How can economic development and preservation of our environment coexist?
Of Oil, ANWR and Environmental Reconciliation
by John A. Baden, Ph.D.
With prices of oil near $35 per barrel and natural gas above $5 per million BTU, the debate over development versus the preservation of natural landscapes has re-erupted.
Think of the oil lying under Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as a huge electromagnet energized as the price of crude goes up. A year ago, when the price fluttered around $10 per barrel, ANWR’s oil potential was a non-issue.
Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front contains oil and gas deposits as well. It is also excellent grizzly habitat, a place where they can roam between high plains grasslands and mountain forests.
Potentially, environmental quality and the development of oil and natural gas on federal lands can coexist. However, we need creative ideas and courageous leadership to accomplish this.
Today, with crude’s price exceeding $34 per barrel, and the Middle East in turmoil, both ANWR and the Front are again in pol
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Economic development doesnt preclude, infact it may very soon require, technological forrays into alternative energy production. A current trend in the commercial sector is that consumers and investors are favoring environmentally friendly corporations. Therefore, by the economic law of supply and demand, those corporations that avoid environmentally deleterious policies, such as relying on crude oil, will prosper, since they are ’supplying’ environmental responsibility, for which demand is currently soaring. It is shortsightedly immature of us to not move off crude oil quicker, infact. We underestimate the damage oil does to the health of the worldwide human population, in terms of military repurcussions, adverse health effects, and of course, the environmental consequences.
It can happen if
1. Science and technology would have to advance a few years and allow us, more efficient and less damaging ways of extracting, cheaper substitutions for, or less expensive recycling of nonrenewable resources. The key is cheaper, efficient, reusable, and less damaging technology. A fusion power source has to be created.
2. People would have to want to save the environment and not let politics, profits, culture, and inconvenience divide them. People would have to be educated with cold hard facts instead of mere theories who’s supports change every few years. People would have to work together beyond political boundaries to save the planet as a whole and share tapped resources instead of tapping new ones.
3. Luck beyond imaginable. It may already be too late.