T.A. Barron writes eloquently about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Please TAKE ACTION to save this pristine environment from oil drilling!

Date:   9/21/2005 1:30:40 AM ( 19 y ago)

WONDROUSLY BLANK: A PLEA FOR THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE
by T. A. Barron

The world would be far poorer, Aldo Leopold famously observed, "without a blank
spot on the map." Yet it wasn't long ago that U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski from
Alaska stood in the Senate chamber and declared indignantly that the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge was no more remarkable than a blank piece of paper.

What, really, is a blank spot on the map? What is its value? These questions
are difficult to answer -- especially for a money-driven, mechanized society
such as ours.

A blank spot, despite its lack of attention from mapmakers, is not empty. While
it is devoid of cities, villages, roads, and monuments (as well as drill rigs,
trash heaps, billboards, and wrecked vehicles) -- it may be full of other
attractions. Such as scenic wonder. Or silence. Or wildlife in grand abundance.

And something else, as well. A blank spot on the map often contains precious
opportunities for people to explore their outer world -- and their inner
selves. For a blank spot implies no limits. It is a place of endless reach --
for the sunlit horizon, as well as for the human spirit.

No place on our planet is more richly, wondrously blank than the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge. Within its nearly twenty million acres of terrain
lies the last stretch of protected coastline in Alaska, as well as the coastal
plain -- the fragile tundra wetland that is America's premier birthing ground
for arctic wildlife. Caribou migrate over 1,000 miles round trip every year to
reach this place; migratory birds from every corner of the country seek refuge
here.

This is the place that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their supporters in the
energy industry want to invade and cover with roads, drilling pads, and heavy
machinery. To fill in the map. To darken one of the most pristine spots on
Earth.

If they do succeed -- on the spurious claim that our nation absolutely must
suck out whatever oil lurks beneath this land (even though the most inflated
estimates show the Refuge providing only a tiny fraction of America's needs,
and only delivering that a decade from now) -- they will, indeed, darken this
spot. With the inevitable oil spills on the tundra. With the bodies of dead
caribou calves. And, worst of all, with the shadows of a lost opportunity to
protect a place that is truly sacred -- and wondrously blank.


TAKE ACTION: Sponsored by National Resources Defense Council: http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/

TAKE ACTION: Sponsored by World Wildlife Fund: "Now or Never for the Arctic Refuge" http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item=24456

TAKE ACTION: Sponsored by Earthjustice: http://ga0.org/campaign/ARA_Hbudget/step1.tcl

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