Oil drilling and climate change have decimated the Yamal Penninsula of Russia. The devastation they have wrought are the subject of the documentary of tonight's @NatGeoChannel #MARS episode.
/2 @Greenpeace Russia reports that every 18 months, over 4 million barrels of oil spew into the Arctic Ocean from Russian operations.
/3 Oil and gas prospecting in the continental sector of the Russian Arctic began as early as in the 1930s, prison labor was used.
/4 This is what the area looks like today. @NatGeoChannel #Mars got incredible access to travel to and provide incredibly unique footage from the Yamal Penninsula. 
/5 As #COP24 gets underway in Poland, @NatGeoChannel #MARS
explores an #anthrax outbreak on the Yamal Penninsula in Russia brought about via oil drilling and climate change.
explores an #anthrax outbreak on the Yamal Penninsula in Russia brought about via oil drilling and climate change.
/6 Meanwhile, in the drama, drilling on #MARS by a the private corporation Lucrom unleashes a deadly virus spreading through the drill site and the scientific community. The race to find the cure is on!
/7 And as it is on earth, the women on @NatGeoChannel #MARS are finding the solutions!
/8 This footage of the reindeer killed by anthrax on the Yamal Penninsula of Russia is unbelievably rare - the outcome of oil drilling and climate change.
/8 Even more rare is hearing directly from the indigenous Nanet people of the Yamal Penninsual. This line is amazing: "They are actually killing the planet, maybe they found another planet."
/8 Russia wants to dramatically expand its Arctic drilling and has high hopes of doing so with Exxon. Between 2011 and 2013, after more than a decade of work, Former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson signed agreements for 10 joint ventures w/ Rosneft, including those in the Russian Arctic.
/9 As a result, Exxon's 63.7 million-acre Russian holdings are nearly 5X larger than its second-largest holdings—14 million acres in the U.S.. Exxon is unable to act on the majority of the Russian agreements, including in the Arctic, due to sanctions imposed by Obama in 2014.
