President-elect Donald Trump has made clear that he intends to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling as part of his “energy dominance” agenda.
This is a very bad idea for several reasons. First: drilling there would be difficult and expensive. He has falsely claimed that there is more oil there than there is in Saudi Arabia.
The ANWR is one of the last truly great and pristine wilderness areas remaining in North America. Drilling there would not only destroy this natural treasure; it would worsen the already serious human-caused climate crisis by burning more fossil fuels extracted from there.
Just recently a lease sale was held for oil companies to drill there, only to end up with no interested parties showing up to bid.
Instead of opening up this great natural treasure to oil drilling and desecrating the land, it would be much better to upgrade the entire refuge to a full-fledged national park and preserve with additional wilderness protections. In this way we would protect forever a wilderness area often referred to as America’s Serengeti.
This would also move our nation closer to the goal to protect 30% of our lands and waters by 2030.
Dennis Wingle
Shoemakersville