The companies in favor for Arctic drillings should understand what it does to our land and our animals. The need for Arctic drilling in the U.S. is extremely important. But I think that there is an easier and less devastating way of doing so. Also, the cost of Arctic drilling is very expensive. We are paying a lot of money to extract oil, but In a way I think we are paying to devastate our land and kill our animals. Over the years, oil spills have been a great problem in the Arctic. “In 2006, a corroded portion of a pipeline resulted in a leak of 270,000 gallons of oil. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. It killed 1,000 sea otters, tens of thousands of birds and cost over 2 Billion dollars to clean up” (Driscoll and Griswold). “Other groups that are opposing the Arctic drillings include, Greenpeace, the National Congress of American Indians and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service” (Protecting the Arctic). This shows that there are other groups out there who oppose drilling In the Arctic for oil (Driscoll and Griswold). Drilling In the arctic should stop. The companies in favor for arctic drilling should understand what It does to our land and our animals. “In order to protect the National Wildlife Refuge, Senators Maria Cantwell and Mark Kirk introduced legislation (s.1698) by designating it’s coastal plan as wilderness (Protecting the Arctic).
Large oil companies who are extracting oil from the Arctic needs to find a new, inexpensive and less deadly way of doing so. Those in favor of Arctic drilling include the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth, Exxon Mobil and other petroleum companies (Driscoll and Griswold). It is important to drill less for oil in the ...
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...elp In anyway possible. Who knows, perhaps some brave group of people will take a stand to the oil companies and maybe even find a way to stop the Arctic oil drillings But for now, there seems to be no hope for the Arctic recovery efforts.
Works Cited
Driscoll, SallyGriswold, Marcus. "Arctic Drilling: An Overview." Points Of View: Arctic Drilling (2013): 1. Points of View Reference Center. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
"Protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." National Wildlife Refuge Association. National Wildlife Refuge Association, n.d. Web. 18
Browner, Carol. "Why We Now Oppose Drilling in the Arctic." Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 17 Jan. 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
Mar. 2014.
Kollewe, Julia, and Terry Macalister. "Arctic Oil Rush Will Ruin Ecosystem, Warns Lloyd's of London." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 12 Apr. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.
Also, drilling in Alaska will not harm the wildlife. Take Prudhoe Bay for example. The Central Arctic Caribou Herd that occupies Prudhoe Bay has grown from a population of 6000 in 1978 to 27000 today. This is a 450% growth over 26 years at an average of 17.3% growth per year. (Arctic Power) That’s quite an increase.
The environment needs protecting because even before the drilling started hunting was rapidly decreasing the amount of animals in the area. So if drilling occured in Alaska the animal count would go down even more. Drilling is gonna need space, and because Alaska is a mountained and woodland area they will have to make space by destroying trees etc. Destroying trees means destroying animals’ homes. According to document E ‘just look 60 miles west to Prudhoe bay- an oil complex that has turned 1,000 square miles of fragile tundra into a sprawling industrial zone containing, 1,500 miles of roads and pipes’. Also the document states that the would be
The Government of Canada , "Canada's Arctic Foreign Policy." Last modified June 03, 2013. Accessed November 27, 2013. http://www.international.gc.ca/arctic-
On March 27, 1989 the supertanker Exxon Valdez ran ashore in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling approximately 11 million gallons of crude oil. The oil soon spread into the waters of south-central Alaska from the sound of Kodiak Island to the Kenai Peninsula (refer to Figure 1 for a map of the area). Almost immediately, news media arrived at the site reporting images of oil-stained beaches and wildlife to the masses. News coverage centered around the environmental devastation which would result from the spill. The coverage, for the most part, reinforced stereotypes of Alaska, as a pristine wilderness and Exxon as a greedy, irresponsible oil company. These images stressed the negative consequences of the spills and ignored ...
The debate on drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is an intensely debated topic of America today. Proponents of the oil drilling believe that the oil in the refuge will solve the high prices of gasoline, but they don’t even know what amount of oil the refuge holds and the amount of oil that we use every year in the United States. The drilling in ANWR will severely damage the wildlife refuge and its environment. The oil would take years to access with drilling and so far there has been no proof that the drilling would actually produce enough oil to sustain our needs as a country. Also a reason to not drill in the refuge is because the reserve is being saved for when our country is in a national emergency, or until when there is no oil left because of its rapid decline in availability. How did you feel when just about a year ago there was the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? That event killed the environment in the Gulf and millions of innocent animals died to our screw up, if the drilling in ANWR is allowed we could be faced with these same exact circumstances again. These are the reasons that the oil drilling in the national refuge should not be allowed.
There is an abundance of oil underneath earth’s crust on land and in the water but getting to that oil can be proven as a challenge and a negative impact on the earth. Many of these oil reservoirs lie in federally protected land or water to minimize the negative impact on the earth. But should those restrictions be removed? Removing the restrictions can allow the US to tap into domestic reserves rather than rely on imported oil from the Middle East and Asia but tapping these reservoirs can also leave behind an impact that is harmful to this planet. “Critics oppose this move for fear that it will cause irreparable harm environmental harm. They point to the April 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as evidence of the risks associated with offshore drilling” (SIRS).
Over the last thirty years the United States has been faced with the problem of dependence on foreign countries for oil and the tight control that these exercise on the energy policies and economics of America. Many of these instances include: the oil embargos of the 1970s, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. Since the 1970s, one solution offered to reduce our nation's dependence on foreign countries for oil has been opening up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Proponents say that drilling in ANWR would make the United States more self-sufficient in the area of energy, while at the same time not doing excessive damage to the environment of the area. Opponents of drilling in ANWR cite the environmental problems of off-shore drilling and maintain that this land should be left alone and allowed to stand as an environmental wonder. Given that some environmental groups do not mind allowing technology to invade the environment when it profits them and given the threats of global terror and the ever-increasing dependence our nation has on foreign oil, I believe it is in the best interests of the United States to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.
Last year, news spread of an oil spill off the Gulf Coast. These events occur periodically and usually register much media attention. As British Petroleum (BP) executives could not shut off the crude oil or prevent the damage it caused, people took notice. Millions of dollars in tourism, commerce and sales were lost. Thousands of wildlife acres and ecosystems were also compromised. There were more questions than answers.
..."Alaska Oil Spill Fuels Concerns Over Arctic Wildlife, Future Drilling." National Geographic News. 20 Mar. 2006. Web. 3 July 2010.
The global oil and gas demand is rising dramatically and explorations of new oil and gas fields became one of major concern in the world. As a result of this, it has been evaluated that, the arctic region, mostly offshore, holds as much as 25% of the world’s unrecovered reserve of hydrocarbons where much of the reserve is lying under seasonal or year-round sea ice. So, future gas and oil production from the Arctic region may be played a crucial role in gas and oil industry. But any development in this arctic region deals with high level of risks and uncertainties. So, lot of research works are required to reveal effective and environmentally sound drilling and supplementary operations in the arctic region under the most extreme geographic and climate conditions.
Drilling for oil in Alaska may affect the wildlife, but it is a good thing to do because our government well make money and get out of depth. Are you tired of paying high gas prices every time you got to fill the tank? Do you know if the U.S would let shell oil company drill for oil in Alaska you could kiss those high gas prices good byes? The resin they say we cannot drill there is because it would affect the wild life. But in my view the wild life that lives there has plenty of land to move to once they started to drill.
Whether we get around by car, bus, or plane, oil is an important factor in most people's lives. The demand is huge, and prices have shot up fast, making us now seek sources for oil in other countries or by drilling offshore. This essay will address the issue from Taking Sides (2013) of “Should we drill offshore for oil?” First, I will talk about the benefits of offshore drilling, economically and socially. Next, I will talk about various arguments against offshore drilling, paying special attention to possible environmental threats. Finally, I will say my personal beliefs, taking both sides into consideration.
These people might say what about all of the people’s jobs that will be lost if we stopped offshore drilling? They might say that it’s just as dangerous on land. It might be dangerous on land too but if there happens to be a leak on land it doesn’t affect as much wildlife or even people. It is also a lot easier to fix a leak on land then it is to fix one in the bottom of the ocean. Most of these people that agree with offshore drilling don’t truly understand how great the ocean is and could care less about the amazing fish that the ocean has to offer. Offshore drilling has even killed people when the drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded it killed 11 people. Does it still sound
Canada’s arctic has evidently suffered from substantial climate change, resulting in devastating impacts on all systems in the north. Many climate models indicate that these significant changes will only progress in the future. The monitoring of temperatures in the Arctic have demonstrated that, over roughly the past 50 years, there has been a warming of about 2 to 3°C as of 2009. The average temperature in the arctic has increased almost twice as fast than the rest of the world. In 2020, the projected increase is up to 4°C as well as 8°C by 2050. A numbers of studies have shown that, based on previous climate records, there has been issues of rising sea levels, alterations in sea-ice dynamics, and permafrost degradation. Though there have been multiple strategies posed and adopted, the government of Canada needs to develop an arctic strategy that is more proactive and systemic than previous actions. This strategy needs to be global in its goals for mitigation while still monitoring social, cultural, and economic aspects
The environmental danger taken by offshore drilling is very straight forward, made clear by oil spills such as the recent BP oil spill and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 off the shore of Alaska. In the circumstances of the Exxon Valdez spill up to 250,000 sea birds died, over 2,800 sea otters and thousands of other animals], (figures from the BP oil spill are not yet concluded), having had a heavy strike on the regional wildlife and directing to a ban on all offshore drilling in America, until George Bush overturned it in 2008 to this repeal was a misjudgment because two years later there was the Deepwater Horizon spill. In this way, offshore drilling ruins ecosystems and fish supplies which creates a wasteland of a shoreline among southern USA.