ANWR - Is It The Caribou, Or Ourselves That Need Saving?

ANWR, or The Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, is 19 million acres of wilderness that lies in the Northeast corner of Alaska. It is also one of the hottest pieces of real estate in the United States.

It lies in an area known as “The North Slope.” Sara Palin (Republican V.P. hopeful) recently said “We need Oil and Natural Gas, and as someone who is very familiar with the North Slope, theirs a lot of it!”

Why people support drilling:

Money is Money after all, and Oil is nothing more than liquid money. Anyone who makes a living in the Oil retrieval, shipping, processing and selling trade would be silly not to try to take advantage of it.

The Federal Government of course has a financial interest also. Taxes are one. Oil Company Lobbyists and Special Interest groups are another. They put Millions of dollars into election coffers and pay for all kinds of political perks.

The State of Alaska gets most of it’s money from Oil, and it’s citizens are given an “Oil Rebate” check every year.

“Our dependency on foreign oil” is a phrase that gets used a lot. The belief is that if we produce enough of our own, instead of having to buy it from foreign countries, we’ll be better off. The examples used are “Terrorists or unstable governments sabotaging oil pipelines overseas” and “why not keep our profit dollars here instead of giving them to countries like Saudi Arabia?

It will lower gas prices.

Why people don’t support drilling:

Use of fossil fuels (like oil) have a detrimental effect on the environment and have been scientifically proven to be a leading cause in Global Warming.

Instead of finding new areas to drill for oil, we should be finding new ways to produce energy.

We should put the Oil Lobbyists and special interest groups out of business. The Government is full of graft and corruption as it is.

Dependency on foreign oil shouldn’t even be in the equation. We need to stop our dependency on oil in general, and we can continue getting it from overseas until we can wean ourselves off.

Save the Caribou.

Look at the last two letters of ANWR. Wildlife Refuge. By law, no development.

It probably wont lower gas prices, and if it does, it will only be a few pennies per gallon.

There is only enough oil there to supply North America for a few months.

There are compelling arguments for both sides, but lets take a step back for a second. What are we really looking at here? Our Government granted us that land through a law that was set down. They decided that there were few enough wild places left, that they ought to protect certain ones from activities such as those who would drill. Does that same government have a right to take that land back and give it to Corporations?

Brooks Range, ANWR

Yes, our Government has the power of Imminent Domain. They can tear down our houses to build roads and hospitals. But do the have the right, should they have the right to drill in a National Wildlife Refuge?

Oil is killing this planet. It’s killing it’s citizens. Everyday, people die because of our dependancy on oil and what it does to our environment.

You cant take someone who’s trying to quit smoking and keep putting lit cigarettes in their hands, and you cant say that we need to drill more and use less.

As always, don”t forget to Alter the Eco and keep up the good fight,

Adam

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