Battle for Arctic not over yet
Alaskans can breathe a sigh of relief: Royal Dutch Shell's Arctic drilling program, perhaps the most reckless in the "extreme extraction" frenzy that characterizes the modern fossil fuel epoch, appears to be done.
A tremendous weight lifted off my shoulders when I heard the news. I vividly remember my summers working in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska, in the very spots where Shell's leases were granted. Studying the effects of receding sea ice on the biological populations of the Arctic Ocean, I lived for months aboard the USCGC Healy. Stepping off the icebreaker onto the frozen sea to drill ice cores, I was humbled yet again by the harsh beauty, and baffled by the exuberance of life that somehow flourishes where I would struggle to survive a day.
Shell officials cited less-than-economically-viable oil recovery and "regulatory uncertainty" as the reasons for abandoning their $7 billion Arctic investment. But I want to tip my hat to those brave citizens across Alaska and beyond who volunteered their time and energy to fight and protest this brazen misadventure. Your demonstrations and blockades are part of a worldwide movement to protect the places we love from those who would exploit them for profit, and here today, as in so many places, they are making a real difference.
The battle for the Arctic is not over: oil companies will be back as long as the smell of profits taints the air, and other means of industrial expansion are well underway. Most ominous of all, climate change disproportionately impacts the Arctic, threatening the fragile ecosystems dependent on sea ice that is eroding year-by-year. Still, a major threat to the Arctic Ocean is, for the present moment, in retreat. That is something we as Alaskans, people of our nation's only Arctic state, can celebrate.
I am so encouraged to witness Arctic oil staying put in the only possible safe place: not in our ocean, not in our sky, but in the ground. Our vast Arctic frontier is, for the time being, still wild and free. May it forever remain so.
-- Zachary Brown
Stanford University
founding director, Inian Islands Institute
Gustavus
Stop driving away oil companies
We are writing this letter as concerned local Natives of the North Slope and Alaska residents. Our families, friends and the communities. We have benefited from the Shell exploration. We are very concerned that the government has made the continued operations so difficult and costly they have suspended further exploration.
It is with great concern that we write to you today about the Shell operations being suspended indefinitely here in Alaska. This will have a great impact on the community of Barrow and others throughout Alaska. The loss of assets will greatly affect local and statewide income.
We believe state and government needs to work with oil companies to bring jobs to our local economy and all Alaskans. We need to work with oil companies in order to make this happen and stop driving them away with regulations and higher cost to keep them and maintain jobs.
Our communities are paying attention. Our livelihood is dependent on politicians who work to improve our communities by creating a favorable environment for companies such as Shell.
-- Bradley Bodfish
Barrow
Society will sooner or later find way forward
This newspaper — and this Letters to the Editor section — daily discuss a wide variety of issues facing our community, state and nation, many of which generate much controversy and emotion among us. Considering this, I think it's worthwhile to remind ourselves that every generation of Americans faces its own set of political, social and economic issues, many of which are emotionally charged, and which seem, at the time, impossible to rectify. But then, as time passes, a magical thing happens: The American people, in their wisdom, find answers to the troublesome issues facing their generation — with the result that future generations of Americans, looking back upon these decisions, will wonder how those issues could have caused so much turmoil, and will regard with pride the correctness and appropriateness of the decisions that were eventually reached. Therefore, as we Americans discuss the various issues facing our generation, and even though these issues may be difficult to grapple with, let each of us have confidence that our society will sooner or later find the answers to these issues, and that our nation will inevitably move forward into the future, as the leader of the free world, and as the shining light of hope for all of mankind.
-- Stephan Paliwoda
Anchorage
Patkotak undermines her own point
I read with interest Elise Patkotak's Sept. 23 defense of subsistence hunting, "In Alaska's North, whaling nourishes body, spirit and community." It is an insightful commentary that falls flat because of her own snarky comments about the culture of others, even if it is the one she claims to have come from. I cringed at her characterization that "coming from the East Coast where subsistence hunting means finding the best hoagie shop in the neighborhood." My recent forebears on the East Coast worked the land and the sea for a living. They, like many people on the Arctic coast, lived in a mixed economy. On the East Coast, that practice consisted of commercial fishing, agriculture, town jobs and subsistence, complete with the social network and spirit of identity that characterizes subsistence in the Alaska Arctic. One is not better than the other, just different, defined by the people, time and place. Patkotak's dismissal of another's cultural practices undermines the very indignation that she felt that motivated her to write the column. One does not have to explain the significance of one culture by running down another's culture.
-- James Lima
Anchorage
Not willing to pony up taxes for bloated, irresponsible government
Clem Tillion, a nine-term legislator and commercial fisherman wrote (ADN, Oct. 9) that "we" can still have a great future if "we" just pony up taxes. He says our budget deficit is because "we" spent freely and "we" repealed taxes. The "we" who did that were the politicians. The "we" he wants to pony up taxes are the private sector. The "we" who will have a great future if we do that are those feeding at the government trough.
Transferring money from the private sector to the government (taxes) would have a devastating effect on the state's economy. Explain to me how the private sector benefits by funding Gov. Walker's trips to Japan and Washington, D.C., the legislator's $90,000 conference trip, the $50,000 the governor paid two consultants to "advise" on the president's trip to Alaska. Explain to me why a legislative assistant in Juneau who authorizes her own conference trip is worth $95,000 a year, and explain how many $95,000-a-year legislative assistants we employ. That's just this past month.
The purpose of Alaska's multibillion-dollar savings account is to finance government in lean times. We borrowed to do that in early 2000. We paid the loan back in 2010. It's lean times again. The price of oil is down. OPEC has an incentive to cripple our energy industry by keeping the price of oil down. According to Mr. Tillion, Jay Hammond's dream was "keeping government to a size the people were willing to pay for." I am not willing to pay for this state's bloated and irresponsible government.
-- Arlene Carle
Anchorage
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