Introduction
The Willow Project was passed March 13th, and this is what I have to say.
Say NO to Willow
The other day I woke up to my social media feed filled with messages of rage. With posts flooded with photos of polar bears in melting habitats, I knew that some kind of bad news was naturally to follow. Virtually any story I clicked on from my followers posted the current event that I don’t think any of us really saw coming: The Biden Administration passed the Willow Project. I think the main reason I personally didn’t anticipate much fear of the project passing was because I knew that it was completely out of step with Biden’s original climate commitment to decrease emissions of carbon pollution in half by 2030. Yet, as of March 13th, ConocoPhillips got the greenlight to claim Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope on an oil reserve roughly the size of Indiana (Becky Bohrer). Success with this project would generate nearly 180,000 barrels of oil a day, making it the largest oil project on U.S. public land to exist (Becky Bohrer). Moreover, scientists have estimated that this project would pump roughly 9.2 million metric tons of climate pollution into the already contaminated air, which is the equivalent to adding nearly two million cars to the roads each year (Friedman, Lisa). It appears that just overnight, the already concerning trajectory of climate change has taken a turn for the worse.
In order to achieve this new level of oil extraction, ConocoPhillips proposes that they will “re-freeze” Alaska’s arctic in order to drill for more oil, which will inevitably cause more climate change to ensue as a result. Though this rationale seems a bit counterintuitive, policy makers would rather market the more desirable result of the project: economic growth and the creation of thousands of jobs. Oddly enough, even some Alaskan government officials have supported the Willow Project for the economic promise it vows to produce, including the state’s first Alaska native elected to congress and former tribal judge, Mary Peltola (Friedman, Lisa). It seems that the sole priority of this highly invasive project is money, which is a shame because money will mean nothing when the earth is beyond saving.
In addition to the hundreds of miles of pipelines invading altering the ecological integrity of species living there, people local to the area will also suffer. Rosemary Ahtuangaruak is a local and also the mayor of Nuiqsut, the closest place to the Willow Project, which she argues has the most to lose (Rosemary Ahtuangaruak). She shares that families local to Nuiqsut depend on the ability to fish, hunt caribou, moose, birds, and more which will all be compromised with the introduction of the Willow Project (Rosemary Ahtuangaruak). Even more concerning is the inevitable ways that the air will become polluted and jeopardize the health of people living nearby.
Clearly, the priorities of these dominating oil companies are skewed. They appear to be strictly driven by financial gain, which they think they can simply patch over by unnaturally refreezing the Arctic. What good will money do when climate change is truly irreversible? The damage will be insurmountable, and at the rate this project will contaminate the atmosphere, it will likely be already too late to recoup from these decisions. I admit reading about this decision was defeating, and I’m sure the millions who wrote to the White House in protest would agree.
What more evidence do people need to understand the repercussions of these actions? Perhaps since people haven’t experienced the effects of climate change, they fail to understand the gravity of its implications. Life is already going to change as we know it with the way America has been burning fossil fuels, so accelerating this phenomenon even more will only make these “distant” consequences come quicker.
How can you help? The problem may appear too grand of a scale to intervene, but there are things you can do right now. The best way to stand up against the Willow Project is to not stay silent. We have to work together and generate our strength in large numbers in order to convey our shared mission to end this project. Even if the result is only a decrease in the amount of oil extraction, anything will help. Websites like Protect the Arctic provide accessible means for how to draft letters opposing the Willow Project to the White House (Protectthearctic.com). Furthermore, multiple marches are scheduled in the near future to protest the Biden Administration’s decision. If these actions seem too daunting, social media is always a powerful tool to take advantage of. Whether it’s joining the #StopWillow movement on TikTok or reposting an informative slide on Instagram, spreading awareness is essential in order to communicate the gravity of the Willow Project.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. She offers that, “protecting one area of the Arctic so you can destroy another doesn’t make sense, and it won’t help the people and wildlife who will be upended by the Willow project” (Friedman, Lisa). Do these costs really outweigh the benefits? Maybe in the short term they will, but we cannot keep putting off what lies ahead. It’s unfortunate to see how a president who was once so committed to descaling climate change in 2020 could be swayed to do the opposite three years later, but this is not an excuse to give up. It’s only more reason to keep fighting. We must use our voices and feel called to act. Remaining complacent will only let the big oil companies win, which is a cost we cannot afford.
Works Cited
Becky Bohrer, Matthew Brown. “Alaska’s Willow Oil Project Is Controversial. Here’s Why.” AP
NEWS, Associated Press, 14 Mar. 2023, https://apnews.com/article/alaska-oil-drilling-biden-environment-climate-c39147c8ae1797aab9cb27219bf92675.
Friedman, Lisa. “Biden Administration Approves Huge Alaska Oil Project.” The New York
Times, The New York Times, 12 Mar. 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/12/climate/biden-willow-arctic-drilling-restrictions.html.
Protectthearctic.com. “Take Action to Protect America’s Arctic.” Take Action to Protect
America’s Arctic, https://www.protectthearctic.org/stop-willow.
Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, opinion contributor. “Don’t Make Indigenous People Pay Willow’s
Price.” The Hill, The Hill, 29 Nov. 2022, https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/3749037-dont-make-indigenous-people-pay-willows-price/.
