TheNextReport

Oil in the Arctic is a hidden treasure that may provide answers to many of the questions surrounding America's deepest political scandal--the hacking of the 2016 presidential election. A 2008 United States Geological Survey estimates that areas north of the Arctic Circle have 90 billion barrels of undiscovered, recoverable oil (and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids ) in 25 geologically defined areas thought to have potential for petroleum. This represents 13% of the undiscovered oil in the world. In June 2007, a group of Russian geologists returned from a six-week voyage on a nuclear icebreaker, the expedition called Arktika 2007. They had traveled to the Lomonosov ridge, an underwater shelf going between Russia's remote, inhospitable eastern Arctic Ocean, and Ellesmere Island in Canada where the ridge lies 400m under the ocean surface. According to Russia's media, the geologists returned with the "sensational news" that the Lomonosov ridge was l...

All the talk about Jared Kushner and secret "back-channel" communications seems designed to keep people wondering and interested in the Washington intrigue. Back-channel talks between Russia and the US on a range of critical issues have been ongoing since the Cold War and some good has indeed come of it. I worked with a small group of people during the late 90's led by television producer Ren Breck whose whose company (News Center One) provided networked communications for international crises. This was BI (bef ore the Internet) when actual human intervention was often necessary.  News Center One played a key role in networking scientists from around the world who used their expertise to address the problems generated by the Chernobyl disaster. Ren's work earned him the commendation of the Russian Academy of Science and established a measure of trust between the involved parties. The News Center One team helped facilitate a Bay Area back-channel visit b...