[Carfreeliving] Arctic Refuge Plea by TA Barron. (from NRDC)

[Hitesh Soneji]

Not so much a discussion item, but I know you all love to
send letters to our senators, right? :)

Here is a direct link to an ad they hope to run:
http://blog.nrdcactionfund.org/images/youcandonext.html

Here is a direct link to the support page:
http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/arcticphotos/photos.asp

WONDROUSLY BLANK: A PLEA FOR THE ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE
REFUGE
by T. A. Barron
 
The world would be far poorer, Aldo Leopold famously
observed, "without a blank spot on the map." Yet it wasn't
long ago that U.S. Senator Frank Murkowski from Alaska stood
in the Senate chamber and declared indignantly that the
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was no more remarkable than a
blank piece of paper.

What, really, is a blank spot on the map? What is its value?
These questions are difficult to answer -- especially for a
money-driven, mechanized society such as ours.

A blank spot, despite its lack of attention from mapmakers,
is not empty. While it is devoid of cities, villages, roads,
and monuments (as well as drill rigs, trash heaps,
billboards, and wrecked vehicles) -- it may be full of other
attractions. Such as scenic wonder. Or silence. Or wildlife
in grand abundance.

And something else, as well. A blank spot on the map often
contains precious opportunities for people to explore their
outer world -- and their inner selves. For a blank spot
implies no limits. It is a place of endless reach -- for the
sunlit horizon, as well as for the human spirit.

No place on our planet is more richly, wondrously blank than
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Within its nearly twenty
million acres of terrain lies the last stretch of protected
coastline in Alaska, as well as the coastal plain -- the
fragile tundra wetland that is America's premier birthing
ground for arctic wildlife. Caribou migrate over 1,000 miles
round trip every year to reach this place; migratory birds
from every corner of the country seek refuge here.

This is the place that George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their
supporters in the energy industry want to invade and cover
with roads, drilling pads, and heavy machinery. To fill in
the map. To darken one of the most pristine spots on Earth.

If they do succeed -- on the spurious claim that our nation
absolutely must suck out whatever oil lurks beneath this land
(even though the most inflated estimates show the Refuge
providing only a tiny fraction of America's needs, and only
delivering that a decade from now) -- they will, indeed,
darken this spot. With the inevitable oil spills on the
tundra. With the bodies of dead caribou calves. And, worst of
all, with the shadows of a lost opportunity to protect a
place that is truly sacred -- and wondrously blank.


		
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