LETTER: Drilling won’t solve Alaska’s problems

To the Editor:

In response to Senator Murkowski’s article (Dec. 22): the “opening” of the Coastal Plan to oil development would be a disaster, not a solution for our problems.

Her claim of a mere “2,000 acre” footprint for this development does not include infrastructure such as roads and pipelines — a network of industrial activity potentially impacting the entire coastal plain. Oil development would totally negate the purpose of the Refuge: “preserving unique wildlife, wilderness and recreational values.” Instead, the bill mandates oil and gas leasing and development, as a primary purpose. The Gwich’in people in the area overwhelmingly oppose drilling, and have fought it for decades. And the wilderness, with all its wildlife and beauty, should be preserved for all of us.

Climate change is here. In Alaska, it is hitting especially hard, and the economic impacts are going to be catastrophic. We need solutions, more urgently than ever. Meanwhile, our leaders are acting as if our economic salvation is to produce more oil, which will only make the problem worse. There are better alternatives; renewable energy technologies are better than ever, and these industries produce far more jobs than oil and gas. We need to encourage and support their further development, not keep clinging to the easy money from oil that is destroying us. One way to do this is “carbon fee and dividend,” as proposed by the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (citizensclimatelobby.org). Let’s not have more happy talk about the wonderful things that pumping more oil and gas will bring us. The days when that made sense are over.

— Phil Somervell

Palmer