Having just returned from the great Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I beg everyone to get politically active and help to save that last great place. It is the last intact arctic ecosystem left in the world and supports one of the last cultures left in America which still lives off the land: the Gwich'in caribou people.
That place is just too important to destroy for short-sighted oil development, which would have virtually no effect on the price or supply of oil. The coastal plain is the densest denning area for the polar bear on Earth and is among the last refuges for the musk ox, arctic wolf, brown bear, golden eagle and many more animals.
Although President Bush claims that industrial development would have little impact on global warming, it is not true. Oil spills are increasing around Prudhoe Bay to now about 550 per year. Oil development spans 50 miles in all directions from Prudhoe Bay and causes massive and permanent devastation.
Oil companies' directional drilling has been a joke, with an average of only a 10 percent difference in drill pad size in 30 years but more spills. Their plans would completely devastate the entire coastal plain.
The oil companies already have 95 percent of the North Slope of Alaska, as well as nearly everywhere else in the world, to poison and destroy for their unprecedented profits. They have enough oil reserves to keep the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline pumping for at least 30 years, and they can only put so much oil through the pipe. Thus, drilling in the refuge would not affect the supply of domestic oil in the United States for decades.
Increasing fuel efficiency standards, however, can meet every American need while greatly reducing how much we pay at the pump. Doing that would save exponentially more oil than could ever come from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Efficiency savings could start immediately. It makes great economic sense and would save every driver money at the pumps. This is not just someplace way up north. The health of the Arctic Refuge directly affects most of the world. There are 160 species of birds from every state and six continents around the world that breed on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - right where they want to drill.
We must leave that one place be. Find out more at www.alaskawild.org or www.arcticrefuge.org. Please contact your senators and representative (www.congress.org) repeatedly to ask them to protect that great refuge.
Don't let oil company-bought politicians cause a permanent loss of America's greatest treasure - its last complete ecosystem and traditional native people.
- Chad Kister is an Athens resident and the author of Arctic Quest: Odyssey through a Threatened Wildlife Area and Arctic Melting: How Climate Change is Destroying One of the World's Largest Wilderness Areas. Send him an e-mail at chadkister@gmail.com.
17 Archives
Letter to the Editor
