The saying of the devil being in the details is so applicable when it comes to this kind of stuff.

And when it comes to republicans and oil companies you need to be sure and demand the 'boring' details. A lot of people don't have enough brains to just hang up on unsolicited cold calls that promise the impossible. Drilling in ANWR is like a cold call. And in this case the people who don't have the sense to hang up are republican supporters. Their greed overwhelms their common sense and makes them listen. Personally, I hang up immediately on cold calls.

C4,
I'm with you there. I can't understand why these guys can't make money on all the new technology with rail and auto transport. Converting the nation to solar would be as big a financial boom as the computer revolution. Jobs would be created in maintaining the new technologies, building the infrastructure for them. I don't get it either. It's very disheartening.

I'm a lifelong Alaskan, to be sure I support the opening of ANWR to exploration and drilling. Please remember that the primary byproduct of drilling for oil on Alaska's North Slope is natural gas - a clean and efficient energy source - one that 'could' lend to the effort of energy independence in the U.S. in the long term. On the other hand I am completely and utterly opposed to offshore drilling I feel a spill in the ocean is a permanent injury and impossible to mitigate, and that our oceans inhabitants are integral to our own health and survival.

My reason for supporting it has nothing to do with energy independence or gas prices, it has to do with jobs in Alaska. Alaska is constantly bashed for being a "welfare state" for the amount of federal funds it receives, and no one in Alaska wants that to continue into perpetuity.

Most Alaskans are for opening ANWR because it 'could' help replace the dwindling oil fields of Prudhoe Bay as a source of State revenue and provide jobs, good union jobs for Alaskans, (and others, about 25% of oil jobs are hired from out-of-state).

Next, I think there is a huge misunderstanding of the nature of this landscape. Large amounts of the earth on the North Slope remain frozen year round, if/when it does thaw its only unfrozen for a couple of months each year, if that. That being said, if there are spills on frozen ground it is a realtively simple clean up - it simply does not seep into the ground or water. The affected snow or ice is pretty much scooped up, hauled off and processed. Also, most of the development, (i.e. roads, lines etc) surrounding a drill platform are actually done as ice roads. This is because the tundra is very nearly impossible to traverse when there is no snow. These ice roads are environmentally friendly, they are temporary and when abandoned, no trace of them is left behind.

Finally, the kind of wildlife that exists along the Arctic Plain is extremely persistent - these animals survive temperatures dipping to -70 F every single year, for extended stretches. They are resourceful and survive despite wild swings in the predator population.

I understand people are vehemently against the opening of ANWR and I understand their concerns. I've lived in Alaska all my life and I have never been anywhere more pristine or clean - I'm SHOCKED when I visit other so-called states that consider themselves environmentally friendly - they are filthy, (i.e. Oregon, Washington). Their waters are treated as sewage treatment plants and garbage heaps.

Ask yourself this, if you don't want Alaska to be a 'welfare state' and you don't want Alaska to drill for oil or mine other natural resources - what industry would you have regular Alaskans apply their efforts to? Should we restart the timber industry? Step up commercial fishing? Retrain the entire state to provide hospitality services to the tourism/cruise ship sector?

The 3 major industry employers of the residents of Alaska are Oil, Military and State and Federal Governments.

With the hard environmentalist line drawn in the sand one side or the other is going to 'win'. Wouldn't it make more sense to get involved in the regulation and oversight of potentially polluting industries instead of outlawing them entirely? If you win one round, there won't be any drilling - if the other side wins the next round they will drill wildly with no protections.

Here's perhaps the most important fact in all of this: this isn't about the oil. It's about taking a hill. Years ago, the environmental groups designated the ANWR as off limits, and they meant it. Which is why the Republicans are determined to take the land. Not because they want the oil (although they ALWAYS want the oil), but because they see a win by environmentalists as setting a dangerous precedent. For environmentalists, it's about beating the Republicans. For Republicans, it's about beating the environmentalists. Republicans aren't happy unless they're destroying things.

The ANWR is a symbol of a much more essential battle.

You are only thinking of hurricanes. But yes, when no insurance company will issue policies to coastal builders that will change that. But hurricanes don't only overwhelm the coastal residents with houses on stilts. Houston was a good drive from Galveston, and got hit. We had a minor hurricane blow through my neighborhood 5 years ago and it tore down 100 year old sugar maples with trunks 3 feet in diameter. I live 2.5 hours from the ocean.

But wild weather is MORE than Hurricanes. A couple of years ago a Cat 5 tornado ran across Australia. They have permanent tornados on Jupiter. However, we are stupider.

Tornado activity and intensity is ON THE RISE--in places where they were once rare. This will increase. Dramatically. Not too many Americans have ever seen a cat 5 tornado, but they can get much worse, theoretically. Then there are the droughts, the forest fires, snow in July--hail the size of basketballs. They had a hail storm not far from here a few months ago with hail the size of softballs.

Greenland has already returned to the state when Eric the Red first landed on its shores. The Alaskan permafrost ain't perma anymore. What is this going to do to all those engineering structures that assume permafrost forever?

You talk about Alaska as if the rest of the world could go to hell. Yeah, you could probably survive there with a hunting and gathering lifestyle, but with the rest of civilization coming apart at the seams, who is going to want to send your state welfare money--especially once the figure out that oil was the source of all this misery?

All of this will follow like night follows day. You are living in a dying world, focused on a past that is gone forever.

It's hard to let go of oil but there really is no choice in the matter.

In order to to transition off it we need to invest heavily in creating alternative energy on a large scale to replace it.

It's illogical to think we need to drill for more oil to help the transition to alternative energy.

As I understand it, the cost of drilling in such high-risk areas as ANWR and offshore has risen as much as the cost of oil itself.

You really have to ask yourself why oil companies have not been drilling on the 68 million acres that has long been available to them in the U.S. and offshore.

It's likely that the push to open ANWR has nothing to do with helping us become energy independent.

It might instead be used as collateral to borrow more money from China or maybe start paying down our foreign debt. Let's not forget we have an 11 trillion dollar debt (including the recent financial bail out.)

Also, wouldn't it make sense to wait until all our cars and other forms of transport are designed to be far more energy efficient so that in twenty or thirty years, the oil in ANWR will last two three or four times longer than if we used it to fuel our current fossil fuel guzzlers?