|
Date: 6 February, 2002
Calling for a $2.13 trillion budget which provides billions of dollars for
the war effort, the Bush administration proposes getting $1.2 billion in new
revenue by leasing the drilling rights in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. The proposal, ironically supported by Interior Secretary Gale Norton
who is charged with protecting our nation's natural resources, will give oil
companies exactly what they want - the right to plunder for oil a small,
110-mile strip of coastline often called the American Serengeti.
Most Americans will never in their lifetime visit this wilderness region.
Why, then, do environmentalists and the majority of Americans object to
drilling? The arguments are simple and compelling:
- It's time to stop Big Oil. Thousands of miles in Alaska's arctic plain are
already open to oil exploration; while industry promises no harm, accidents
such as the Exxon Valdez spill do occur. Defenders of Wildlife reports that
spills, in 1999 alone, measured 45,000 gallons.
- The claim that the Refuge can satisfy our energy needs is nonsense.
Estimates suggest that the oil supply would not come to market for ten years
and would constitute about six months of our national demand.
- Invasion for oil will put at risk fragile and unique populations of
migratory birds, polar bears, musk oxen, arctic foxes, and caribou, as well
as the native Gwich'in people whose culture depends on them.
- It is an illusion that tapping the Refuge is in the public interest. In
our own or our children's lifetimes we will simply have created another
industrial zone at the cost of destroying a majestic wilderness, a place
where Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.
Why wilderness, why protect Alaska's Wildlife Refuge? Another answer comes
from the writings of Wallace Stegner. "We need wilderness preserved - as
much as is still left - and as many kinds - because it was the challenge
against which our character as a people was formed. Even if we never once in
ten years set foot in it, the reassurance that it is still there is good for
our spiritual health. It is important for us when we are young, because of
the incomparable sanity it can bring briefly, as vacation and rest, into our
insane lives. It is good for us when we are old, simply because it is there
- important, that is, simply as idea."
If we never - in ten years or a lifetime - set foot in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge, this magnificent place calls for preservation. Make a
difference by petitioning President Bush and Congress for no drilling
http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/arctic/araction.html [Defenders of Wildlife has made it easy for us. -- barb]
Act today on this EcoAlert and thank you for your environmental
responsibility.
NEW Address:
American P.I.E.
Public Information on the Environment
P.O. Box 676
Northfield, MN 55057-0676
Telephone: 1-800-320-APIE(2743); fax 507-645-5724
E-mail: Info@AmericanPIE.org
EcoAlert subscribe/unsubscribe at our website: http://www.AmericanPIE.org
American P.I.E. does not sell, rent or otherwise share addresses of EcoAlert
subscribers.
American PIE
http://www.AmericanPIE.org
Return to American PIE Index on EHN's site
http://ehnca.org/www/ampie/ampieind.htm
EHN pages of possible interest --
|