The "Beauty" of ANWR

NRO posted a classic Jonah Goldberg column on his visit to the Artic National Wildlife Reserve back in 2001.

Recently the Senate passed a bill that will allow drilling in a tiny portion of it, much to the outrage of environmentalists like Ted Turner.

Goldberg's article gives a great amount of detail on what the area in question is actually like. It's a long piece, but worth reading.

Here's an excerpt:

"Two decades have intervened, and an environmental fatwa has been issued declaring that the word "pristine" is synonymous with "beautiful" or "sacred." Of course, anyone who has seen a mint-condition AMC Gremlin knows that pristineness and aesthetic appeal have only a coincidental relationship. Even ANWR fetishists concede that in the winter, with its complete darkness and 70-below-zero temperatures-not counting wind chill-this is no paradise.

But then, it's no paradise in the summertime either. During the winter, the entire coastal plain is covered by a vast tarp of ice; when the sun comes back, the resulting thaw creates, well, lots of puddles. These patches of freestanding water pock the flat tundra for as far as the eye can see; that's why this barren region is the only place the U.S. government recognizes as both a desert and a wetland. The water in an old tire can breed thousands of mosquitoes; a puddle in a junkyard, millions. ANWR is the Great Kingdom of the Mosquitoes."