Should America Drill In Alaska Dbq Analysis

Drilling for oil in Alaska will cause the environment and animals to suffer. Oil drilling in Alaska started in 1980 when America found itself in an oil crisis. So a solution for this crisis was to start drilling for oil in other locations. The largest oil field in North America was in Prudhoe Bay on the north coast of Alaska. Prudhoe Bay would soon account for 20% of all domestic U.S. oil production. Despite the oil crisis in 1980, Congress formed a wildlife reserve just east of Prudhoe Bay. it was called The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR). Document A.

THE ENVIRONMENT

America shouldn’t drill in Alaska for oil because it will affect the environment in a bad way. Drilling for oil will damage the environment in several ways. One way is by the vehicles coming in and out of the drilling area will cause erosion to the plants and trees so eventually they will die. Also the machinery used for the drilling can be very dangerous. So if an animal came along they don’t know what it is and not only could they cause harm to the animal it could also harm humans working there. Also with some machines causing smoke in the air will make pollution in the air. Document B.

PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

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