permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

 Arctic Folly

 By Jimmy Carter

  Congress is about to make one of those big decisions that marks an
era. Unless wiser heads prevail, it may do it badly -- making the wrong
decision in the wrong way and about the wrong place. At stake is
America's greatest wildlife sanctuary, the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge. To dissuade Congress from this environmental tragedy, Americans
must rally, and quickly.

 Congress had its Pyrrhic energy victory this summer, with a new energy
policy that ignores much-needed conservation measures and gives the oil
industry large new tax breaks regardless of where it drills and pumps.
Surely Congress has done more than enough to increase the profits of the
oil industry..

 Yet now, in a separate decision, the White House and Big Oil are
pressuring Congress to allow drilling rigs to rip into the ecological
heart of America's preeminent wildlife sanctuary. We must not confuse
this with Prudhoe Bay, which lies west of the Arctic refuge and is
already an industrial landscape resembling Houston more than Yellowstone.

 With increasing gasoline prices bringing economic hardship and concern
to many Americans, we must not be misled by oil lobbyists who are trying
to convince us that our energy security is singularly dependent on
sacrificing the Arctic refuge. They promote the false premise that
development will touch just a few thousand acres when, in fact, it would
introduce roads and pipelines spider-webbing across hundreds of
thousands of acres on the fragile coastal plain.

 We cannot drill our way to energy security or lower gasoline prices as
long as our nation sits on just 3 percent of world oil reserves yet
accounts for 25 percent of all oil consumption. An obvious answer is to
increase the fuel efficiency of motor vehicles, at least to the level we
set more than a quarter-century ago.

 Instead, the administration recently proposed a tiny increase in gas
mileage for SUVs, minivans and pickups. Not effective until the 2011
models, this would save about one month's current consumption of fuel
over the next 20 years -- far less than will be saved in just one state
by a new California law. The new ruling offers automobile makers an
opportunity to avoid the reductions by modifying the size of various
models as they persist in manufacturing gas guzzlers. It is not a
coincidence that Moody's has just downgraded the debt of General Motors
and Ford to junk status, while makers of efficient vehicles prosper.

 I have been to the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
to study the wilderness wildlife. Far from being the frozen "desert"
some suggest, this is a rich, Serengeti-like haven of life: nursery for
caribou, polar bears, walruses and millions of shorebirds and waterfowl
that migrate annually to the Lower 48. To sit, as Rosalynn and I did,
watching a herd of musk oxen circle-up to defend their young and then to
find yourself literally in the midst of thousands of caribou streaming
by is to touch in a fundamental way God's glorious ark of teeming wildlife.

 We Americans use a lot of energy, and millions of us want to do so in a
more efficient way that also allows us to cherish our disappearing
wilderness heritage. In the Arctic refuge we cannot have it both ways.
In the next few months Americans could lose this special and amazing
place through a backdoor legislative maneuver.

 Each fall Congress endeavors to combine budgetary directives covering
the nation's $2.5 trillion dollar annual budget in a single
"reconciliation" decision. In a tricky ploy to avoid full debate,
drilling advocates have buried their despoil-the-Arctic goal in this
mammoth measure. So, conservation-minded Americans must ask our elected
representatives to vote down any final budget reconciliation bill that
would allow the sacrifice of our Arctic sanctuary.

 Now is the time to speak up for the ecological integrity of this
unsurpassed 18-million-acre wilderness. Many Americans will be in
Washington on Sept.. 20 for the Arctic Refuge Action Day rally on the
Mall and to contact congressional representatives personally.

 If we are not wise enough to protect the Arctic refuge, future
generations will condemn us for needlessly sacrificing the wilderness of
their world to feed our profligate, short-term and shortsighted energy
habit. The pathway to a better, more sustainable energy future does not
wind through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

 Former President Carter is the founder of the Carter Center in Atlanta.