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The ANWR Campaign
Our primary goals for this campaign are to visually
frame the issue and to stop the impending exploitation
and destruction of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
The reason for our involvement can be summed up by one
word: Stewardship.
As
patriotic and heritage loving American citizens, we have
an ongoing moral obligation to be the stewards of all
our national wilderness areas and the defenseless
animals that inhabit them. In this life long and
critically important duty-of-care role we need to be
creative, vigilant, and work closely together to protect
the incredible natural wonders which we are blessed to
share. One of these, the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, is in eminent danger of being plundered for the
sake of a few months worth of oil. This assault on our
stewardship requires immediate attention. The awareness
posters we have created speak not only to the threat
this plan represents to polar bears and caribou, but
also to the health and well being of the entire North
American environment in which we live.
There is still time to stop the Bush administration from
opening this pristine 1.5 million acre wilderness area
to oil and gas exploration by denying them a victory on
the upcoming budget reconciliation vote - a
mid-September test seen as crucial to their plans to
proceed with this destructive and un-American attack on
our wild places. Although the administration
strong-armed their majority in the Senate to vote
against the recent amendment to strip artic oil revenues
from the federal budget resolution, they only won 'round
one' in this historic land preservation battle by the
slimmest of margins.
So far, the American people have been left out of the
entire decision process. We must now stand together to
tell the administration and their 'big oil' allies to
keep their hands off the last Alaskan wilderness area or
it will be lost forever. ANWR has been targeted by this
administration for its symbolic importance to the
environmental movement, and represents only the first of
our 'protected' national wilderness areas to be carved
up for economic development if this vote goes
unchallenged.
It
is common knowledge that America is facing a severe
energy shortfall due to rising consumption. However, as
Carl Pope, the national executive director of the Sierra
Club recently stated in a USA Today article, " we can't
drill our way to energy independence".
He
is absolutely right. We need to apply our technology to
make cars go further, adopt effective energy and
conservation measures, and invest in clean, renewable
energy resources. The less than one-year supply of crude
oil thought to be under the 25-mile wide coastal plain
of ANWR is simply not worth the high price of extracting
it or the disastrous environmental impact it will have
on the arctic tundra and countless endangered species
that live and come to breed there. |
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