Reductio Ad Absurdum Weblog

YIMBY - Yes In My Back Yard

One of the left's more dogmatic stances is their opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge - ANWR. Despite control of the White House and both houses of congress, the GOP has unfortunately cowed on this issue. I recently debated the subject with a good friend who deployed an argument against ANWR drilling that I've frequently heard: It's easy for us to support drilling because it's not in our back yard.

It's a good point. So what do the Alaskans think of it? What do those that live closest to the proposed drilling think?

They're in favor of it:

The residents of Kaktovik, the only people living on the Coastal Plain of ANWR, support oil and gas development in their 'back yard'. Alaska's indigenous people have benefited greatly from North Slope production. In addition to providing a tax base for the local government, oil development has provided jobs, funding for water and sewer systems and schools. Native and village corporations with oil field-related subsidiaries are working on the North Slope, and the local government has a voice in permitting and environmental regulation.

The folks at ANWR.org have even put together an impressive flash production on the subject.

The opposition to this is so deeply rooted in dogmatism that it remains one of the few issues I've yet to find it productive to debate with the opposition. If it were going to unload millions of gallons of oil into the bay as some suggest, why in tarnation would those living around it support it? The only response I've gotten to date on the subject is that they've been duped by the large oil companies that stand to profit.

In a way, that's what the entire debate revolves around on the left side of the aisle: If environmentalist groups and oil companies disagree, as a matter of faith the latter cannot be right.

[Posted by R. Alex Whitlock] [04/04/04 09:19 PM]

Trackback

No trackbacks for this item. Use this trackback url to ping. (right-click, copy link target)

Comments

No comments yet

Add Comments

HTML will be stripped. URLs will be transformed into hyperlinks.

[b]text[/b] will produce bold text. [i]text[/i] will produce italicized text.