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Two years ago, NRDC celebrated an important victory when a federal court ruled against Shell's bid to drill for oil in waters off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Now NRDC has gone to court to halt Shell's new drilling plans in the same waters. In January, the Obama administration granted the company permission to do exploratory drilling in Alaska's Chukchi and Beaufort seas, despite evidence that this could lead to dangerous oil spills and irreversibly damage the sensitive Arctic ecosystem.

"We know far less about the Arctic than we do about any other part of the earth," says Chuck Clusen, director of NRDC's Alaska program. "We desperately need a time-out on drilling so we can first understand, scientifically, what we need to do to protect this ecosystem."

The Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco will likely issue a decision this summer, says Clusen, although drilling could start as early as June.

The Chukchi Sea, which lies off Alaska's northwestern coast, and the Beaufort Sea, along the state's northeastern coast, are home to endangered bowhead and beluga whales, polar bears, seals, and dozens of species of Arctic birds. Shell's new permits allow the company to drill just 20 miles from the wildlife refuge. Arctic ecosystems are already jeopardized by climate change, which is accelerating faster there than in other regions. The human activities associated with oil exploration, including increased pollution, noise, and added roads and traffic, will intensify the effects of climate change, such as the melting of sea ice, according to Tara Connelly, an Arctic scientist in NRDC's Science Center.

"Almost all aspects of the marine Arctic ecosystem are related in some way to sea ice, and its loss will affect everything from algae to top predators like polar bears," Connelly says. Large animals, including walruses and polar bears, depend on sea ice for hunting and breeding; tiny brine channels within sea ice also house the unique microbial communities that fuel the Arctic food web.

Experts predict that a major oil spill will occur if commercial drilling is allowed to proceed. When that happens, little can be done to protect fragile wildlife against the inevitable ensuing devastation. "The conditions up there are dark and very cold, and we just don't have the technology to clean up oil in cold waters amid broken ice," Connelly says. "There's no infrastructure in the Arctic to respond to such a disaster."