As it is very well known, witnessed, and experienced, the planet is experiencing an extreme climate crisis. To add salt to the injury, President Joe Biden approved the ConocoPhillips' Willow Oil Drilling Project in Arctic Ocean off Alaskan shores even though he vowed as a part of his presidential campaign to completely end new offshore drilling projects and was in full accord with the Paris Agreement. I am in shock that regardless of everything that the Environmental Protection Agency, environmentalists and past presidents have done to protect not only the Arctic Ocean, but the Indigineous communities that depend on the Arctic and the endangered species that call the Artic their home, it is being completely disregarded by Biden and his administration. The United States was once promising to be a leader of the environmental movement, but this country has sadly degressed and has gone backwards to the Bush Era.
"The proposed Willow Project is the largest oil project proposed on public lands in the country. Located in a remote region of the Western Arctic that has been experiencing dramatic climate change impacts, this project would pave the way for ConocoPhillips to develop a drilling operation aiming to get the around 600 million barrels of oil in the area for decades into the future." (via edition.cnn.com)
Rewinding to 2016 when Biden was Vice President, this is an exerpt from a statement release by the White House Press Secretary concerning oil drilling in the Arctic; "Due to the important, irreplaceable values of its Arctic waters for Indigenous, Alaska Native and local communities’ subsistence and cultures, wildlife and wildlife habitat, and scientific research; the vulnerability of these ecosystems to an oil spill; and the unique logistical, operational, safety, and scientific challenges and risks of oil extraction and spill response in Arctic waters – the United States is designating the vast majority of U.S. waters in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas as indefinitely off limits to offshore oil and gas leasing, and Canada will designate all Arctic Canadian waters as indefinitely off limits to future offshore Arctic oil and gas licensing, to be reviewed every five years through a climate and marine science-based life-cycle assessment."
::CLICK HERE:: to read more from the 2016 White House Press Release.
::CLICK HERE:: to sign the petition to help stop the Willow Project.
::CLICK HERE:: to read an article about how marine life in the Gulf of Mexico is still being affected by the BP Oil Spill of 2010.
::CLICK HERE:: to read an article by Quannah Chasinghorse who is a Han Gwich’in and Sicangu/Oglala Lakota land protector, climate justice activist, and fashion model from Eagle Village, Alaska and the tribes of South Dakota.
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