Checkpoint: Alaska Drilling, Trump's Last Eco-Assault
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Alaska, more so than any other of America’s fifty states, has a reputation for being a wild and natural place. Movies such as Into The Wild have cemented the idea of the United States’ most Northern territory as an untamed wilderness in the country’s collective psyche. This reputation is not unfounded. In Alaska, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages sixteen national wildlife refuges. Alaska refuges are some of the nation's last true wild places on earth, ranging in size from the 303,094 acres Izembek Refuge at the end of the Alaska Peninsula, to the 19.6 million acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) stretching from the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean. In fact, around half of the 104 million acres of American land today protected under the Wilderness Act of 1964 are located in Alaska.
That status as an area of natural preservation and beauty has come under serious threat in recent weeks. In what could be the final months of his presidency, Trump is opening up the ANWR for drilling by oil and gas companies. Reportedly, the U.S. Interior Department is planning to start auctioning leases on the land before the end of the year, a move that would seriously hinder any plans by Democrats to reverse the decision should Joe Biden win the upcoming election. Although a spokesperson for the Biden campaign has said that the former Vice-President would “permanently protect ANWR and other areas impacted by President Trump’s attacks on federal lands and waters,” his protection may come too late.
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose Trump’s plans for the region. The President may be determined to see the U.S. dominate the energy market, but his insistence on the use of fossil fuels to do so, while dismissing alternative and renewable energy projects, is dangerous. The world has seen many times over the environmental damage that oil spills can do, most recently in the island nation of Mauritius. The country recently declared a national emergency over a wrecked cargo ship leaking over 1,000 gallons of oil into the water off their coast. The incident took place near two environmentally protected marine ecosystems and the Blue Bay Marine Park reserve, putting hundreds of marine species at risk.
A similar disaster in the ANWR could be just as dangerous for the species that call that ecosystem home, including polar bears, caribou, wolves and eagles. The refuge is additionally home to millions of migratory bird species who flock there in the Spring, and is a crucial breeding ground for many important regional species. An oil spill in the region may be the worst case scenario, but even the best case scenario is dangerous for Alaskan wildlife. Drilling for oil and gas will destroy habitats and block off migration paths for these animals, especially the Porcupine caribou herd that many Native Alaskans and First Nation peoples in Canada rely on as a source of food.
Getting into conflicts with Native Americans over fossil fuels has become something of a hobby for President Trump. Since the beginning of his presidency his administration has locked horns with the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in South Dakota over the Dakota Access Pipeline. The tribe and their allies say that the pipeline runs under a critical drinking water source for their people, an argument seemingly backed up by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia earlier this year when they cited violations of environmental requirements by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Trump, however, decided to stand with Dakota Access, who say they could lose billions of dollars on the project.
Drilling in the ANWR will naturally produce a similar standoff to the one taking place in South Dakota, how successful that fight will be for Native communities is another matter. Native American tribes across North America were able to live in harmony with the natural world around them for thousands of years before European settlers invaded, but it is only hundreds of years later that society is beginning to truly recognize the folly of not listening to the lessons these communities have to teach. Human beings are not special in the sense of being detached from the natural world. Rather, as Native communities have always known, humans are a strand of the natural web. The impact that humans have on the environment, in turn, has impacts on human society.
The climate crisis (largely the result of burning fossil fuels) is reaching its breaking point, and it does not take a genius to realize that drilling for more fossil fuels is not the answer to the climate problem. Leaving aside the impending global warming point-of-no-return, human beings have spread themselves across so much of the planet that to deny a little bit of undisturbed nature to our fellow animals seems unnecessarily cruel. Especially when you consider that Native communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis will be the first to suffer.
Trump’s plan to open the ANWR to oil drilling is not just, as some might say, the move of a businessman with his eye constantly on the bottom line. It shows an inherent disregard for life and the sanctity of the natural world. It shows a lack of respect for Native communities who have already suffered hundreds of years of oppression. It shows a lack of appreciation for the billions of plant and animal species we share this world with. Most of all, it shows that Trump is not fit to be in the White House while humanity is fighting to save the planet.