Posted on 11/07/2005 12:17:54 PM PST by walwyn
This last great wilderness must be preserved for wilderness values, wildlife, and traditional ways-of-life. The unprotected area of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain provides vital habitat for nearly 200 species of animals, including the 129,000 member Porcupine Caribou herd as well as polar bears, grizzlies, wolves and millions of migratory birds. Allowing this essential, eternal wilderness to be exchanged for a short-term supply of oil is totally unacceptable.
Drilling in the Refuge will have no discernable short-term or long-term impact on the price of fuel and will not decrease our dependence on foreign oil. The amount of oil under the Arctic Refuge would never satisfy more than 2 percent of our nation's oil demands at any given time. In fact, if the Refuge were America’s only source of oil, the amount of recoverable oil would sustain America’s consumption for less than 6 months. The wilderness values of the Arctic Refuge coastal plain are too precious to give away as a temporary bandage for our need for oil.
Better means of achieving low fuel costs and decrease dependency on exports would be obtained by improving our conservation efforts and supporting measures to increase our nation's automobile fuel efficiency. Increasing fuel economy standards, the use of alternative fuels, and even fully inflating our car tires would save far more oil than what's estimated to be beneath the Arctic Refuge.
95% of Alaska's North Slope is already open for exploration or development. The Arctic Refuge coastal plain, the last 5%, should be protected for future generations, not plundered for a speculative short-term supply of oil.
Oil development cannot be done in an “environmentally sensitive” manner. Since 1996, the Prudhoe Bay oil fields and Trans-Alaska Pipeline have caused an average of 427 spills annually on the North Slope most commonly spills of diesel and crude oil. In fact, just since early February 2001, three large oil spills have occurred in the Prudhoe Bay area resulting in over 13,000 gallons of spilled crude oil and drilling muds. Whether an accident or faulty maintenance, the Arctic Refuge coastal plain is too precious to risk from spills such as these.
I would love to know how many members of the Sierra Club have EVER visited ANWR...
What does Sierra Club know about 'traditional ways of life'? They hate traditional values in America.
I got as high as zero..
13,000 gallons since 2001 have been spilled..to put it into perspective, how many MILLIONS OF BARRELS have been pumped through?? Even if only two million, and it's a lot more than that, it's a spill rate of .0065 percent.
Isn't oil natural?
I suspect that is pretty accurate.
Ya a whole 13,000 gallons. I wonder if any of these freaks ever figured out how many gallons were dumped by the sinking of tankers in WW2.
The League of Women Voters does everything the Sierra Club says to do. Look for the "non-partisan" League to start up the letter campaign.
LOL---sounds about right.
Yes.
Alaska is already such a dump because of all of the oil exploration. The enviornment is trashed and the wildlife is dead. Nothing servives there as a result of all of the petroleum polution in the region.
We are all dead.
Sarcasm on!
from what I've read, this is not the wildlife preserve the sierranuts believe it is..it's nothing more than frozen wasteland, no trees, no mountains, no animals, no nothing..but, if they insist on no drilling, may I suggest they pull a Sheehan and go handcuff themselves to the nearest piece of ice and wait for the hordes arrival.
Oh come on there must have been 1 at least? No!
I have a letter for you,
DRILL
Sincerely,
Americans tired of being dependent on foreign oil.
Can they do math?
none, zero, zilch, notta..I betcha
The oil leases will not be in the mountains, but on the useless flat muskeg scrubland leading down to the frozen ocean. Those who like the idea of mountains would be disappointed by these mountains anyway but that is their problem.
I carry around photocopies of Monopoly money to hand to these types of organizations. Invariably when they ask "Why would you hand this out" I say, "I would have given you the real thing but I did not want to break up my set."
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