Call for moratorium on extraction in contested territories

As can be seen in this recent infographic by Information is Beautiful and The Guardian, we need to leave about 86 percent of known fossil fuel resources in the ground to stay within our carbon budget and hopefully avoid raising global temperatures by more than two degrees Celsius. Still exploration and extraction continues unabated.

However, some resources are in undergrounds below contested territories. Not only are these hydrocarbons in ecologically responsible excess - they also risk causing the spilling of human blood even before they make it to the consumer. The below map points out twelve such territories.



Dear leaders and peoples of Argentina, Denmark, Canada, China, Great Britain, India, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Norway, Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, USA, Vietnam: Please agree to leave these resources alone. Show the world your will to lead on climate change and peace. Designate these contested territories as protected natural reserves.

And dear signatories of the Kyoto Protocol, please consider compensating these countries for their good will with CO2 quotas.

Update: This post is now a petition at AVAAZ. Perhaps the most ambitious (naive) petition in the history of internet petitions. Please sign and advertise.

---