[snowplay]

Please don't buy the hype. I'm going to guess that almost everyone would agree with preservation of environment and wildlife. But the drilling in northern Alaska is not what one may think. Drilling sites have small surface foot prints and reach out via horizontal drilling. Additionally, oil exploration on the north slope of Alaska has been going on since the 1960's with a remarkably good health, safety, and environmental responsibility record. Look at their record and what they've been doing. It may be a rare case, but Alaska's north slope environment has not been harmed by exploratory drilling sites.

[sandworm101]

The actual drilling is not the real issue. The drills are indeed a negligible footprint. But every drilling site has a road. Every road has bridges. Then, should oil be pumped, pipelines and other support infrastructure. Surrounding all of this is then the local risk of spills, and the non-local implications of burning yet more oil. So to stop all that nasty stuff later, we need to stop the preliminary drilling today.

Canada is struggling with abandoned oil infrastructure, tar sand developments that companies do not want to clean up. (There was a recent supreme court case about this.) For all the pre-planning and taxation, everyone knows that some day in the future it will be the government saddled with cleanup costs.

[braythwayt]

I don't know why this is being downvoted. Agree or disagree, it's a reasonable contribution to the conversation. To me, downvotes are for bad-faith arguments, axe-grinding, comments that raise issues answered in TFA, and other things that worsen the quality of conversation.

[sandworm101]

People downvote things that make them angry. The closer one gets to an uncomfortable truth, the greater the anger.

I honestly think that the majority of downvotes on HN are from people silenced by the posting limit. Lacking the ability to respond in text, their only agency is to downvote. The calm and considerate people who read more and speak less don't hit that limit.

[marvindanig]

I don't know why you're being downvoted. I used to work in an oil and gas firm earlier. And I agree with everything that you have just said.

[hanniabu]

You're speaking of ideal scenarios. Explain all the past accidents that have led to massive raping of the wildlife and environment, then subsequent "cleanups" which add additional issues.

[arcticfox]

It really feels that with proper governance it should be possible to both extract the oil and benefit the environment overall. Reinvesting the profits in environmental improvement projects (both locally, but particularly in other places where small investments can go a long ways) seems like it should be possible to outweigh the damage.

That said, probably infeasible to achieve that type of governance in the US these days, so this Audobon approach of putting its foot down is possibly the most viable.

[hanniabu]

It is possible, but not when money is on the line. We see this issue everywhere. Nuclear power plants can be made safe, but then checks aren't done when they should, maintenance is allowed, they're kept running being the design life, etc.

[astazangasta]

Prudhoe Bay oil spill was in 2006. Also exploratory drilling has a huge footprint; they do 4D seismic which means a big grid of tracks. This leaves long lasting scars on sensitive landscapes.

[cryoshon]

the oil needs to be left in the ground. the fact that we can save some nice animals by doing so is a bonus.

the reality of climate change means that by proxy, greed is an existential threat that we need to be taking an aggressive disposition against.