of low snowfall and warm temperatures that inhibited snow-making.

Now the 49th state experienced a heat wave at the end of May. Over Memorial Day weekend, while Texas was being inundated with floods, parts of Alaska were warmer than Arizona. On May 23 in Fairbanks, the temperature reached 86 degrees Fahrenheit, while Phoenix topped out at 83 for the day, reports Al Jazeera. Even the town of Bettles, which is north of Fairbanks and falls within the Arctic Circle, recorded a temperature of 82.

That same day, Eagle, Alaska, hit 91 degrees Fahrenheit, marking the earliest 90-degree day in state history, according to NASA Earth Observatory. And it wasn’t just one unusually warm day. “Between May 16 and May 24, Eagle hit 27 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher daily—its second longest such streak on record for any time of the year,” says Al Jazeera.

This map shows the record heat northwestern Canada and parts of Alaska experienced in the third week of May. Photo credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Even America’s northernmost city, Barrow, Alaska, set record high temperatures for four out of the six days between May 17-22, topping out at 47 degrees on May 21 (nearly 18 degrees above normal), The Weather Channel reports. This may sound like nothing compared to the current heat wave in India, “but north of the Arctic Circle, this is extreme warmth for late May,” says The Weather Channel.

Insane heat in Alaska--90 deg temps near Fairbanks, records toppling like, um, snowmen in May http://t.co/mo6xgGKqoR pic.twitter.com/3yqhV0Sbt6

— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) May 29, 2015

This particular heat wave in Alaska and northwestern Canada has to do with two typhoons altering the jet stream pattern.”A series of two western Pacific super typhoons—Noul and Dolphin—have done a number on the (jet stream) pattern across the north Pacific following their extra-tropical transition,” says Dr. Michael Ventrice, operational scientist at The Weather Channel Professional Division.

This “persistent high-pressure system … is but one consequence of a developing El Niño in the eastern Pacific,” says Al Jazeera. While El Niño may be exacerbating the warmth, the long term trend shows the Arctic will continue to warm from climate change. It has warmed faster than anywhere else in the world over the last 30 years.

The effects of the warming are many-fold. Anchorage recorded its warmest April and it will probably be its least snowy season on record with only 25.1 inches of snow to date (its prior least snowy season was in 1957-1958 with 30.4 inches), according to The Weather Channel. The rapid snowmelt led to flooding in some areas and fire danger is already high in what experts worry might be the worst wildfire season yet.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/05/heat-wave-alaska/

Barrow's October temperature increases 7 °C in just 34 years

Scientists analysing more than three decades of weather data for the northern Alaska outpost of Barrow have linked an astonishing 7 °C temperature rise to the decline in Arctic sea ice.

by Alex Kirby, Climate News Network, October 17, 2014

LONDON, 17 October, 2014 − If you doubt that parts of the planet really are warming, talk to residents of Barrow, the Alaskan town that is the most northerly settlement in the US.

In the last 34 years, the average October temperature in Barrow has risen by more than 7 °C − an increase that, on its own, makes a mockery of international efforts to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 °C above their pre-industrial level.

A study by scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks analysed several decades of weather information. These show that temperature trends are closely linked to sea ice concentrations, which have been recorded since 1979, when accurate satellite measurements began.

The study, published in the Open Atmospheric Science Journal, traces what has happened to average annual and monthly temperatures in Barrow from 1979 to 2012.

Most striking

In that period, the average annual temperature rose by 2.7 °C. But the November increase was far higher − more than six degrees. And October was the most striking of all, with the month’s average temperature 7.2 °C higher in 2012 than in 1979.

Gerd Wendler, the lead author of the study and a professor emeritus at the university’s International Arctic Research Center, said he was “astonished.” He told the Alaska Dispatch News: “I think I have never, anywhere, seen such a large increase in temperature over such a short period.”

The study shows that October is the month when sea ice loss in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, which border northern Alaska, has been highest. The authors say these falling ice levels over the Arctic Ocean after the maximum annual melt are the reason for the temperature rise. “You cannot explain it by anything else,” Wendler said.

They have ruled out the effects of sunlight because, by October, the sun is low in the sky over Barrow and, by late November, does not appear above the horizon.

Instead, they say, the north wind picks up stored heat from water that is no longer ice-covered in late autumn and releases it into the atmosphere.

At first sight, the team’s findings are remarkable, as Barrow’s 7.2 °C rise in 34 years compares with a global average temperature increase over the past century of up to about 0.8 °C. But what’s happening may be a little more complex.

Warming faster

The fact that temperatures in and around Barrow are rising fast is no surprise, as the Arctic itself is known to be warming faster than most of the rest of the world.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says observed warming in parts of northern Alaska was up to 3 °C from the early 1980s to the mid-2000s. It also concludes that about two-thirds of the last century’s global temperature increase has occurred since 1980.

But Barrow’s long-term temperature rise has not been uniform, the Fairbanks study says. Its analysis of weather records between 1921 and 2012 shows a much more modest average annual rise, of 1.51 °C. In 2014, the city experienced the coolest summer day recorded −14.5 °C.

So one conclusion is to remember just how complex a system the climate is − and how even 34 years may be too short a time to allow for any certainty. 

Strong Temperature Increase and Shrinking Sea Ice in Arctic Alaska

The Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 8 (2014) 7-15

Strong Temperature Increase and Shrinking Sea Ice in Arctic Alaska

Gerd Wendler*, Blake Moore and Kevin Galloway
Alaska Climate Research Center, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, USA

Abstract

Barrow, the most northerly community in Alaska, observed a warming of 1.51 °C for the time period of 1921-2012. This represents about twice the global value, and is in agreement with the well-known polar amplification. For the time period of 1979-2012, high-quality sea ice data are available, showing a strong decrease in sea ice concentrations of 14% and 16% for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, respectively, the two marginal seas bordering Northern Alaska. For the same time period a mean annual temperature increase of 2.7 °C is found, an accelerated increase of warming over the prior decades. Looking at the annual course of change in sea ice concentrations, there is little change observed in winter and spring, but in summer and especially autumn large changes were observed. October displayed the greatest change; the amount of open water increased by 44% and 46% for the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, respectively. The large amount of open water off the northern coast of Alaska in autumn was accompanied by an increase of the October temperature at Barrow by a very substantial 7.2 °C over the 34-year time period. Over the same time period, Barrow’s precipitation increased, the frequency of the surface inversion decreased, the wind speed increased slightly and the atmospheric pressure decreased somewhat.

http://benthamopen.com/toascj/articles/V008/7TOASCJ.pdf

Temps in the 60s and 70s today in Alaska

Link:  http://coolwx.com/record/

Climate Central: Methane emissions from thawing Arctic permafrost: ‘Certain to Trigger Warming’

by Bobby McGill, Climate Central, May 1, 2014

As climate change melts Arctic permafrost and releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, it is creating a feedback loop that is "certain to trigger additional warming," according to the lead scientist of a new study investigating Arctic methane emissions. 

The study released this week examined 71 wetlands across the globe and found that melting permafrost is creating wetlands known as fens, which are unexpectedly emitting large quantities of methane. Over a 100-year timeframe, methane is about 35 times as potent as a climate change-driving greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and over 20 years, it's 84 times more potent.

Permafrost terraces in Alaska.
Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildife Service Alaska/flickr

Methane emissions come from agriculture, fossil fuel production and microbes in wetland soils, among other sources. The study says scientists have assumed that methane emissions from wetlands are high in the tropics, but not necessarily in the Arctic because of the cold temperatures there. 

But a spike in global methane concentrations in the atmosphere seen since 2007 can be traced back to the formation of fens in areas where permafrost once existed, according to the study, led by University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) biology professor Merritt Turetsky.

The methane emissions stemming from melting permafrost could be critical to determining how fast the climate will change in the future.

RELATED	Sources of Methane Emissions Still Uncertain: Study Huge Methane Leaks Add Doubt on Gas as ‘Bridge’ Fuel Nearing a Tipping Point on Melting Permafrost?

“Methane emissions are one example of a positive feedback between ecosystems and the climate system,” Turetsky said. “The permafrost carbon feedback is one of the important and likely consequences of climate change, and it is certain to trigger additional warming.”

Warming and thawing permafrost stimulate methane release, which enhances the greenhouse effect, creating a feedback loop, she said.

“Even if we ceased all human emissions, permafrost would continue to thaw and release carbon into the atmosphere,” Turetsky said. “Instead of reducing emissions, we currently are on track with the most dire scenario considered by the IPCC. There is no way to capture emissions from thawing permafrost as this carbon is released from soils across large regions of land in very remote spaces.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected in its fifth assessment on climate change report that the earth’s average temperatures could warm by as much as 8.64 °F above 1986-2005 temperatures if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Coastal erosion reveals the ice-rich permafrost underlying the Arctic Coastal Plain in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
Credit: USGS

Turetsky’s study shows that fens in the northern latitudes created when permafrost thaws can have emissions similar to wetlands in the tropics. Emissions from fens are generally higher than bogs and some other wetland types because fens, fed by groundwater, have higher nutrient levels and more grasses than bogs, leading to more methane production.

“Our study highlights that northern wetlands without permafrost emit more methane than wetlands with permafrost,” U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist and study co-author Kimberly Wickland said.

“When permafrost is absent, wetlands can be more connected to groundwater, allowing for wetter conditions — the main ingredient for methane production,” she said. “It is possible that methane emissions from wetlands will continue to increase with continued permafrost thaw, but that will depend primarily on whether wetlands stay wet. If they dry, then methane emissions will decline.”

Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goodard Institute for Space Studies in New York and not part of the study, said it's too soon to draw conclusions about how much wetland methane emissions will impact global warming, though scientists widely agree that the amplified feedback is generally going to increase. 

The paleo record shows that the Arctic was several degrees warmer during the last interglacial period 120,000 years ago, and there is no evidence of increased levels of methane in the atmosphere during that period, he said. 

"It's not to say at some point it won't become an issue," Schmidt said, adding that there is evidence of many "methane burps" across the globe in the very distant past. 

"The planet is very capable of surprising us," he said.

By surveying many wetland sites across the globe as Turetsky and her team have, scientists can gain a much broader understanding of the source of methane emissions from melting permafrost and their role in the feedback loop, Schmidt said. Many previous studies have examined just a single site whereas Turetsky's team examined numerous sites across the globe. 

"The work these people are doing in terms of trying to synthesize that information and bring it all together, I think it's certainly going in the right direction," he said. 

Turetsky's study, “A synthesis of methane emissions from 71 northern, temperate, and subtropical wetlands,” was published this week in the journal Global Change Biology.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/arctic-methane-emissions-certain-to-trigger-warming-17374

Steve Horn: "Russia with Love": Alaska Gas Scandal is Out-of-Country, Not Out-of-State

by Steve Horn, DeSmogBlog, April 18, 2014

A legal controversy — critics would say scandal — has erupted in Alaska's statehouse over the future of its natural gas bounty.

It's not so much an issue of the gas itself, but who gets to decide how it gets to market and where he or she resides.

The question of who owns Alaska's natural gas and where they're from, at least for now, has been off the table. More on that later.

At its core, the controversy centers around a public-private entity called the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC) created on April 18, 2010, via House Bill 369 for the “purpose of planning, constructing, and financing in-state natural gas pipeline projects.” AGDC has a $400 million budget funded by taxpayers. 

AGDC was initially built to facilitate opening up the jointly-owned ExxonMobil-TransCanada Alaska Pipeline Project for business. That project was set to be both a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export pipeline coupled with a pipeline set to bring Alaskan gas to the Lower 48.    

Photo Credit: TransCanada

Things have changed drastically since 2010 in the U.S. gas market though, largely due to the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) boom. And with that, the Lower 48 segment of the Alaska Pipeline Project has become essentially obsolete.

Dreams of exporting massive amounts of Alaskan LNG to Asia, however, still remain. They were made much easier on April 14, when the Kenai LNG export facility received authorization to export gas from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Enter the latest iteration of AGDC. This phase began in January 2014 after Governor Sean Parnell, formerly a lobbyist for ConocoPhillips, signed Senate Bill 138 into law. 

The bill served as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Alaska, the AGDC, ConocoPhillips, BP, ExxonMobil, and TransCanada, with the four companies now serving as co-owners of the South Central LNG Pipeline Project.

Gov. Parnell also announced who would serve on the AGDC Board of Directors in September 2013, which began meeting in October 2013. And that's where the story starts to get more interesting. 

Meet Richard “Dick” Rabinow

Under Alaska state law, you have to be a state citizen to serve on state commissions like AGDC. But one of the seven Board members, Richard “Dick” Rabinow, is a citizen of a state far from Alaska: Texas. 

Richard “Dick” Rabinow; Photo Credit: Alaska Gasline Development Corporation

Rabinow is the former president of ExxonMobil Pipeline Company (where he worked for 34 years) and former Chairman of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) Owners Committee. TAPS is co-owned by ExxonMobil, BP, Unocal and ConocoPhillips. He currently lives in Dallas, Texas, and runs his own consultancy called Rabinow Consortium, LLC.

Because Rabinow isn't an Alaskan, major backlash ensued when watchdogs discovered he's from Texas, which nearly caused him to step down from AGDC's Board. Alaska's Senate Democrats wrote a letter on March 21 calling on Rabinow to step down because his appointment flew in the face of state law. 

“Mr. Rabinow is a resident of the state of Texas. Mr. Rabinow is not registered to vote in the state of Alaska. Mr. Rabinow is not qualified to serve as a board appointee here,” read the letter. “[O]ut of respect for the law, we demand that you withdraw Mr. Rabinow’s appointment.”

Importantly, only 4 members of the 20-member Senate are Democrats.

So just three weeks after the Senate Democrats wrote their letter, the Senate passed HB 383 in a 13-7 vote, which also passed in the House in a 27-12 vote.

Immediately signed by Gov. Parnell on April 16, the law now says that AGDC Board members are “not required to be a registered voter or a resident of the state.”

Democratic House Leader Rep. Christ Tuck was none too pleased with the bill's passage.

Rep. Christ Tuck. Photo Credit: The Alaska State Legislature

“Alaskans are tired of multinational corporations coming up here and our government catering to them at the expense of Alaskans,” Tuck told the Alaska Dispatch. 

Multinational corporations in general are one thing.

But in the case of Rabinow's former employer ExxonMobil — coined a “private empire” by investigative journalist Steve Coll — it also has ties in Alaska to an out-of-country multinational corporation from Russia: Rosneft. 

ExxonMobil: “From Russia with Love”

In February 2013, ExxonMobil offered Russian state-owned oil and gas company Rosneft a 25% stake in its portion of the Point Thomson oil and gas field. 

Located on Alaska’s North Slope, which contains both onshore and offshore oil and gas, Point Thomson contains 25% of the known North Slope gas reserves.

Point Thomson Oil and Gas Field. Map Credit: Alaska Department of Natural Resources

“The agreements signed today bring the already unprecedented scale of Rosneft and ExxonMobil partnership to a completely new level,” Igor Sechin, President of Rosneft said of the deal in a press release at the time. “Participation in the Point Thomson project will increase Rosneft’s access to the latest gas and condensate field development technologies used in harsh climatic conditions.”

Stephen Greenlee, President of ExxonMobil Exploration Company (L); Russian President Vladimir Putin (C); Igor Sechin, President of Rosneft (R). Photo Credit: Rosneft.

Sechin is thought to be high up on the list of potential persons to face sanctions by the U.S. for Russia's ongoing occupation of Crimea in Ukraine. Easier said than done, of course, given the ties that bind U.S. companies to Russia's oil and gas industry. 

“[I]f anyone apart from Sechin himself is anxious about the prospect of his arrest if he travels to the West, it could be oil companies like BP and ExxonMobil,” wrote investigative reporter Steve Levine recently. “In other words, the US will be going after Sechin, but also a house that the West itself helped to build.”

Given this wheeling and dealing and geopolitical wrangling between the U.S. and Russia resembles something straight out of a James Bond film, perhaps it's only appropriate that one of the most famous Bond flicks is titled, “From Russia with Love.”

In this ongoing “Great Game,” the controversy that erupted over Rabinow's appointment appears minor by comparison. 

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

http://desmogblog.com/2014/04/18/russia-with-love-alaska-gas-scandal-out-of-country-not-out-of-state