Alaskan Drilling and The Animals

Posted by Mia Carter Jul 9, 2008

With all the recent buzz on renewable, earth-friendly power sources, the Bush Administration is still condoning drilling off the Alaska coast. But two conservation groups recently filed a lawsuit in attempts to halt this operation, which they claim would disrupt sea mammals living off the Alaskan coast, like walruses and polar bears.

Now, in many respects, I'm supportive of Bush's conservativism. But this is just outrageous! How, with all the research performed on global warming and the discovery of how quickly the world's supply of fossil fuels is dwindling, can you approve an operation that would forever destroy one of the few essentially-untouched landscapes in the world? How long are we going to wait until we cut the cord when it comes to fossil fuels? Are we going to wait until the polar ice caps are no longer and there's a six-month supply of oil remaining?

Call me crazy, but now is the time to start promoting change in the direction of earth-friendly fuel sources. It seems so counterintuitive to start a new operation, in an untouched Arctic landscape that dozens of endangered species call home. Why destroy yet another corner of the world, in search of fossil fuels, when you still have sufficient supplies in other parts of the world? Shouldn't our reliance on fossil fuels be decreasing? Why are we expanding operations? In fact, Libya's government recently announced that they would be scaling back production due to a drop in world demand! So why go digging up the Arctic if there's sufficient supplies elsewhere?

Human-centric attitudes toward non-human species and the environment drive me mad. And you know what? I'd pay $7 per gallon of gasoline any day of the week if it meant that the Arctic would remain untouched. So conservationists: I laud you. Keep up the good work.