Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Dbq Analysis

Erika Anderson once said “Doing the right thing doesn’t automatically bring success, but compromising almost always leads to failure.”. During the 1980’s to the 2000’s many citizens of the United States were faced with an ethical issue, this issue caused many of them to compromise what was wrong and what was right. Around the 1980’s the U.S was having trouble producing its own oil and wanted to drill for oil near an Alaskan wildlife refuge known as Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR). Although some Americans thought this was okay there were many reasons why this should not happen. These reasons included environmental pollution, harm to wildlife, as well as the consumption rates of oil. One negative affect of drilling for oil in Alaska is environmental pollution. In Document E, there are numerous amounts of evidence that help show why oil drilling would be harmful. Similar to what happened in …show more content…
As stated in document E the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is one of the “…largest sanctuaries for artic animals…” as well as a “…vital birthing ground…” for many animals such as “…polar bears, grizzlies, Artic wolves, caribou…” and even endangered species like “…shaggy musk ox…”.Advocates for the oil drilling claim that the Arctic refuge “could be developed by disturbing as little as 2,000 acres” out of the “1.5 million-acre coastal plain”. However, what the advocates fail to mention is that the “…oil refuge isn’t concentrated in a single…” area, but instead is “…spread across the coastal plain in more than 30 small deposits”. These small deposits “…would fragment the habitat…” and disturb and displace wildlife. Additionally, as demonstrated in document A since the Alaskan pipeline is as close as fifty miles to the western border of the refuge they would eventually move into the refuge to drill. All of this combined would surely make the wildlife and plants go