Opinion: Drilling or killing

This article won third place in the 2024 Michigan Interscholastic Press Association spring awards ceremony.

There has been a lot of media coverage recently surrounding the controversial Willow Project. Environmental activists around the world have expressed their disdain for this project by creating a petition which received almost four million signatures. There have also been over a million letters written and sent to the White House urging the president to take initiative and prevent the approval. Unfortunately, these activists have been unable to change the course of action taken by the Biden administration as the project was approved on March 13. 

The Willow Project is a proposed plan to begin oil drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve, located in northwest Alaska. This land is legally owned by the Federal government, but there are known indigenous communities living on this land as well. The proposed oil drilling will extract up to 600 million barrels of oil which will ease American oil shortages, but will take years to reach the market. This project is estimated to speed up global warming, devastate ecosystems and therefore harm indigenous communities. Due to these estimated effects, I believe this project should not be implemented. 

Sophomore Julia Henke has seen the posts and videos on social media about the implications of this project and has taken it upon herself to be more educated on the topic and speak up. She fears what this project will mean going forward. 

“I’m concerned that it will affect future generations, because I’ve heard about how wildlife could die, and that it will put a lot of carbon [pollution] in the atmosphere,” Henke said.

The effects this project will have on the atmosphere will undoubtedly have negative consequences. While more oil means cheaper gas prices, that benefit, in my opinion, does not outweigh the estimated 9.2 million metric tons of carbon pollution per year that this project will create. This massive amount of carbon pollution will speed up global warming  and insure irreparable climate change. 

Not only will the Willow Project have a critical impact on the environment, it will also destroy habitats and therefore further endanger native species, such as polar bear and caribou. This destruction has already begun due to global warming, thus the advancement of this project will increase the extinction tremendously. 

Indigenous communities are also at risk as the land they live on will now be occupied by oil drilling; this is leading to the displacement of many families and tribes. Homelessness is already a large issue in Alaska, with Native American citizens making up 40% of the homeless population.  The percentage will only rise once this plan is put into action. 

Not all Native American communities are fighting the approval of the project, however. A lot of tribes are eager for the project to happen because it will create up to 2,500 short-term jobs and almost 300 long-term forms of employment.

The Nuiqsut are just one example of a Native American community that will be drastically affected by the approval of this project. In the aforementioned article from Alaska Public Media, the reporters, Mark Thiessen and Matthew Brown, talked to leaders from this indigenous tribe about both supporting and protesting opinions, but the leaders do not believe the positive implications outweigh the negatives. 

“There are no payoffs for the loss of our health and culture,” the Nuiqsut leaders said in the interview. “No dollar can replace what we risk. … It is a matter of our survival.”

Following the Biden administration approval, a non-profit company dedicated to environmental conservation, Greenpeace USA, announced that they will be continuing the fight in court. Their platform is that the Biden administration has not adequately assessed the damage this would cause to the environment and therefore should not be allowed to go through. 

There are benefits of this project that lead the Biden administration to push for approval. The project will allow for more economic stability and reduce the US’s dependence on foreign oil.  It will also generate a large amount of money for both Alaska and the Federal government. 

Even after weighing the benefits, I don’t believe that the Biden administration should be allowed to pass this project. Instead of listening to environmental concerns, they are focused on the money it will make for them, regardless of the fact that the money won’t even turn up until years down the road. 

While this is a global issue, it is important to recognize that it is affecting real people in real time, even those who are not in the immediate area. Sophomore Rachel Haagsma is concerned about what this project means for the future, so she has taken it upon herself to take action. 

“The Earth is already dying, and now we have [the Willow Project]. We just have less time to stop [the death], and it’s scary,” Haagsma said. “With [the Willow Project] coming into light, something just clicked in my brain that I should do something about this. I think this really impacted my future as far as spreading awareness about climate change and other important things.”

As Haagsma expressed, taking initiative is very important in situations like these. From my personal experience, being a high school student can make you feel powerless when looking at political injustices, but that’s not true. I urge all who are able to sign the petition and spread awareness in the community. 

Our Earth’s future should not be in the hands of people whose only concern is lowering gas prices and counting the money they will make off the destruction. Instead, the people in charge should be those that have a genuine concern for the environment and those living in it.