“Drill Baby Drill” was the comment used by Republican National Chairman Michael Steele at the 2008 Republican National Convention. It became the motto for many pro-offshore drilling advocates, including vice president Republican nominee Sarah Palin. These advocates are trying to destroy the Alaskan preserves, just because Alaska is wealthy in oil. However, Alaska is wealthy in more than just oil. It is wealthy in beauty, wildlife, and culture. Americans and native Alaskans must endorse and implement an environmental law to support wildlife population. Or else overwhelming effects will follow. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more commonly known as the ANWR , and other barren lands in Alaska, has a history of combating oil production. In 1923, twenty-three million acres of land was set aside an oil reserve, which became the Naval Petroleum Reserve number four, but later the name changed to the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Then, in 1952, a group of scientists released an article called “The Last Great Wilderness,” about Alaska being the last great land America has yet to fully explore and conquer. This article “concluded that the Northeastern corner of Alaska would be ideal for a wildlife protection area.” The United States responded to the article by setting aside two specific areas in Northeastern Alaska. The first, along the North Slope area by the Prudhoe Bay, is for oil and gas production. This is in addition to the National Petroleum Reserve. The second area is about nine million acres on the coastal plain that became the ANWR . Later, the discovery of lots of oil near the ANWR led manufacturers and pro-offshore drilling advocates to show a great interest in opening the ANWR to drilling. Luckily, the Alaska National ...
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...tion and ecosystem. . The Alaska Department of Fish and Game gives out only the amount of hunting permits, which matches the number of animals they determined can die, without having severe environmental effects. The researchers of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game also select which animals must be on the Endangered Species list, or else that animal species will face extinction in the near future. The researchers look at the animal populations again to conclude which animals to campaign for the Endangered Species list. The polar bear is one of the animals they fought to put on the list, and was added. However, Palin suggested to get the polar bear off the endangered species list, and achieved her goal. Overall, my decision is that I am against oil companies taking over the ANWR and putting at risk these native species found only in the beautiful lands of Alaska.
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 question regarding conservation is very much alive today. The United States needs wildlife conservation. And the Federal Department responsible for conservation, the Department of the Interior, are under attack with President Trump's new budget plan. So it’s important to keep pushing for better laws and policies to protect conservation.
Committee on Senate Energy and National Resources Subcommittee on National Parks. 3 June 2003: ESBCO. Mission Viejo Library., Mission Viejo, CA. 31 July 2005. http://web31.epnet.com/citation.
Many hunters argue that the protectiveness towards grizzly bears is oriented more towards emotion than environmental sustainability. Researchers at the BC Raincoast Conservation Foundation have been devoted to fighting the hunt for over a decade now. Although they do signify that emotion is a part of their reason for banning hunting bears, they like to focus on the ecological and ethical aspects of the hunt. There is a big controversy over the fact that if there is a sustainable number of bears in the environment and people are allowed to kill them, then why is the surplus of humans allowed to grow?
The debate on drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is an intensely debated topic in 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.
The powerful word choice of Carter shows his opposition to the idea of an oil drilling industry in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. As an illustration, Carter uses phrases like, “... windswept coastal plain where polar bears and caribou give birth …”, “... the migrations of tens of thousands of caribou with their newborn calves”,
Before the 1970s, environmental policy was not the more publicized issue that it is today. After the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, the environmental movement really took off. The federal government took the situation into their hands and paid more attention to environmental policy than they had been doing in the past. While the states still have quite a bit of power when it com...
The burning of oil and gas assist to the carbon pollution that is impelling climate change, warming our oceans, raising sea levels, and threatening our communities and coasts. And much of that carbon pollution establish into our oceans, making our waters more acidic and wreaking havoc on the shellfish, coral reefs, and other marine life worldwide. Recently it has been pushed for Artic Ocean drilling but we need to not expose new ocean waters to drilling. These waters can and must be permanently defended from the threats of this inherently hazardous industrial activity at sea. President Trump has the authorization to take these waters off the schedule for oil and gas permanently, and he
Throughout the past three decades, energy has been a perennial issue in United States politics, economics, and media. The main concern surrounding this topic is the idea of energy independence and how the United States should proceed into the future. Energy independence relates to the goal of reducing United States dependence on importing foreign oil and other foreign energy sources. This desire aims to maintain energy dependence domestically so the United States can avoid reliance on any unstable countries and be detached from global energy supply distribution. It is currently being speculated that the United States might not be too far off from this goal. America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year since 2007. In 2010, the U.S. imported less than 50 percent of the oil the country consumed -- the first time that’s happened in 13 years -- and the trend continued in 2011 (Zhang.) Experts credit new technology as the reason the United States is within several years of again becoming the biggest oil producer in the world, and perhaps two decades away from full energy independence. Hydraulic fracturing, fracking, is the “lead” technology in this technological revolution. Fracking is an economically more feasible way of drilling for oil or gas in harder to reach geological formation. Within the past decade or so, combining hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling has opened up shale deposits across the country. It has brought large-scale natural gas drilling to new regions that may not have had accessible deposits in the past. These areas have greatly benefited from the addition of this industry to their local economies. Certain are...
The United States relies on imports for about forty percent of its crude oil, which is the lowest rate of dependency since 1991 according to the U.S Energy Information Administration. Today our country is trying to keep on track in becoming less and less dependent. When it comes to the topic of the future ways the United States will get its fuel, most of us readily agree that the United States should become more independent by using natural gas that is already here on our land. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of the consequences drilling for natural gas brings. Whereas some are convinced drilling is safe, others maintain that it is actually in fact dangerous. Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking", the terms for drilling for natural gas, is dangerous to our public health and to the environment because of the water contamination it causes. Therefore, it is not something that should become a project for alternative fuel used by the United States.
The date was December 28, 1973 and the U.S. Congress proudly submits and successfully passed one of its largest pieces of environmental legislation ever: the Endangered Species Act. This act was signed by Richard Nixon into law and passed with a staggering 355 to 4 vote. The law was hailed by proud legislators as the right action, and, if anything, long overdue (Dwyer, Ehrlich, & Murphy, 1995). This act prohibits many activities involving endangered species. These prohibitions include: importation into and exportation from the U.S.; taking of species within the U.S. and its territorial seas, this includes all land areas public and private; selling, possessing, carrying, shipping, or delivering any such species unlawfully taken within the U.S., and selling or offering for sale of species in interstate or foreign commerce (WWW site, ESA). Taking includes harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, trapping, killing, capturi...
The Alaskan wilderness is one of the most controversial topics discussed in the United States today. There are many different opinions and regulations pertaining to certain topics affecting the natural landscape of Alaska. One such topic is hunting for brown bear. While these massive animals face no current danger of being wiped out as a result of hunting, it is still a controversial and constantly debated issue. Over ninety-five percent of the United States’ brown bear resides in Alaska. Brown bears are one of the more appealing attractions for visitors to Alaska. According to the Alaskan Outdoor Journal, there are places all throughout Alaska that are designated brown bear viewing areas (Alaska Outdoor Journal, 2010). However many who come to Alaska for the brown bear don’t simply come to observe. Instead, they come for the hunt. These animals are constantly hunted for sport, and since they reproduce at a very low rate, this has the potential to jeopardize the total population of the brown bear. Overall, I believe that brown bear hunting should remain legal.
In 2010, roughly 25 percent of the nation’s energy came from natural gas, a “fossil fuel” which American consumers and businesses heavily depend on for transport, light, and heat (Squire 6). As the U.S. population increases, so do the country’s energy needs. Political debate over how the U.S. can meet those needs has slowly simmered for several decades, escalating exponentially when the energy supply grows short. Disputes over just how clean natural gas is, as opposed to coal, dominate headlines and presidential campaigns alike. During the presidency of George W. Bush, a bill exempting oil and gas companies from federal environmental restrictions was passed, thus paving the way for natural gas companies to expand production across the nation utilizing a new drilling technology, enabling easier extraction of shale gas. The drilling process of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” has become synonymous with controversy. Why? Fracking involves injecting dangerously toxic chemicals, mixed with large quantities of water and sand, into wells at extremely high pressure, to release natural gas. Promoted by the natural gas industry as a cleaner, safer alternative to coal, the process of fracking has made shale gas plentiful, which sounds to some Americans as the best answer to their energy prayers. However, the negative consequences associated with the extraction of natural gas through fracking, including environmental hazards and threats to public health, far outweigh the benefits.
environmental damage mounting, the practice of fracking has only quietly expanded and profited. This concealed expansion into the nation’s backyard has only
According to an online article from Thought Company, the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill polluted the waters of Prince William Sound, coated more than a thousand miles of pristine coastline and killed hundreds of thousands of birds, fish, and animals. This crisis has become a symbol of human-caused environmental disasters all over the world. Many years after the accident, and despite billions of dollars spent on cleanup efforts, crude oil can still be found under the rocks and sand on the beaches of southwest Alaska, and the effects of the spill are still apparent in the lasting damage done to many native species. (West, 2017) This specific incident was a major crisis that acted as a prodrome for the oil industry. For the purpose of this assignment it is important that we take a look at the details of this event. From there, we will look at how Exxon handled the