Date of Award

2013

Advisor(s)

Edward Van Buren

Abstract

For many decades, Americans have been relying on fossil fuels to run our cars and to heat our houses. It has come to a point where our apparent need for this oil is more important than the environment and the natural world that we have tried so hard to preserve. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, commonly know as ANWR, in Alaska is the center of much debate surrounding potential drillings in order to lessen Americas dependence on foreign oil. This paper will refute this idea and prove that by not drilling in the Arctic we will not only lessen our dependence on foreign oil but we will also lessen our dependence on toxic fossil fuels all together. Focusing on three main topics; history, economics and ethics and applying them to the environment, it can be proved that senselessly drilling in one of the last pure environments this country has to offer is not the right choice for our future. Environmental history takes a look back at our past mistakes which warn us not to repeat them in the future. Environmental economics shows that our current economic crisis cannot be solved with an nonrenewable resource. Lastly environmental ethics helps us to look to our future and hopefully see a prosperous one filled with better and safer ways of obtaining energy and creating energy. 3

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