Artic Tundra
The traditional image most people have of the artic tundra, is a vast, featureless sheet of ice, home to a few polar bears and maybe an Eskimo. The reality is that the artic is not the never ending snowstorm you picture in your head. There are several different settings that can be described as the “artic.” In the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge located in northern Alaska you can see beautiful mountain ranges with trees and rivers, home to caribou, wolves and musk ox. Elsewhere you might be startled by a thunderous crash, you’d look in the direction of the rumble and see a massive glacier. The sheer walls hundreds of feet high, immeasurable blocks of ice break off into a deep blue sea, creating a massive swell which overpoweringly pushes outward in all directions. This area of Alaska which we call ANWR, is a diverse region that is not only breathtaking but is the most controversial potential oil drilling locations in the world (Lester). There are many internal disputes over whether or not drilling can take place in ANWR safely, however, the fact remains that rather than drilling for oil, Americans should be changing their everyday lifestyles to prolong the earths natural support systems.
Fifteen villages and small towns scattered across northeast Alaska and northwest Canada are the home of approximately 7,000 Gwich'in - the most northerly location of all Indian nations (Chance). Gwich’in means ‘people of the caribou’ which is a fitting name considering they rely on the caribou for the major part of their economic standing. They have relied on the caribou for as long as they have been in Alaska. . Norman Chance posts on his website that the belief of the Gwich’in tribe is that “every caribou has a bit of human heart, and every human has a bit of caribou heart” thus they owe there lives to them. This is the main reason they take offence to the oil drilling. The oil is located in an area where the caribou calving grounds are located. There is controversy over whether or not the drilling would affect the caribou. In attempt to gain acceptance from the Gwich’in it has been proposed to delay drilling during the calving periods. This proposal still did not persuade the tribe by any means. Perhaps rather than try to persuade this Alaskan tribe we should learn from their simple way of life. Rather than supplying Americans with the oil there gas guzzling suv’s need, we will have to change from the internal combustion engine to the new technology of a hydrogen-powered fuel cell engine. This would be a major change considering that all automotive related positions such as, engineers and mechanics would also have to change or be retrained (Brown 39). Switching to a fuel cell engine would greatly reduce our dependence on imported oil. This could allow our country to make substantial decisions in the middle east which may be fogged right now due to our dependence on their oil. Not only will existing industries be changed but new ones will emerge. Building this new economy means some old industries will be dropped, others reconstructed, and some created. World coal use is already being phased out, dropping seven percent since peaking in 1996. In the United Kingdom and China, coal is being replaced by natural gas, and by wind power in other places such as Denmark (38). Coal is not the only thing that needs to change, the automobile industry will need to face some major reconstruction as well.
Some topics in this essay:
Kingdom China,
Wildlife Refuge,
Today’s Global,
Inupiat Eskimos,
Norman Chance,
Bay Alaska,
,
Routers Anderson,
Light Brown,
Slope Endicott,
wildlife refuge,
national wildlife,
national wildlife refuge,
wind power,
barrels oil,
prudhoe bay,
wind turbines,
fuel cell,
power hydrogen,
wind power hydrogen,
oil companies,
oil drilling,
alaskan national wildlife,
power hydrogen generators,
arctic national wildlife,
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Approximate Word count = 1718
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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