Over the past month or so I have heard more and more about the Willow project in Northern Alaska. With climate change always at the forefront of my mind, I knew this was just going to be another nail in the coffin humanity is making for itself. But, I was hopeful that the Biden administration would reject this plan and choose nature over profit, unfortunately, but unsurprisingly I was wrong. Most of what I’ve been seeing have been posts on Instagram with short little descriptions of what the project is, but until I really started researching this, I had no idea how bad it is and how much it will affect our planet.

The willow project is an oil drilling site that will be run by Conoco Phillips and will be located on federal lands that are home to the Iñupiat people along with many species of animals. According to an article by The Guardian, this project will produce 180,000 barrels of oil per day and will also lead to “more than twice as many emissions than all renewable energy projects on public lands by 2030 would cut combined.” After much controversy and pushback, the Biden administration approved this project on March 13th.

Like with any other problem, there are two sides to the story, those for and against it. The main argument from the supporters of this project is that it will create jobs and bring in revenue that Alaska desperately needs. According to Conoco Phillips, “Willow could generate between $8 and $17 billion in revenue” and could generate around 2,000 new jobs. This argument is a popular one and is seemingly always used as the main reason that projects like this are good. Time and time again we have seen that big corporations only care about money and don’t care about the long term effects projects like Willow will have on the Earth. On the other side of the argument are those who know how detrimental this project will be to the environment, to the native people who live in this area, and to the many animals that populate this region, some of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Willow project will further contribute to our dependence on fossil fuels and according to NewsScientist “will generate 9.2 million tonnes of carbon pollution per year.” This project will also impact the Iñupiat who already have higher cancer rates and respiratory illnesses because of the existing drilling sites they live next to. Additionally, it will “negatively impact the migration routes of the Teshekpuk Lake caribou herd, one of the primary sources of subsistence foods for the village” according to Change.org, and will threaten millions of migratory birds, some of which are highly endangered.

During Biden’s presidential campaign, he made promises to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and start the transition to renewable energy. This promise did not last long. His approval of the Willow project has come at a critical time for deciding what kind of future we will have. The climate crisis is the biggest issue facing the world today and this decision to allow drilling will set us back for years and contribute more than we can comprehend to the climate crisis.

Before this project was approved there were multiple petitions from many different climate organizations urging people to add their signatures and say no to this project. Change.org alone received 4.5 million signatures, and this was just one petition. To me, this has shown that a vast majority of the US has been ignored and that profit has once again been put above the planet. Conoco Phillips does not care about the harm they will be causing to those closest to the drilling site and to the environment, they only care about how much money they will be able to make. Environmental groups have already started pushing back and according to CNN have filed two different lawsuits against the “Biden administration’s Department of Interior and its top officials, the Bureau of Land Management, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and other federal agencies.” These petitions and lawsuits are just the start. If we want to see real progress and put a stop to the Willow Project and other fossil fuel extraction processes like it, we need to stand up against big corporations. We must look to people like Greta Thunberg as examples of how to fight back and advocate for our planet because, in the end, it’s the only one we’ve got. If we don’t put a stop to the extraction of fossil fuels we have no hope of stopping climate change and the future of this planet and the people on it will be bleak.