My response to Nick, ANWR

In response to my link to that ANWR article below, my friend Nick weighed in with the following:

"It's interesting to me that the argument is all about the "ugliness" of the land. I could[n't] care less, but what kinds of things makes the ecosystem important, how does it play a part in the food chain, and what impact is drilling going to have on that?

Against drilling, I've heard arguments about how it might affect the Caribou population, and I'm sure there are other positions as well, but most basically - the question is environmental not aesthetic.

I think these arguments are annoying and dumbed down. So what if ANWR is not pretty. Convince me by proving that drilling won't disrupt the natural ecosystem, and I'll talk."
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I think Nick makes an excellent point. So excellent in fact, that I had the same thought when I began to read through the piece. But I think Nick is being unfair to Goldberg's piece in its entirety by selectively ignoring some of his arguments.

Now, it is perhaps in part my fault since I chose to excerpt parts that I found funny, without regard to if they are necessarily convincing or informative. If you read the entire piece, however, Goldberg does present argumentation beyond an aesthetic critique.

Let me list a couple:

1) Specifically to Nick's comment on caribou, Goldberg notes:

"One such place [where the Caribou flock to] happens to be Prudhoe Bay itself; specifically, the areas around the oil installations and pipelines, where the Central Arctic caribou herd has thrived in the shadow of extensive oil extraction. Since drilling started here, the herd has increased fivefold. The caribou throng to the roads and gravel pads because the breeze is slightly stronger, and hence a bit more free of the bugs. They hide in the shade under the pipeline on the warm days, and plenty of people will tell you they cozy up to it for warmth in the winter. At least for the Central Arctic herd, the oil facilities are less a disruption and more like the equivalent of the man-made reefs we make from old tankers, for sea life, off the Louisiana coast."

Clearly this addresses the issue of Caribou protection. At least according to Goldberg's sources, then, oil facilities created so far have been boon to Caribou herds; far from the 'destructor' that environmentalists have claimed. It is logical to conclude that similar oil facilities would likely have a similar effect.

2)Regarding potential effects on the food chain:

To my mind, the definitive impact that any action can have on the food chain is entirely unknowable. Theoretically you can make arguments that any action could start a chain-reaction that could end an ecosystem. To this end, if one's threshold is the prohibit any action that might negatively impact an ecosystem, then no action could ever be permissible.

That said, I think it is obvious that one can make a best guess as to what effects might result (for example, if you hunt all predators to extinction, it would follow that their prey would probably multiply, which could have detrimental effects on the ecosystem as a whole [though this is not guaranteed])

Now, specifically to ANWR. Goldberg's piece notes the following:

1)Oil technologies allow "zero footprint" to made, thus have no impact on the terrain in question.
2)(As noted above), Oil facilities have increased Caribou size.
3)Predators to the Caribou include bears, mosquitoes, and other insects.

Ergo, it would seem logical to conclude the following:

1)Oil facilities won't be detrimental to the physical ecosystem of ANWR since they leave "zero footprint;" so one need not worry that Mosquito nesting pools will be affected, for example.
2)It would seem to make sense that increased Caribou size would allow for increased populations of predators, which of course is good for the predators in that more of them could live.

Hence: Goldberg's argument allows for MORE Caribou AND predators. Now, it is entirely legitimate to argue such a result is a bad thing because we don't want too many Caribou, Mosquitoes, Bears, what have you. But I don't currently hear many environmentalists complaining about potential overpopulation of ANWR or that we should go blow away some of the Caribou before they affect the ecosystem.

They complain about just the opposite. Assuming that Goldberg is correct in his hypothesis, environmentalists then are arguing against policy that would enable their goal of animal population security to be achieved.

And ultimately, that is precisely what Goldberg's article is so critical of in the entire debate about ANWR. Environmentalists arguments don't hold water in any sort of environmental sense. Ultimately the only argument that they are able to advance is that there is some inherent positive quality to "pristine-ness" and unused spaces. Such an idea, of course, is ridiculous. Especially so when the cost of doing so has severe adverse effects on our society (like having barrels of oil cost $80).

And given that environmentalist utilize the "pristine-ness" argument, Goldberg it seems to me is permitted to note that the "pristine" areas that they are trying to save are nothing more than mosquito hellholes.

Where I think Nick goes wrong is that he blames Goldberg for "dumbing-down" the argument. In reality, the environmentalist already occupy that territory. Goldberg's 'aesthetic' argument is just operating in the argument-construct that they created. And as this post hopefully indicates, the bulk of Goldberg's rationale lies elsewhere, anyway.