The politics of oil and the truth about ANWR drilling

In case you missed this e-mail slide show making the rounds, it has been vetted by Snopes, which, as of July 2, 2008, simply acknowledges that there are those who will continue to debate both sides of the issue, offering examples of arguments on both sides. Yet, however angry it may make the Green party, there is no disputing the impact of these photos and accompanying script:

First, do you know what ANWR is?

ANWR = Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Now, a comparison:



And some perspective:



Note where the proposed development area is (in the ‘ANWR Coastal Plain’):



This is what the Democrats, liberals and ‘greens’ show you when they talk about ANWR. And they are right, these are photographs of ANWR:







Isn’t ANWR beautiful? Why should we drill here (and destroy) this beautiful place?

Well, that’s not exactly the truth.

Do you remember the map?

The map showed that the proposed drilling area is in the ANWR Coastal Plain.

Do those photographs look like a coastal plain to you?

What’s going on here?

The answer is simple.

That is NOT where they are wanting to drill!

This is what the proposed exploration area ACTUALLY looks like in the winter:



And this is what it ACTUALLY looks like in the summer:







Here are a couple screen shots from Google Earth:





As you can see, the area where they are talking about drilling is a barren wasteland.

Oh, and they say that they are concerned about the effect on the local wildlife.

Here is a photo (shot during the summer) of the ‘depleted wildlife’ situation created by drilling around Prudhoe Bay. Don’t you think that the Caribou really hate that drilling?



Here’s that same spot during the winter:



Hey, this bear seems to really hate the pipeline near Prudhoe Bay, which accounts for 17% of U.S. domestic oil production.



[Although I live in Motown and drive to work, I personally despise having to drive and much prefer the public transportation I grew up with in Tokyo, which permitted me to spend my travel time reading instead of staring at the rear ends of other automobiles. I have no doubt that we need long-term alternatives to oil. I also have no doubt that the current oil shortage is a politically manufactured crisis that could have been easily avoided. There is simply no shortage of oil in continental North America. I also have little faith in the logic of Al Gore's link between automobile emissions and global warning, especially when the carbon dioxide ice cap near the south pole of Mars has been shrinking over the past few years ("An Inconvenient Detail," Musings, March 3, 2007).]