oil on ice
Alaska--the last frontier
whose business is wilderness in Alaska
do we want to do things differently this time?

Why should we care?

• do we only care about places that affect us personally?
• NIMBY: not in my back yard
• whose opinion should count how much--locals, that state, everyone in the U.S.
  
• but local issues turn out to involve state and federal laws and policy
• In Alaska probably all of the land at issue was owned by the federal government
  
• some people come to believe these issues important on principle
• one reason is that it is an example of the commons--land and resources that are not privately owned
  
• tragedy of the commons: if a fisherman catches more fish that will benefit him but if lots of fishermen do the same they will all lose out as the population of fish declines.  If you have something that belongs to everyone, individuals try to take as much as possible, the result can be damage to the resource that harms everyone.   More
  
• looking out for our individual interests doesn't always work (we tend to think it does because capitalism is such a success, but not for all things)--it doesn't work where a resource is shared or people don't suffer the costs of problems they create
• if we don't want to be harmed these problems need to be managed on a larger scale, usually government regulation
  

How is Alaska unique?

• a very fragile environment because the growing season is so short
• hard to develop--you can provide water in the desert but not a longer growing season in Alaska
• lots of technology is needed to do anything in Alaska, but the technology was available
• we don't always know how the technology will behave in Alaskan conditions
• a very large amount of federally owned land
  
• the native people live on their ancestral lands and control those lands
• what settlers saw as wilderness the natives saw as land they had always used
• great popular enthusiasm in the lower 48 states for wilderness

Muir had visited Alaska and written about the awe he felt:

• wilderness symbolized divinity
• the wilderness in Alaska was pure and grand
• seemed new

Muir's writings led to cruise ships visiting Alaska as early as the 1880s, by the 1930s tourists traveled around in small aircraft
Preservationists wanted wilderness to be preserved in Alaska whether the citizens of the state wanted that or not

• much land in the state was owned by the federal government, so decisions were made in Washington rather than Alaska
• it was clear by the 1970s that Alaska was important is a wilderness reserve
• big political fight in which wilderness advocates were very effective

result was the setting aside of 104 million acres of federal land as wilderness in 1980
Recent controversies have centered on the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, 19 million acres in northeast Alaska

• should oil drilling be allowed there?  It is located just east of the Prudhoe Bay, a major oil field
  
• the refuge was created in 1960 and mining and drilling were prohibited
  
• the refuge was increased to its present size in 1980, but only 8.6 million acres were designated as wilderness
  
• definitely no drilling in the wilderness area
• in the non-wilderness refuge area drilling may take place only if Congress decides to allow it
  
• in 1987 the Dept. of the Interior released a report recommending oil drilling in the coastal plain, but the Senate voted that down in 1991
• wildlife need this area:
  
• the coastal plain is a major calving area for caribou and on-shore den area for polar bears
• will oil drilling threaten the wildlife:
  
• consider the experience of the Alaska Pipeline   (mid 1970s)--frequent leaks
  
• the Bush administration tried several times between 2002 and 2005 to get legislation passed to allow drilling, but it never passed both houses of Congress
  
• one effort has been to count the ANWR reserves as part of the national stockpile
• another is to allow offshore drilling--in July 2008 President Bush lifted a ban on offshore drilling, but Congress is still fighting over whether to allow it
• both presidential candidates oppose drilling in the ANWR, but what about the details?
• currently under debate in an Omnibus Public Land Management Act
• again we have human needs--we are running out of oil--vs. protecting wilderness.  Do we have the right to use the wilderness to meet our needs?

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