5 Reasons to drill in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge instead of draining petroleum reserve
In 2013, President Obama designated almost a quarter million acres in the Arctic as a National Wildlife Refuge to protect habitat and wild animals. The area is one of the last intact areas of wilderness that still can provide an enormous variety of species, including endangered ones like the ringed seal. The area includes nearly all the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), plus the coastal plain of the Chukchi Sea off Alaska, and the coastal plain of the Beaufort Sea off the Alaskan west coast. By shrinking the Chukchi and Beaufort, and cutting in half the size of the ANWR, the Arctic Council hopes to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2020. Now, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has decided to begin construction on a water pipeline that would allow oil and gas companies to access part of the refuge, instead of drilling in ANWR (which is a different area).
But this new plan to drill in Arctic Refuge is deeply ironic because ANWR is also a refuge for many species of animals that would be killed by oil and gas drilling: polar bears, ducks, geese, musk oxen, and other wildlife.
Why this matter? Oil reserves in ANWR are worth an estimated $13 billion. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge contains more than twice as much.
As I explain in this video, here are 3 reasons why you should not drill in ANWR and why drilling in ANWR will not help the climate:
1. Wildlife
When drilling begins in ANWR, it will be impossible to protect the animals there. For starters, drilling could wipe out polar bears, polar wolf, and ringed seals for a while. Even now, the biggest worry for musk oxen are oil drilling. The musk ox population is so big that they are already migrating off-shore to seek land that does not contain drilling. But as an entire population migrates, it is extremely hard to protect them from the drillers.
ANWR is also a refuge for wild bears, wolves, musk ox, and other animals that would be killed by drilling. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has estimated that by 2050 70 percent of the mus
