Guest Speaker: Joe Medeiros (ANWR)

I've always been against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; however, I've never actually had the knowledge of why to back up my argument. Before we listened to Joe's podcast on ANWR from last semester I didn't want them to drill in ANWR because it was a pristine wildlife refuge--true wilderness, and because i knew deep down that it would cause more harm than just displacing the caribou a little bit. I knew that it had hazards such as accidents that would spill oil and damage the surrounding wilderness. Also, i wondered about the potential air pollution that would occur in the process of extracting oil. Although I wasn't far off in my thinking, Joe Medeiros put it into perspective. ANWR is 19.5 million acres, also including 8 million acres of wilderness. The drilling project would take 375 acres of this land. They argue that its not much land to take; however, there is a large danger for spills and ugly tunnels connecting everything. It is too much of a danger to risk all of the migratory species that come there. It is amazing land to risk, 0 alien species. This is all crazy! If ANWR was our sole source of oil, we would only get enough oil to last us 9-12 months after the ten years it'd take to build!!! This is ridiculous that we even consider this risk! Instead, we should invest in alternative energy sources... and not risk an entire ecosystem.