It's easy to have knee-jerk reactions when the words "environment," "oil," and "wildlife" are invoked. In politics these words can be used as emotionally-loaded tools which evoke responses just as powerful as the Witness responses to "apostate" or "Christendom." However, it's important to realize that the answers to political questions are almost never cut-and-dried.
The problem of oil is a big one. If oil becomes prohibitively expensive before a suitable replacement is found, it would almost certainly have devastating consequences on our economy. Remember, "the economy" doesn't just mean the fat cats in downtown skyscrapers. It refers to the ability to produce and deliver food and products to supermarkets, the ability to obtain healthcare and services, the ability to have a functioning infrastructure. We depend on oil energy every day.
There is a silver lining in all of this. The price of oil will continue to rise, which produces financial incentive to find alternative energy sources. If you read sites like physorg.com, you see that there are almost daily advances in alternative energy sources. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when, we will move from oil to the next energy source. But during the transition, we must maintain an uninterrupted flow of energy. So we are forced to make some difficult decisions, such as whether to drill in ANWR.
No one wants to see the cute woodland animals displaced. But life on earth has dealt with much more drastic events than oil wells and a couple pipelines for millions of years. For example, ice ages, metorite strikes, volcanos, and floods have been vastly more impactful than oil drilling. In the grand scheme of things, this oil exploration is a small matter.
Cutting off the oil or having it become very expensive before we are ready for it is not an option. The days of oil usage are running out, so we can honestly look at this as a temporary measure. The real focus should be on making sure that the oil exploration is done responsibily and in cooperation with the local people.
Just my three cents.
SNG