ConocoPhillips’ has a disastrous plan to drill the Western Arctic and Biden has given it the green light. This project could lock us into 30 more years of extraction, in the land surrounding Alaska. We cannot just let this happen. Join us in resisting the Willow Project.
A Major Blow to Climate Goals
ConocoPhillips’ proposed Willow Project is a massive oil drilling venture on Alaska’s North Slope in the National Petroleum Reserve, owned by the federal government. The area where the project is planned holds up to 600 million barrels of oil. That oil would take years to reach the market since the project has yet to be constructed. The project would generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year, equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads.
This is a major blow to climate groups and Alaska Natives, who believe that this would affect Biden’s own climate pledges. Earthjustice, an environmental law group, notes:
“We are too late in the climate crisis to approve massive oil and gas projects that directly undermine the new clean economy that the Biden Administration committed to advancing, we know President Biden understands the existential threat of climate, but he is approving a project that derails his own climate goals.”
This is in direct conflict with the Biden-Harris administration’s goals of cutting climate pollution in half by 2030.
Supporters and Opponents
Lawmakers say that it will create jobs, boost domestic energy production, and lessen the country’s reliance on foreign oil. Similarly, a coalition of Alaska Native groups on the North Slope also supports the project, saying it could be a source of revenue for the region and fund services including education and health care.
Meanwhile, other Alaska Natives living closer to the planned project, including city officials and tribal members in the Native village of Nuiqsut are concerned about the health and environmental impacts of major oil. These villages would bear the brunt of health and environmental impacts.
A Public Health Crisis
During his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden vowed to end new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters. By the administration’s estimates, the project would generate enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon pollution a year – equivalent to adding 2 million gas-powered cars to the roads. Yenissa speaks to an Iñupiaq leader for The Frontline:
“I feel like we’re being asked to choose between these two things: our traditional lands and our health: physical, spiritual, and mental. The distress caused by the loss of ancestral and traditional lands even has its own term: solastalgia. It’s the opposite of nostalgia, the longing many feel for old memories. With solastalgia, that longing evolves into something more: stress and mental illness. And the feelings aren’t about old memories; they’re about home and the connections specific communities have to these places impacted by environmental changes.”
Willow is promising 2,500 construction jobs and 300 permanent jobs. Up to $17 billion in revenue is predicted. But it all comes at a cost. And to top it all, the oil project would be obsolete before it finishes.
Stop Willow:
Enter your information here and Evergreen Action will send you critical action alerts on the vital work ahead. More than one million letters were written to the White House in protest of the project, and a Change.org petition with millions of signatures went viral. Sign it – with the concerns of the environment, climate, and Indigenous communities, it is vital that the Willow Project is declined.
FEATURED IMAGE: via Pexels | IMAGE DESCRIPTION: City under a tall plant emitting clouds of smoke.