Last year, Russia began constructing a floating nuclear power plant. It is scheduled for deployment in the Arctic in 2012 and eleven additional units are currently planned.

Nuclear power has its risks, despite the Russians' claim that they "absolutely guarantee" the safety of the plant and that they have somehow inexplicably ruled out all possible dangers. 

But the plants have much broader geopolitical consequences too. As the Arctic ice melts due to global warming, vast new mineral, oil and gas resources are being made available on the previously inaccessible seafloor. The five Arctic nations, Russia and the U.S. included, have not yet reached a global agreement on how to divide their claims.

The purpose of this plant is to facilitate exploitation of these resources as fast as possible, especially a vast yet unrecognized Russian claim to a formation that could hold 75 billion barrels of oil beneath the North Pole. 

Sign this petition to tell Rosatom, Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, that it is wrong to put the Arctic at risk with floating nuclear plants.