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Climate change : Alaskan wilderness oil exploration

Climate change: Alaskan wilderness opens up for oil exploration


The giant Alaskan wilderness is home to many important species, including polar bears, caribou and wolves. Decades of disputeol on the rights to drill for oil on about 5%. Covering some 19 million acres (78,000 sq km) the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is often described as America's last great wilderness. It is a critically important location for many species, including polar bears.

In the winter months, pregnant bears build dens in which to give birth, as temperatures have risen and sea ice has become thinner, these bears have started building their dens on land.The coastal plain of the ANWR now has the highest concentration of these dens in the state the refuge is also home to Porcupine caribou, one of the largest herds in the world, numbering around 200,000 animals. In the spring, the herd moves to the coastal plain region of the ANWR as it is their preferred calving ground.

This same coastal plain is now the subject of the first ever oil lease sale in the refuge. The push for exploration in the park has been a decades long battle between oil companies supported by the state government and environmental and indigenous opponents.

Many of Alaska's political representatives believe that drilling in the refuge could lead to another major oil find, like the one in Prudhoe Bay, just west of the ANWR.

Prudhoe Bay is the largest oil field in North America and supporters believe the ANWR shares the same geology, and potential reserves of crude oil. 

Oil revenues are critical for Alaska, with every resident getting a cheque for around $1,600 every year from the state's permanent fund. 


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Climate change: Alaskan wilderness opens up for oil exploration


Imagine what oil exploration did to the Alaskan wilderness and how it destroyed the most important area of america it is often called the AMERICA'S LAST GREAT WILDERNESS, covering over 78,000 sq km ( 19 million acres)....

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-55561536


Leave the oil in the soil

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