Elizabeth Turner Issues in Environmental Bio Debate Paper SHOULD THE ANWR BE OPEN FOR OIL DRILLING?

INTRODUCTION: There is an on-going controversial debate concerning whether or not the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge should be developed into a new oil drilling site. With every debate there are at least two sides that disagree; the pro side and the con side. The pro side believes that the ANWR would be a safe and beneficial area to drill for oil in. On the other spectrum the con side believes that drilling in the ANWR would cause environmental stress and excessive consumption. The pro side states that drilling in the ANWR could largely profit our oil industry and would create jobs in the United States, rather than constantly importing oil. They state that the area that is currently being scouted out for drilling (the coastal plain) is nothing but a barren wasteland. The con side states that there isnt enough substantial evidence that the amount of oil currently in the ANWR is justifiable to disrupt the environment and lives of natives for drilling. My stance on this issue is firmly with the con side. I am against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge based on environmental evidence and life morals dealing with native inhabitants of the ANWR. CON SIDE ASSERTION 1: Drilling in the ANWR will add to our excessive consumption of fossil fuels. EVIDENCE 1: The Unites States is currently dealing with an addiction of over exhausting nonrenewable resources. The United States is the biggest single user of fossil fuels, the country has a very big problem when it comes to excessive consumption. To put this statement into words the United States is only about 5% of the worlds population but we use up about 25% of the worlds total oil (Clugston 2007). As a country we have chosen to live a very industrial

lifestyle without thinking of what this will bring in the future. The U.S. relies heavily on foreign resources and therefore we are putting a burden not only on foreign economies but also our own. Our current way of excessively consuming fossil fuels is not sustainable. According to the Earth Day Network if everyone lived identically to the way I live then we would need four earths to power everything. Excessive consumption means that we are living far beyond our means and our ecological footprints are much greater than any other country. Our supply and demand needs are dangerously imbalanced, the demand is far outweighing the supply that is available world wide. This over consumption is adding to air pollution, water pollution, land loss, fishery loss, forest degradation, non-renewable source depletion, and even debt (Clugston 2007). The over consumption of fossil fuels has influenced greenhouse emissions to go up from 6.1 billion metric tons in1990 to 7.1 billion tons in the year 2005 (Clugston 2007). Drilling for oil in the ANWR would not push the industries to find new and sustainable sources for fuel and energy. ASSERTION 2: The amount of oil in the ANWR will not yield a significant amount. EVIDENCE 2: There is no way to 100% accurately state how much oil is located in the ANWR unless drilling were to take place. According to the Energy Information Association the amount of oil that is in the ANWR would only lower oil barrel prices by about 50 cents (URL 1). Even at the peak of oil production from the ANWR location the United States would still have to import two-thirds of its oil supply. Justin Tatham of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an environmental organization that works to protect the refuge from development states that the United States would still be dependent, if not more dependent on foreign sources of oil (URL 1). ASSERTION 3: The environment and wildlife will be affected such as the Porcupine Caribou. EVIDENCE 3: If drilling were to occur in the ANWR on the coastal plain the environment

would in fact be altered. There would have to be roads paved for access to drilling sites, pipe lines running to and from the oiling site and not to mention to vast size of the drilling facility itself. The con side states that the environment would not be altered because the coastal plain is a barren wasteland. It just so happens to be that the barren wasteland they are talking about is a calving ground for the Porcupine Caribou and is home to Polar bears. The pro side claims that nothing would happen to the caribou because they are already coexisting with other drilling sites. However Ray Cameron, a wildlife biologist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks has been studying the caribou for the past 2 decades, he claims that the caribou are a strong herd but any change would impact the herd (Coile 2005). Migratory routes of the Porcupine Caribou would be affected due to habitat fragmentation. There are signs that although the herds are not completely thrown off by new additions to their land, Ray Cameron has mentioned that the herds are starting to be crowded out of drilling areas and they are moving on due to necessity of vegetation and survival (Coile 2005). ASSERTION 4: The Gwichin tribe will be greatly affected. EVIDENCE 4: The Gwichin tribe has been living in the area that is now labeled the ANWR for about 20,000 years (URL 2). This area is their land, their home, and their sanctuary, it has been for far longer than the United States has been established . All of the Gwichin nation tribes and villages within the ANWR are lined up along the route of the porcupine caribou herd. The tribe relies heavily on the Porcupine Caribou herd as a source of food, clothing, tools and a social and spiritual connection to the land. They believe that every caribou has a part of the human hear inside of them, and that every human has a part of the caribou inside their heart, because of this connection they will have some knowledge of what the caribou are thinking and feeling and likewise for the caribou (URL 3).

The Gwichin tribe highly respects the Porcupine Caribou and they never hunt in the calving grounds of the caribou nor do they hunt pregnant caribou even when their food source is scarce (URL 3). The tribe has already experienced life without a substantial amount of Porcupine Caribou and without the caribou their lives become stressful. If the tribe had to switch from a hunting economy to a cash economy our community would have a massive social disruption (LaDuke 1990). The tribe would be forced to be at the bottom of a part of an economical system that they have never really been a part of. Their community would be ripped apart and they would be forced to live against their preferred and cherished lifestyle. CONCLUSION: My personal view on this topic is that there is not enough justification to start drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The amount of energy and resources that the United States uses up just shows me that if we started to drill in the ANWR then the over excessive consumption would only increase. Instead of exhausting our resources we need to be thinking of new innovative ways to be using non-renewable resources rather than simply depleting them. The amount of oil that we are debating on whether or not to dig up does not seem like a substantial amount to even be fighting over. In the grand scheme of things it seems as if the ANWR would simply provide a little puddle of oil for the country and using up more resources than is being extracted. Not to mention that the ANWR was put into place to protect the wildlife and now we have come full circle. The environment would be damaged and I do not think that putting animals such as the Porcupine Caribou into danger is worth the risk. Not to mention that we are not only putting animals at risk but also human beings, who have been living on the land far before the United States was even a country. It seems with the presented evidence that drilling for oil in the ANWR would prove to not be beneficial enough to ruin a whole community of animal and human lives.

Works Cited Coile, Zachery. "THE LAST REFUGE / Caribou Migration, Drilling Plan Symbolic of Battle between Oil and Environment." SFGate. San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Aug. 2005. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. <http://www.sfgate.com/green/article/THE-LAST-REFUGE-Caribou-migration-drilling2614084.php>. LaDuke, Winona. "The Porcupine Caribou Herd, The Gwich'in And Big Oil." Earth Island Journal 5.2 (1990): 17. GreenFILE. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. URL 1: "Study: ANWR Oil Would Have Little Impact." NBC News. N.p., 16 Mar. 2004. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4542853/ns/us_newsenvironment/t/study-anwr-oil-would-have-little-impact/#.UKXGDVKA-So>. URL 2: "Gwich'in Human Rights Threatened by ANWR Drilling | Cultural Survival." Gwich'in Human Rights Threatened by ANWR Drilling | Cultural Survival. N.p., 28 Oct. 2005. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. <http://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/united-states/gwichin-humanrights-threatened-anwr-drilling>. URL 3: "The Gwich'in of Alaska and Canada." Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2012. <http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/ANWR/anwrgwichin.html>.