Word: alaska
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...vast majority of the immigrants, the whole point of coming to Alaska was to profit from the land. Red Swanson, who arrived in 1945, is a good example. For more than 40 years he has bulldozed Alaska, pumped oil out of it, cut down its trees and paved it with asphalt. Says Swanson: "The environmentalists have stopped Alaska from being great. They say hundreds of birds have been killed by this oil spill. But we have millions of birds. These things happen...
While oil is the hottest issue, the Prince William spill could also help the environmental cause in a dispute that has nothing to do with crude: the battle over Alaska's Tongass National Forest, a woodland bigger than West Virginia, located in the southeastern panhandle. Unlike parks, national forests are available for lumbering. But conservationists have protested that the Tongass, one of the few remaining temperate rain forests, should be largely protected from logging, especially considering that the industry is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Forest Service. Says Larry Edwards, founder of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Society: "We have...
...would be nice to add more acreage to Alaska's national preserves, but that is neither practical nor fair to the state. More than a third of its 368 million acres are already designated as national parks, wildlife refuges and forests, and thus protected from development to varying degrees. But it is practical to increase the size of official wilderness areas, where development of any kind is prohibited, since most of these areas already lie within existing parks and forests...
...finding more oil is not the answer to energy needs; a coherent policy encouraging fuel conservation is. The pressure to drill more wells in Alaska stems in large part from the recent relapse into energy profligacy. During the Reagan years, speed limits rose, more stringent fuel-efficiency standards for new cars were postponed, and alternative-energy research programs were slashed. As a result, the U.S. appetite for oil rose from 5.6 billion bbl. in 1983 to 6.3 billion last year...
Conservation will not be easy, but the public's sense of horror over fouled beaches and dying animals could provide new motivation to save energy. If that happens, the wreck of the Exxon Valdez will not be an unmitigated disaster. It would be unrealistic to halt Alaska's oil business and unfair to demand that the state's people spend none of their wealth. But exploration and production can be carefully limited, and better environmental safeguards can be put in place. In the end, the battle for Alaska's future may be decided in the other 49 states. If Americans...