Thomas Dustin attended the signing of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act in 1980 at President Carter's invitation.
Mindfully.org note: Along with his wife Jane, they are Indiana's premier eco-defenders.
They are the true American heroes.
Thank you Tom and Jane!
There is one - but only one - redeeming point in The News-Sentinel's Nov. 6 editorial advocating exploitation of the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to "reduce our dependence on foreign oil." That is found in the last line which acknowledged the need to "make energy conservation even more important, too."
How could The News-Sentinel get sucked into the exploitation priority? Even if oil were identified in the Coastal Plain, industry spokesmen say it would take 10 years to come on line. And just look at recent history. Reduction of oil imports was also a prime slogan leading to plunder and wrecking of Prudhoe Bay just 60 miles west of the Arctic Refuge. At that time, we were importing less than half of our gluttonous consumption; now, with Prudhoe Bay still pumping away, our import proportion has risen to over 60 percent. The fact is, we have less than 3 percent of the world's supply in our own territory, and we're guzzling 25 per cent of everything consumed on Earth. We'll be importing forever.
But perhaps the most tragic part of the controversy is reliance on the terrorist argument. The determination to preserve the Arctic National wildlife Refuge is not just an environmentalist mantra. This setting and scores of others are part of our national heritage. They are part of the grace of a civilization that adds immensely to the reasons why we must protect our country and its most precious landscape remnants. It is not just a few barrels of crude oil.
Think of the legacies handed on to us today by some of the real national leaders, like Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, yes, even Richard Nixon, and others too. Do we not have an obligation to perpetuate their actions of grace for the generations which will follow us?
Even if some flimsy case for plundering ANWR could be invented, it must be remembered that 95 percent of the Alaska north coast is already open to the Bush oil profiteers. The Coastal Plain is the last 5 percent. If we surrender it, and if we compromise our civil liberties along with our remaining road-less forests and our National Monuments to satisfy plundering interests, we'll have to start searching for new reasons to love and defend America.
The U. S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic Refuge might contain a six-month supply; and even oil corporations admit that assertion.
To be sure, the development of benign and renewable supplemental forms of energy can contribute, such as wind, tidal, solar, fuel cell and other developable sources. But the workable remedy will not be found on the supply side of the equation. The real response is on the demand side. And no one thing would contribute more to balancing the equation than significant improvements in gas-gulping SUVs, "light" trucks and other needless energy guzzlers. And there's yet another thing: We have an agreement with Canada to protect the Coastal Plain.
Not to be forgotten is the serious security question, since any ANWR oil production would be piped down the same conduit as the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to Valdez. And let's not forget the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.
No citizen should be unaware that the Bush "energy policy" containing the proposed exploitation of the Arctic Refuge was developed in a secret White House broom-closet by an industry consortium he created called the National Energy Policy Development Group. On Sept. 6, I wrote the president asking for the "Names and occupations of those persons who served" in that group. In a response letter of Oct. 26 from the Director of Presidential Correspondence, I was told, "Because of the large number of similar requests received by the White House, I must decline your request." So much for open government and the public interest.
Let's get on with it. Support mandated energy conservation along with renewable and benign new energy sources. And let's keep our heritage intact and undisturbed for all generations. We could be proud of ourselves for that.
source: http://web.news-sentinel.com/content/fwnews/2001/11/15/business/b15h_guest_dustin_pg2b.htm 15nov01
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