Florian Schulz
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is the only refuge designated specifically for wilderness purposes. It’s one of the world’s last untouched wild places-- home to a dizzying array of wildlife uniquely shaped by the extreme environment, picturesque mountains and coastal lagoons, and the Caribou Porcupine herd whose health is tied inextricably to that of the Alaska Native Gwich’in.
It’s also a place we cannot take for granted. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is facing greater risks than ever before; its sensitive coastal plain could soon be handed over to the oil industry. Congress is poised to include a provision its budget bill that would open the Refuge to drilling, even as the Trump administration quietly moves forward with plans to take the first step toward drilling-- seismic testing in the coastal plain.
Seismic testing would leave its own lasting legacy, as can be seen by the scars still visible today from the brief testing completed in the 1980’s. But drilling would lead to damage on a grand scale-- for the Arctic Refuge, for the people and wildlife who depend on it, and for our climate.
Drilling inevitably brings spilling, and a broad industrial complex that would subsume the wild qualities that make the Arctic Refuge so unique. There is no way to drill in this region without damaging the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, and without harming the Porcupine herd of Caribou that use this area to birth their calves. And new oil and gas drilling, anywhere, will make climate change worse, with far reaching implications from food scarcity for the Gwich’in to extreme weather events around the world.
Alaska is already ground zero for climate change-- warming twice as fast as the rest of the country. Arctic sea ice is retreating, shores are eroding, glaciers are shrinking, permafrost is thawing, and insect outbreaks and wildfires are becoming more common.
Blinded by dollar signs, pro-drilling members of Congress either can’t see, or won’t recognize, the dangerous and lasting consequences of drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Yet, even those dollar signs aren’t real. They’re just fictions of hazy math driven by the corporate polluters who would drill anywhere and everywhere. In fact, unless companies bid 10 times more than they bid on average to drill in the North Slope, drilling in the Arctic Refuge would actually add to our national deficit.
The bottom line is that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife is a bad idea. It threatens the tremendous cultural and natural value of the Refuge, ignores the realities of the global oil market and dismal track record of the oil industry, and underestimates the broad public support for safeguarding this place.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is more than just a place. It’s a remaining link to the unspoiled natural world that resonates somewhere deep inside the human spirit. The continued existence of wild places like the Arctic Refuge is essential, even for those like me who have never been there. Even beyond that, this fight is about the existential right of the Gwich’in people to continue their way of life in this place they’ve called home for thousands of years. Because of the direct threat drilling poses to these people and the caribou they rely on, drilling in the Refuge is not just an environmental issue, it’s a human rights issue. Congress must stand up for the Arctic Refuge and vote down proposals to drill there.
Read More
Don’t Let Big Oil Trash The Great Land: Big Oil is eager to drill in the coastal plain of the Arctic Refuge, home to caribou, muskoxen, wolves, 200 species of migratory birds, and polar bears. The Gwich’in people, who now face an existential fight for their way of life, have called for permanent protection of the coastal plain, their ancestral home and the birthing grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd on which they rely. If there was ever a time to permanently protect this incredible place, it is now. Read more.
Retreat at the Edge of the Earth: In Defense of the Arctic: Read the latest op-ed from Rob Vessels who is with our Military Outdoors Program and an Army veteran.
Selling Out the Arctic Refuge: Read the latest from Michael Brune.