Who Is On What Side About ANWR?
Jonathan Waterman wrote an article special to the Washington Post, which appeared on June 5, 2005, in which he contends that all oil drilling should be prohibited in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge. This comment will not address the merits of that issue directly, but will be confined to the more narrow consideration of who it is that is making that contention.
Waterman describes himself as someone who has been going to ANWR for 20 years, as having kayaked 1700 miles across the Canadian Artic, and having hiked and climbed and ridden the wild rivers in the parks in the lower 48 states - not your average, everyday, get-up-and-go-to-work citizen. He states that he has looked at ANWR, and thinks we shouldn't drill for oil there, because he has never seen anything like it. Neither have I. Neither have you. Neither, in fact, have almost all of the people who so vociferously argue against drilling there.
The plain unembelished truth is that essentially no one ever has, or will, see ANWR, drilled or pristine. So what happens there is not going to change the lives of pretty much everyone except Jonathan Waterman.
But how about the caribou? First of all, if the caribou could vote, they wouldn't, because caribou don't vote, just like they don't dread extinction, worry about the future, or mourn the loss of calving grounds. They do enjoy having the paved roads in the adjoining Prudhoe Bay area to walk on to get away from the swarms of mosquitos.
How about the fragile tundra? It doesn't care either. Tundra does even less worrying than do the caribou. So the caribou and the tundra are not the ones on the anti-drilling side of this issue.
How about "Posterity"? Well, Posterity doesn't exist. Only individual people exist. Then how about those generations yet unborn, who will never get to see this wilderness in its unspoiled state? Those generations will send no more individuals to that incredibly isolated, forbidding region than does the present generation - essentially, none.
The point is, that this ANWR dispute, like all environmental disputes, does not pit Man against Nature, it pits the interests of individuals, such as Jonathan Waterman, against the interests of all of the other individuals in the world. Jonathan Waterman's interest is in looking upon a scene that no one else will ever see.
Thus, the real trade off here is warmth, transportation, and useful products for every man, woman, and child in America, on the one hand, versus an enjoyable annual vacation for Jonathan Waterman on the other.
Waterman describes himself as someone who has been going to ANWR for 20 years, as having kayaked 1700 miles across the Canadian Artic, and having hiked and climbed and ridden the wild rivers in the parks in the lower 48 states - not your average, everyday, get-up-and-go-to-work citizen. He states that he has looked at ANWR, and thinks we shouldn't drill for oil there, because he has never seen anything like it. Neither have I. Neither have you. Neither, in fact, have almost all of the people who so vociferously argue against drilling there.
The plain unembelished truth is that essentially no one ever has, or will, see ANWR, drilled or pristine. So what happens there is not going to change the lives of pretty much everyone except Jonathan Waterman.
But how about the caribou? First of all, if the caribou could vote, they wouldn't, because caribou don't vote, just like they don't dread extinction, worry about the future, or mourn the loss of calving grounds. They do enjoy having the paved roads in the adjoining Prudhoe Bay area to walk on to get away from the swarms of mosquitos.
How about the fragile tundra? It doesn't care either. Tundra does even less worrying than do the caribou. So the caribou and the tundra are not the ones on the anti-drilling side of this issue.
How about "Posterity"? Well, Posterity doesn't exist. Only individual people exist. Then how about those generations yet unborn, who will never get to see this wilderness in its unspoiled state? Those generations will send no more individuals to that incredibly isolated, forbidding region than does the present generation - essentially, none.
The point is, that this ANWR dispute, like all environmental disputes, does not pit Man against Nature, it pits the interests of individuals, such as Jonathan Waterman, against the interests of all of the other individuals in the world. Jonathan Waterman's interest is in looking upon a scene that no one else will ever see.
Thus, the real trade off here is warmth, transportation, and useful products for every man, woman, and child in America, on the one hand, versus an enjoyable annual vacation for Jonathan Waterman on the other.
posted by Sam Simpson | 7:27 AM
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