Pompeo: Global warming is a great opportunity for business and travel

At a Monday meeting of the Arctic Council in Finland, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decided to ignore the cooperative mission of the council and instead engage in a weird discourse about how great climate change is for trade.

The Arctic Council exists to foster cooperation and coordination between Arctic countries, indigenous Arctic communities and other Arctic dwellers. However, Pompeo’s speech to the Council declared that it is “America’s moment to stand up as an Arctic nation” and that the Arctic was now “an arena of global power and competition.” Pompeo also bragged that the United States was doing new military exercises in the Arctic region.

Then things got even weirder.

In front of a group that is concerned about the delicate and endangered ecosystem of the Arctic, Pompeo decided it was time to muse about how great it is that the ice caps are melting: “Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade,” Pompeo said. He went on to speak enthusiastically about how the obliteration of the environment “could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days.”

Where that part of Pompeo’s remarks was just surreal, the remainder of his discussion on Arctic resources was distressingly familiar. What Pompeo really cares about — just like the rest of the Trump administration — is how we can strip the earth of resources and profit while doing so. With that, he was very excited about the Arctic’s oil and gas reserves and also that uranium, gold, diamonds, and other rare earth minerals can be found there.

Pompeo refused to use the term “climate change” in any of his remarks, presumably because his boss refuses even to acknowledge that climate change exists. Now, this administration’s goal of plundering the earth has never been more apparent.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.