To: Bruce Ramsey
Editorial Writer
bramsey@seattletimes.com
cc:Diane Albert, James F. Vesely
cc:opinion@seattletimes.com , dalbert@seattletimes.com
Bruce Ramsey, You wrote: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 a.m.
(source) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002216132_rams23.html
Sometime in the next few years we will need to drill in
the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. I suggest this even though so many consider it a
sacrilege, like digging for treasure in a church.
The most eloquent local proponent of the sacrilege view is Joel Connelly
at the Seattle P-I. Connelly writes of his trip to the tundra, where he saw some caribou and musk oxen and heard the trilling notes
of a golden plover. He quotes Justice William O. Douglas on the Arctic as a setting for a "restless soul" to "behold with wonderment." That
setting must exist, the justice said, "without molestation by man.”
These are religious sentiments. I hesitate before asking to drill
in the other fellow's church, but it is my oil at least as much as it is his church. And
our civilization needs the oil.
The disruption from drilling would not be large. The footprints would be, together, some 2,000 acres — about three times the size
of the University of Washington's Seattle campus in the
midst of a wildlife refuge nearly one-half as big as the state of Washington.
It is said the oil is six months' supply for the whole United States. That is somebody's estimate.
It could be more or less. But suppose the figure is correct: "Six
months' worth" is a political formulation like "a tax that costs no more than one latte a day." It is meant to minimize something that is probably the largest untapped field in
the United States. In reality, six months' worth of oil is a whole lot. Blended in with our other supplies, it would last for decades.
Those supplies are none too robust. America was the first country to drill for oil, and as late as World War II we were the world's
largest producer. (One of the reasons Japan attacked us was that we refused to sell it any.) American
oil production peaked in 1970. Alaskan production peaked in 1988. Oil moving through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline has fallen
to one-third its peak rate, and gradually declines. Sometime in the first half of this century, that 800-mile pipeline will
be shut down.
Want a practical reason to drill in the Arctic reserve? Because the
pipeline is there. Sometime in the future, it won't
be there. Let's get the oil out while we have a pipeline with which to do it.
Opponents, who want us to abandon this oil, retort that it will not
"solve" our energy problem — that it will not give us "energy independence." They are right about that, but our problem
is so great that no single project will do that. Making the most of Alaska will reduce our dependence by a few percentage points for a few decades. It will buy time to solve bigger problems.
Opponents say we should focus on renewable energy. They have been saying this since the 1970s, but the results have not been encouraging.
We have built some high-tech windmills that work when the wind blows, and that produce a tiny percentage of our electricity.
But solar electricity has colonized only the calculator, and solar heating remains
an oddity. The hydrogen car would be nice if we didn't
have to manufacture the hydrogen. The electric car has the same problem and some other ones, besides. Alcohol from corn consumes
more energy than it produces, and exists only by federal subsidy.
Energy
efficiency is
fine, and we are pursuing it. But we do need fuel.
Over the whole topic looms The Environment. It is an elusive
concept. Sometimes it means human health, sometimes
animal survival, sometimes our spiritual and esthetic feelings. On the matter of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, it is mostly the latter.
The animals will not be threatened
by our extraction of oil. What threatens animals is human habitation — farms and subdivisions and shopping centers and newspaper offices. No one will
be putting those along the Arctic Ocean. All we need is the oil. Let's get it out, cleanly and carefully, and we can leave the tundra for the muses, musk oxen and mosquitoes.
Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail
address is bramsey@seattletimes.com. Look for more of his thoughts on the STOP blog, our editorial online journal at www.seattletimes.com/stop
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
Bruce Ramsey, please let me introduce myself and another perspective
and opinion that is from myself and the Gwich’in Nation. This is a response to the article you published in today’s
Seattle Times & I have highlighted trigger words that prompted me to submit this “other side” viewpoint, I
know there is a word limit to Letters to the Editor, so I have highlighted the parts of my response letter in hopes you can
at least print this. I will dedicate a page in it’s entirety to my website, http://mysite.verizon.net/res7dwhg/ including the background research and links that I have provided you with+some interesting photos and
anti-oil drilling propaganda.Readers are welcome to look there for more conversation about this topic at my website. I will
continue to follow this breaking news about ANWR, as I am sure the Nation will as well!
My name is Robin
Carneen(Swinomish) and I host a Native American bi-weekly Public Affairs and music program for KSVR 91.7 FM in Mt Vernon,
WA. We broadcast from the Community radio station at Skagit Valley College. Our program, called
“NAMAPAHH, First People’s Radio” that I produce, has been in existence since last May of 2004. Locally,
listeners can tune in from 7-8pm PST, while others who
are not within our signal can listen online (best with Broadband) at www.ksvr.org
Last week, my co-host Jerome Edge (Upper
Skagit) and myself, bumped a previously scheduled topic, to give voice to the Gwich’in
people who happen to live in the Porcupine Caribou Region that is once again under attack and consideration by those in government
and corporate positions affiliated with life changing decision making. According to Gwich’in Nation spokesperson Sarah
James, 8 times this has been brought to the “proverbial table”, and 8 times, ANWR was protected by legislation
and concerned people to keep it designated and established as a National “treasure”.
ANWR hosts oil reserves, according to studies and reports from all
sides, that is a given. It is one of the most sought after sources of “new gold”. Due to this fact, this would
not be the first time that certain Native Americans would obviously stand in the way of progress and would once again be pushed
aside, for the sake of “America”.
Many, like myself, view this as a “corporate genocidal act”,
Chevron Texaco Corporation and others like them, are big time players fostering
“bad blood” relationships. ChevronTexaco Corporation, claims “social, economic and environmental responsibility. * The decision to drill in ANWR seems to be in direct conflict of
what lip service they are reiterating to the American public. If they truly were thinking of the American people, they have
sure left the Gwich’in people out of the loop, as well as those concerned with environmental impacts of this proposed
project. I am curious about your comment “And our civilization needs the oil.”
Please define civilization and who qualifys as being “civilized?”
This seems to be an ongoing
saga, once again spilling more than 500 years worth of tears and frustration
from our people. One generation after the other has had to fight continually for their rights, land care taking responsibilites,
and protection of the resources. We are not a perfect people though, we have failed in some instances, but in this case, the
Gwich’in people are not guilty of anything else, but wanting to be left alone with the Porcupine Caribou and continue
their 20,000 year old “ways of being”.
This ongoing battle over ANWR,
has been waged between Environmental protection organizations, Alaskan Natives, such as the Gwich’in, other Alaskan
Natives who are pro-drilling, government officials(i.e Senator Barbara Boxer and
Senator Maria Cantwell), and the Oil and Gas Corporations (who would just love to get the oil and gas out of this region.*)
. The “Indian Wars” and “Relocation” does not seem to
be over yet. It continues to this day and the weapon of choice is the stroke of a pen: Cantwell’s amendment to remove
ANWR oil drilling from the proposed Budget, failed 49-51, too close for comfort. Once again we are a country divided. I think
this is dangerous, we have been here before, in times past. It is dividing our communities in some cases and threatening the
feeling of stability and future for our youth, the seventh generation. There are alternative sources of energy, why not experiment
& explore those possibilities? What is going to happen when the gas & oil runs out?
In the past and even presently, United States governmental decisions,
like this one that is trying to be slide through the approval process, have impacted and changed the landscape, culture, and
lives of Native America forever. If the civilization, assimilation, and re-education processes did not strip away what was
left of our people after the Indian Wars, Massacres, and mass die off, due to small pox, starvation, mal-nutrition, lack or
minimal health care or adequate services for Native Americans, and flat out poverty
; then today we have toxic waste, mercury poisoning, diabeties, HIV, alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, lack of recognition
for tribes that are waiting for that, limited health care services, lack of telephones, adequate water supplies, mal-nutrition
(USDA commodities vs. original sustenance and food sources), poverty, and lawsuits that hang us up in courts, all which are
taking their toll on our people.
History demonstrates that wild buffalo herds, for example, dwindled
due to past sport and trophy hunters. As fences were put up all over Indian country, the cattle industry encroached and competed
with the land that once exclusively supported the majestic buffalo for countless years.
Today, there are buffalo herds here and there, even a small herd of a half dozen buffalo behind my residence in Bow,
WA. I purposely drive home that way, just to catch a glimpse of this herd, in order to feel an old and multi-generational
understanding of how sacred these buffalos are to our people to this day and how missed some of those old days are.
In those days, we didn’t have to depend on vehicles for transportation
and put gas and oil in them to make them run. As Native American people, we have had to compromise and assimilate in some
instances, or be left behind. The world and modern technology is advancing faster then our ancestors could ever have imagined.
However, some Indigenous people, like the Gwich’in have choosen to “go without” many of these modern convienices,
“opting out” from having to depend on so much materialism and modernizations. If oil drilling happens though,
in ANWR, they will be forced to fully assimilate and/ or will have to relocate from their homeland, giving up a culture and
way of life that is 20,000 years old.
I am always grateful to the
KSVR radio station and Skagit Valley College for the air time we are being gifted with in order to discuss these issues, hear
from the people involved in them, both Native American and others. I wish to share these words and concerns of Elder Gwich’in
spokesperson, Sarah James, shared with our listeners, last Thursday from 7:55-8:05pm, on behalf of her people and the wildlife,
especially the porcupine caribou:
Sarah James: “ I am Gwitch’in/ Athabascan Indian,
interior Alaska, were about living in Artic Village, which
is 110 miles North East of Arctic Circle. We do
hunting and fishing and maybe 75% of our diet is wild meat: most of it is Caribou,
moose, dahl sheep, birds and dogs, and small animals and that is how we live up there.
Where they want to do gas and oil development is the Coastal Plain
of the Artic National Wildlife refuge. We’re only trying to save 1/10th of the Artic Coastline. The risk is from Pudah Bay on the way over to the West, my
Gwich’in People, there are 15 Villages, and there’s 7000 of us left,
north of Yukon Territory, part of McKenzie Area of NW territory and NE Alaska.
We are all against the oil gas development within the coastal plain
of ANWR since 1988. We are united on this issue, Elders directed us to do it in a ‘good way’ and ‘no compromise’.
It has worked, for 8 times we won this battle, this is a Public Interest Land, this is a National Issue, this is the last
stand, because we are the last people to be contacted before Columbus discovery.
It is very important area, 150 species of birds nest there from all
over the world, it is a birth place, it is a birthplace. Any birthplace should not disturbed by development and as a birthplace
for the porcupine caribou that we depend on. We’re a caribou people, us Gwich’in People. It is our clothing, it’s
our food, it’s our tools, our shelter, everything to us is caribou: stories, caribou bands, caribou food, we’re
caribou people, just like the Plains People used to be with Buffalo. And
if they disturb it it’s going to kill off the calves, it is going to disturb a lot of life there, a lot of life that
is formed there.
And it’s not only the Gwitch'in people that we’re trying
to do it for, for all the caribou. It is for our children and for their children too, to keep something like that sacred.
It is sacred ground, we call that place, ‘where the life begins(she says
this in her language too)’ and it is sacred to us, we are connected that way.
They just had a vote, the fate of the Gwitch’in has been voted
on, in the Congress, they left it up to the Congress. As Americans they spoke up 8 times, and we won this 8 times, you have to remind your Congress that the Americans already spoke
up on this and they just bringing it back up, still getting into it, they don’t
care. Anyway, yesterdays vote is a small margin of what we can do, we lost by 2 votes, which is very ,very good for this kind
of case, national issue and budget, and Republican control, all that, that is very good, so we did good work, but it is in
the budget right now, Nat’l Budget right now.
There is a lot in the budget right now, like social security, war expense,
all other stuff that is not good, so maybe the Congress might decide not to deal with Budget, it’s so bad, they might
throw it out, not even deal with it, then ANWR is not going to get the vote. There a lot of other channels they have to show
respect to, there is a treaty with Canada, country of Canada with US, treaty on Migratory on birds & ducks, treaty signed
on that one. We need Hawaii, both of the Senator, more from Hawaii, we need
more from Louisiana, we need Florida, Idaho and Ohio.”
Sarah gave contact info for the Gwich’in and ways the public
can help their voice be heard. One way is to contact the Gwich’in Steering committee:
gwichin1@hotmail.com or gwichin1@alaska.net
She said to call your Congressional people directly, write letters
to newspaper, presentations at colleges, talk about it in your living room. They also have a website: : http://www.alaska.net/~gwichin/index.html
http://www.saveourenvironment.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=13161
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Phone: (202) 456-1111
Fax: (202) 456-2461
president@whitehouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
She ended with a plea at 8:05pm, March 17th, 2005: “The fate of the Gwich’in Nation is in your hands, because
we all have the right to Public interest land. Global warming and climate changes is real in the North and it’s going
to be more real everywhere, because of how much we burn fossil fuel. We can always change it to alternative energy, do something
differently, and committed to ourselves to help this Earth, and for our children and for their Children. Women are very important in this issue, we’re talking about nursing ground, we’re talking about
Birthplace that we can relate to as a woman. So we need the women to speak up for this birthplace this sacred place where
the life begins.She ends in her language, then in English, “All my relations”.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>more anti drilling>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Another enlightening source: Rhino’s (Exerpts)log is always posted at: http://www.rhinosblog.info
TODAY’S FEATURED ARTICLES
-
Senate Votes to Keep Arctic Drilling Language in Budget!, Alaskan Wilderness League
- Letter
From Barbara Boxer Regarding the ANWR Vote
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"In
1988, our people became aware of oil companies trying to gain access to the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. Oil development there would harm the caribou and threaten our future. So we gathered for the first time
in over a hundred years in Arctic Village . The
Gwich'in Nation was reborn. Everyone spoke resolutely about how important the caribou are to our culture. At the
end of the gathering, we spoke with one voice, one mind and one heart with a renewed commitment to protect our way of life
for future generations. We came up with the Gwich'in Nintsyaa-a unified standing resolution calling for permanent protection
of the Porcupine Caribou Herd birthplace. The Gwich'in Steering Committee was created. The elders said, 'Go and
tell everyone how we live, and why we take this position. Do it in a good way, and we will be successful.' "
- -
Faith Gemmill (Executive Director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee)
Visit The Gwich'in Steering Committee AT:
http://www.alaska.net/~gwichin/index.html
Senate Votes to Keep
Arctic Drilling Language in Budget!
Cantwell
Budget Amendment Fails 49-51 Vote
Alaskan Wilderness League, 3/17/05
Today an amendment
to keep oil drilling out of the Arctic Refuge was narrowly defeated in the Senate by a vote of 49 to 51. Senator Maria
Cantwell (D-WA) offered the amendment, cosponsored by Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), to reject a sneak attack on the Arctic by burying drilling
language in the federal budget. This battle is far from over. This is just the beginning, and there is a long
way to go before the drilling rigs make it into the Arctic Refuge. Alaska Wilderness League will be working with members of
both parties in both Houses of Congress to keep Arctic drilling out of the final budget...
MORE
INFO & RESOURCES AT :
http://www.alaskawild.org/campaigns_arctic_hellweek_alert.html
Top 10 Distortions of the Senate Floor Debate AT:
http://www.alaskawild.org/campaigns_arctic_top10.html
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Letter
From Barbara Boxer Regarding the ANWR Vote
Today, my heart is heavy. By just two votes, we came up
short in our effort to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to over 150 wildlife species.
... I want you to know that I won't give up in our fight to stop the drilling. And neither should you. I'm going
to use every legislative tool at my disposal to reverse this vote and prevent this terrible policy from going into effect.
But we can do more -- today. I'm planning to organize a consumer boycott of any oil company that decides to drill
in this pristine Alaskan wilderness area. If, through our pocketbooks, we can convince these companies to
do the right thing, we can still save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the destruction that would be wrought
by the oil drilling rigs.
Send an email to the CEOs of ExxonMobil, BP, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch/Shell, and ChevronTexaco
now and tell them to stay out of ANWR!
And then invite everyone you know to join us. This battle is not over -- not
by a long shot.
In Friendship, Senator Barbara Boxer
SEND LETTERS EASILY AT: http://ga4.org/campaign/boycott/3k8ub84vjkj3dw
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Rhino's Other Web Sites:
http://www.dreamcatchers.org (Indigenous Assistance & Intercultural Dialog)
http://www.kifaru.com (Native American Relations Video Documentaries)
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Articles
are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All
copyrights belong to original publisher.
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Tell the oil companies to stay out of ANWR!
March 18, 2005
US Senator Barbara Boxer
What's At Stake: Protecting 19 million acres of pristine Alaska wilderness from oil drilling. Campaign Expiration Date: June 29, 2005
http://ga4.org/campaign/boycott/d5dng64hjkj3dw
Today, my heart is heavy.
By just two votes, we came up short in our effort to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, home to over 150 wildlife species. In the end, over 90% of Senate Democrats voted to stop this madness
-- we just didn't have the votes to overcome the Republican majority in the Senate.
But I want you
to know that I won't give up in our fight to stop the drilling. And neither should you. I'm going
to use every legislative tool at my disposal to reverse this vote and prevent this terrible policy from going into effect. But we can do more -- today.
I'm planning to organize
a consumer boycott of any oil company that decides to drill in this pristine Alaskan wilderness
area. If, through our pocketbooks, we can convince these companies to do the right
thing, we can still save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the destruction that would be wrought by the oil
drilling rigs.
Send an email to the CEOs of ExxonMobil,
BP, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch/Shell, and ChevronTexaco now and tell them to stay out of ANWR!
This battle is not over -- not
by a long shot.
In Friendship,
(This
was signed by Senator Barbara Boxer)
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