| May 12, 2006 Red Alert by Soren Wuerth Oil
is bad. Oil = bad. Oil ... no good. How hard is it?
I had just finished reading National Geographic’s May cover story about the aggressive tumor of oil development spreading west across the North Slope, when I heard the shrill whine of a racing engine. I looked out the window and saw a figure standing on a “sno-go” as it bounced across a slushy lake. Earlier that day, I overheard some students boasting about the annual stunt. “Just another redneck,” I thought as I watched. The sled hit the exposed tundra on the opposite end of the lake and ripped a tight circle to return in the same fashion. With the price of fuel tripling in the past few years out here, there are community members, certainly most elders, who would shake their heads sadly at such reckless use of “red gas.” Yes, their individual consumption is insignificant. But the “sled necks” attitude is more worrisome. It reflects patently Western behavior. It is the metaphor that disgusts. Eight hundred miles north, as the white-fronts fly, lies Teshepuk Lake. The Arctic lake, between Barrow and Prudhoe, is the summer molting refuge of a third of the world’s black brants, hosts the planet’s highest densities of raptors, and its quiet, undisturbed watershed is the final stop for tens of thousands of other migratory birds, according to the National Geographic article. Besides providing stock for duck soup, the area is home to the Teshepuk caribou herd, the meat chest for four villages. The magazine shows the image—familiar to Alaskans—of Inupiat carving up a bowhead. And, of course, there are several pictures of the obligatory polar bear, the environmentalists’ latest global warming mascot. As the map inside shows, the clanging parade of oil development is coming. The coastal plain is speckled with red dots and a grid of white blocks—derricks and leases—onshore, offshore, everywhere. Soon there will be giant rigs skidding across the ecologically rich plain, trying to outpace weather warmed by the nature of the enterprise itself. Way back in ’98 or so, I remember rolling up a couple of sheets, still stinking of spray paint, and leaving the garage of fellow activist Jay Stange. We rode our bikes to the Loussac Library and shook our banners in front of the television cameras, shouting the slogan painted on them, “No way NPRA!” To our dismay, Bruce Babbitt, Clinton’s “environmentalist” Interior Secretary, gave up 87 percent of the NPRA, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s quieter western sister, to Big Oil. Deborah Williams, now the head of the Alaska Conservation Foundation, was then Babbitt’s Alaska point person. The Democrats lauded the deal as a compromise, but we knew better. George Bush came in and gave the rest of it to the industry. Thus is the result, one of thousands of examples, with the compromise-prone tactics of big environmental/Democrat groups. Back here, the first of cranes and geese are returning. I heard their forlorn honks when I was far outside town last weekend. Today, there is only the incessant rattle of two-stroke engines. I turn to the radio. State news. Legislators are discussing the oil tax. One lawmaker takes a cell call just prior to a vote, ostensibly from an oil lobbyist. Outside the chamber, oil consultants, lobbyists, and corporate glad-handers swarm the Capitol. The governor has black crude dripping from his fangs. So, we won’t hear it when the bird hits the lake. Soren Wuerth is perhaps Alaska's best known community activist, and is the winner of the Alaska Press Club's 2006 'Best Columnist' award. He resides in an undisclosed location in rural Alaska and can be reached at soren@insurgent49.com. |
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