Opponents to Drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

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“The conversation of our natural resources and their proper use underlines almost every other problem in our national life,” Theodore Roosevelt. Americans’ dependence upon petroleum-based energy sources has required the United States to consider a variety of options to fulfill [the] ever-increasing energy needs, even drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge [ANWR] (Smith). The controversial question on whether or not to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge reserve has been in battle since its establishment. Drilling in ANWR would cause severe damage as it is a danger to its native plants and animals as the land is their home and birthing ground, the land discussed to be open to drilling will not be the only land set to a path of destruction, and along with the use and distribution of the oil found, as of how much could be discovered and if it is worth losing precious land all to a nations greed of oil.

In 1872 Congress set aside a piece of land in Wyoming, establishing Yellowstone as the country’s first national park. This was followed by the first forest reserve in 1891, and the first wildlife reserve in 1903 (Opener). With the creation of parks and reserves our nations land would be preserved and cared for with the admiration for generations to come. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge [ANWR] was established to protect native plants and animals from human interference. The Refuge would cover 19 million acres, an area about the size of South Carolina (Opener). This land has been sought after for years, as it caries for animals and plants that exist nowhere else on Earth, just like the Amazon Rain forest it needs to be protected and persevered. To protect the ecosystem, most of the Refuge was declared closed to oil...

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...oil, surely it is not.

Works Cited

Grover, Todd. "Arctic Equity: The Supreme Court's Resolution of United States v. Alaska." Environmental Law, 28. (1998): 1169. Print.

Herndon, Mark. "The last frontier: The last true wilderness is increasingly at risk in the current political climate, with calls for less dependency on foreign oil focusing attention on the Alaskan preserves." Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, 16. (2002): 72. Print.

Loomis, John B. Integrated Public Lands Management: Principles and Applications to National Forests, Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and BLM Lands. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Print.

Smith, Nicole. "An Argument Against Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)." Articlemyriad.com, 2011. Web. 27 Mar 2014. .

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