Global Warming

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Under Threat

President Trump’s assault on climate and public lands has been called a kind of administrative vandalism. Under his leadership, crucial environmental regulations have been rolled back, the United States pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and millions of acres of public lands have been opened to the energy industry.

Included in the list of areas under threat is Bears Ears National Monument. In December 2017, Trump announced plans to shrink the monument by 85%. A year later, with the protections removed, the surrounding public lands were opened to resource extraction. While the decision is still being challenged in court, for now, it stands.

Arctic Village, a small native village in northeastern Alaska, like Bears Ears, another refuge that lost crucial protections at the start of the Trump administration when the refuge coastal plain, the last 5% of Alaska’s coastline protected from resource extraction, was opened to the energy industry. The move marks the first time a national wildlife refuge in the U.S. has been opened and re-designated for oil development, setting a dangerous precedent.

The Gwich’in, the First Peoples of the area who rely on the land for culture and for subsistence, depend on the Coastal Plain for their chief source of food: the porcupine caribou. The herd, which makes up 80% of Gwich’in food supply, migrates between Canada and Alaska south of the Brooks Range to birth their calves in The Refuge Coastal Plain. This is the longest land migration route of any land mammal on earth. If the administration moves forward to develop the coastal plain for oil the Gwich’in will lose their main source of food.

Developing the coastal plain for oil will also increase climate change. While it’s estimated that the oil reserves would only last six months, based on the current rate at which oil is being used, the climate impacts would be devastating. Research showed that if all the oil is extracted and burned it would add equivalent climate emissions to our atmosphere as emissions from 898 coal plants operating for a year, or adding 776 million passenger vehicles to the road.