Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
...s increased from 3,000 animals to more than 23,400 animals. While this testament may sound promising, not all is evident in the numbers. Husband and wife adventurers Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison set off from the remote village of Old Crow, Yukon on a bold mission. Over five months, the couple followed the annual migration of the 123,000-strong Porcupine caribou herd from its winter range in central Yukon to its spring calving grounds on Alaska's coastal plain -- and back again. They point out that the Central Arctic herd has, in fact, been displaced by resource development, but the animals have plenty of alternative calving grounds along the broad coastal tundra of western Alaska. By contrast, the birthing area favored by the Porcupine caribou for at least the past 27,000 years is a narrow strip of land squeezed in between the Brooks mountain range and the Beaufort Sea. "There is simply nowhere else for them to go," says Heuer. "And as our experience shows, there are some very good reasons why they have been coming to the same spot for so long" (Bergman). In addition, biologists believe that the Arctic is currently in the midst of a phase of faunal abundance as far as some species are concerned. At least one expert has argued that the Central Arctic’s herd growth also reflects the dramatic decrease in the size of the wolf and grizzly population (Coates 266). Moreover, oil development in Northern Alaska has caused substantially more environmental damage than was predicted in the environmental impact statements that the Department of the Interior prepared for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline project (Coates 313). Put very simply the 8 to 10 years required for oil development would devastate the herd’s numbers. With such a large herd of animals existing relatively undisturbed for many thousands of years, the environmental chain reaction would be very costly to the preservation of ANWR’s ecosystem. But the argument over ecology is not the only debate. Politically, proponents harp upon the idea of being independent from Middle Eastern oil. To justify opening the range, Donald P. Hodell (former Secretary of the Interior) has used the same basic argument as federal officials that supported the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline; the nation badly needs more domestic oil to stem increasing dependency on imports from war-torn regions such as the Middle East and the Arabian Gulf (Coates 311). However, The US actually imports less oil today from the Middle East -- about 2.4 million barrels a day -- than it did in 1977, when we brought in 3.6 million barrels a day. Today, the US imports oil from 60 different countries around the world, according to the Department Of Energy (Palmer). Furthermore, are we really to believe the US will discontinue oil imports during the extraction process in ANWR? It is highly doubtful. Government officials are well aware the short-term supply of oil available, and decisions are profit oriented, so as long as the US can afford to, oil will be imported. Further reductions in oil use in the US, through improved conservation standards (especially with improved gasoline mileage requirements for cars, SUVs, and light trucks), would reduce the need for foreign sources of oil much more quickly and reliably than drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Such conservation efforts can also buy time for development of cost-effective renewable energy sources. Just to cite one example: The Environmental Protection Agency calculates that increasing fuel efficiency standards for new vehicles by just three miles per gallon would save more than one million barrels of oil per day -- five times the amount of oil the Arctic Refuge is likely to provide (Palmer). This is the mode of thinking of an advanced society. It is inevitable that we will exhaust all fossil fuels whether we drill ANWR’s Coastal Plain or not. It is simply an undeniable fact. What is also undeniable is that the burning and extraction of these fossil fuels is a harmful process to the planet and all living organisms that reside here. With these irrefutable points in mind, is it really worth the destruction and disruption of North America’s last healthy landscape? Is nothing sacred? When will politicians learn that the color green is valuable in places other than their pockets? These are not so much answerless questions than they are serious concepts to be considered. A man named Chad Kister wrote a book about his trek through ANWR. He lives wilderness and camped his whole life. I find his point of view refreshing and insightful. Upon his reaching the Coastal Plain he noticed orange stakes protruding from the ground, grotesquely apparent among the wild surroundings. The stakes are there for seismic testing, to see read possible oil location and amount. He reflects: “To a big corporation, land was a commodity, a line item on a ledger. But to any lover of life it is the fabric upon which our species and the life of our planet depends. And this is among the most sacred of places, the core heart of a massive ecosystem upon which hundreds of thousands of caribo...