Big decisions on Arctic development

Bank of America states it won’t finance oil and gas exploration in the Arctic. Well, whoop de do, neither will I.

Neither one of us ever had any intention of financing Arctic drilling. The big difference is that Bank of America could put the money together if it wanted. Me, not so much.

The bank’s posture on the question of drilling at the top of the world is no surprise. Increasingly these days the big money people are saying “No” when asked if they will participate.

Public concern about Arctic oil and gas drilling puts Alaska’s industry and its economic future in a problematic position. Let’s hope companies like Exxon and ConocoPhillips continue investing in the North country at least until the world can make a rational and timely transition to whatever comes next.

I haven’t approved of all of the decisions President Donald Trump has made during his time in the Oval Office, but he is with Alaska on the question of oil and gas development. His decision to move forward with a Jan. 6 lease sale in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge does seem to be a good one.

It may seem counter-intuitive to drill in something called a national wildlife refuge, but such a decision can be a sensible one. At the same time some areas of the National Petroleum Reserve will need to be conserved for their value to wildlife. Sometimes those names were chosen in inappropriate ways; they were hopeful at best.

The world will indeed have to move away from consumption of fossil fuels, but it makes no sense to attempt doing it overnight. We arrived at this point in climate change over the course of many years and many more years will be required to slow and reverse the changes already encountered. It is time to start showing some progress in that arena and the move by Bank of America was a way to make a valuable statement.

Some things are difficult to understand, like how the price of oil could actually fall below zero as it briefly did during the recent economic holocaust. It’s unclear how that could happen, especially in the eyes of an aging English major, but I don’t think there were many such transactions and producers didn’t have to pay anyone to haul the stuff away.

The long-term future of Alaska’s oil and gas industry is unclear but it seems likely that our state’s natural gas will play an important role in the world’s economy in the years ahead.

It seems probable that gas will be a transitional fuel to keep the world’s engines operating while we move on to whatever comes next. For sure, technological wonders lie ahead for all of humanity.

We do have a lot of natural gas and putting it to beneficial use could provide thousands of jobs for years to come. We also have substantial remaining oil reserves and hopefully those will be developed sensibly and with appropriate consideration for the impact on the natural world

The future is fast approaching. Alaska has a lot at stake in the decisions yet to be made. Keep your fingers crossed. It may be all that most of us can do.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of six books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.