Companion to my outsourcing article-this one's on ANWR:

Again, the paper's already been graded, just wanted to see what you guys and gals think of my ramblings...

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The Arctic National Wildlife Reserve is in grave danger. Radical Republican Congressmen, bought and paid for by oil interests, are trying to allow this vast and wonderful area to be opened for drilling. They claim it will lower gas prices and stimulate the economy. They are lying. What drilling will actually do is inflict a huge amount of damage on one of the last truly wild places in North America, and not be particularly effective in lowering gas prices or improving the economy.

They have suffered a brief setback in the House of Representatives, where Democrats and Republican moderates were able to get the drilling provision removed from the House’s 2006 budget proposal. But the threat remains. The final budget proposal will soon be up for a vote in both House and Senate, and those Congressmen loyal to the oil industry will no doubt do their best to open this majestic wilderness to the clanging of derricks and the reek of spilled oil. The question they will ask is “Why not?” Why should the Reserve be protected? Well, there are plenty of reasons why not.

First and foremost is the fact that oil from the Reserve (henceforth referred to as ANWR) will only lower gas prices temporarily, mainly because there is not that much oil present in the first place. According to the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife, “Geologists estimate that only a few months' supply of oil lies beneath the refuge” and they quote the Energy Information Agency as saying “the...ANWR coastal plain production might reduce world oil prices by as much as 30 to 50 cents per barrel..." Quite the fair trade-off there, devastating all that land for such an impressive reduction in oil prices.

Additionally, the ANWR oil is going to be hard to bring out. The current projections are that it will take ten years to get everything running, drill down to the deposits, extract the oil, process it, and start sending it south. Besides, alternative fuels are a better long-term choice than oil. Biodiesel, hydrogen, electricity-all of these can be derived from renewable resources. Oil cannot. Sooner or later, it will run out, no matter how much drilling is done. This means an alternate source has to be found, and oil has to be conserved in the meantime. Defenders of Wildlife suggests making vehicles more fuel-efficient, since an improvement as little as “2 miles per gallon would save more than a million barrels a day." That would work in the short term, and biodiesel or electricity would be a good long-term choice.

Another problem with ANWR drilling is the massive amount of construction required for the infrastructure of the drilling operation, and the attendant costs. To cite Defenders of Wildlife again, “Coastal plain oil development would require a spider's web of industrial complexes across virtually the entire plain - hundreds of miles of roads and feeder pipelines, refineries, living quarters for hundreds of workers, landfills, water reservoirs, docks and gravel causeways, production plants, gas processing facilities, seawater treatment plants, power plants and gravel mines."

This raises the question of “who pays for it in the end?” Since the government is handing out the construction contracts, it has to recoup the money it is shelling out. And odds are, that means the costs are going to be passed onto the taxpayers. So the few cents they save at the pumps are just going to go to pay more taxes. While it would be possible to borrow money for the construction rather than saddle the taxpayers with the cost, the country’s got enough debt as it is. The national debt currently stands at $8,082,848,241,050.02. Adding any more to that is foolishness, and borderline criminal. Is more detail even necessary? It is obvious that the only ones who benefit from ANWR drilling are oil company executives.

Drilling proponents claim that “250,000 and 735,000 ANWR jobs are estimated to be created by development of the Coastal Plain”, and that “the Coastal Plain of ANWR is America's best possibility for…another giant ‘Prudhoe Bay-sized’ oil and gas discovery." The jobs may come, but at the expense of a wondrous part of nature. Put a Democrat in the White House in 2008, and jobs that do not require destroying the Refuge will become available. And the second claim is probably false, since the geologist estimates quoted above are probably much less partisan than this website.

An even worse problem with ANWR drilling comes in the form of environmental consequences. Consider this future, which is all too likely to take place if the Reserve is opened up: where 157,000 caribou once roamed and birthed their calves is a maze of derricks and smokestacks. Seals and whales that once frolicked in the coastal waters have been driven away by oil spills. Where polar bears once denned are refineries and processing facilities, mingled with the pitiful bones of bear cubs abandoned when their mothers were driven off or killed by humans. In the places that 600 musk oxen-just reintroduced to the area twenty-five years ago-once grazed are dumps and pipelines. Where grizzly bears once wandered, now stand barracks for the oil workers, decorated with the stuffed bodies of those same grizzlies. The great wetlands where 135 species of migratory birds once arrived to nest are contaminated with pools of spilled oil. The Gwich’in Indians, who depended on the caribou to maintain their traditional way of life, have been reduced to hopeless shells of their former selves. Only the scavengers-Arctic foxes, ravens, and gulls-have managed to eke out a life for themselves, digging in the landfills that dot the once-beautiful wilderness.

There is evidence for each clause of this horrid potential future. Caribou have the highest population of any large animal in the refuge, and the annual migration of the Porcupine caribou herd (some 130,000 individuals) takes them to the Refuge in May, “where they typically give birth to 40-50,000 calves." If the Refuge is developed, their migratory patterns may well be altered. And the predators take advantage of the caribou calves, so “a disruption of the traditional caribou migration to…calving areas would likely have serious repercussions on the grizzly bear population as well."

Polar bears probably have it worst, though. While they primarily prey on seals, they will feed on caribou just like grizzlies, and some 1,800 den in the Refuge. The problem is, “once disturbed, polar bears may abandon their dens, leaving their cubs to die”, and “bears that contact oil are likely to die” due to the oil hampering their ability to stay warm and harming their central nervous system. Additionally, human nature guarantees that at least some polar bears and grizzlies will be shot by workers for sport, or because they were raiding garbage cans and landfills. Musk oxen have similar problems-“given sufficient human disturbance musk oxen will run away and during a full fledged "panic-flight" may also abandon their young."

To make things even worse, oil spills are guaranteed. In fact, at the nearby Prudhoe Bay drilling complex, “hundreds of spills involving tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil and other petroleum products occur annually." And oil spills have all sorts of horrific effects on birds and marine life. There are 135 species of birds that migrate to or live in the Refuge. Some come from as far away as South America. Why should they have to suffer and die because of corporate greed? Why should the fish, seals, and whales? The bowhead whale has barely managed to keep from going extinct, and most of the survivors now dwell in the waters near the refuge. “This entire population <7,800> migrates together, so a spill in their path would be disastrous."

The native people, the Gwich’in Indians, would suffer from drilling just as much as the animals. They depend on the caribou for food, clothes, and other things. If the caribou are driven away, then the Indians’ whole way of life will be radically changed. They will be forced to modernize, destroying a lifestyle thousands of years old, or reduced to begging oil workers for food. They have done nothing to deserve that.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and its animals are at risk. The American people need to pressure any wavering Congressmen into protecting the refuge. The Congressmen are supposed to represent the interests of the people, not the interests of wealthy oil companies. It would not be hard. If everyone took an hour out of their time spent watching TV and wrote a strong letter to their Senators and Representative, they could save the Refuge. All those animals would be free of choking fumes, toxic spills, and human invasion into their homes. The Gwich’in would be able to maintain their ancient lifestyle. What a wonderful vision that is.

C'mon, there's gotta be someone out there willing to take a look.