Ugh, Wilderness!: The horror of 'ANWR,' the American elite's favorite hellhole

National Review, August 6, 2001 by Jonah Goldberg

But the fact is, none of that matters. The only thing that matters to the Robert Redfords of the world is the idea-yes, the idea-that this place is "pristine." The appeal of ANWR to the average environmentalist is an entirely psychological one. If 0.0000001 percent of the Americans who fervently oppose exploration in ANWR ever actually visited this remote corner of the world over the course of a decade, it would constitute a tourism stampede. The fact is, environmentalists simply savor the idea that there is something untouched by grubby humanity out there. Indeed, if the oil companies could extract the oil in secret and keep this dream alive, everybody would be happy-including, probably, caribou.

This, of course, exposes the true place ANWR holds in the worldview of its voluptuaries: It's a religious icon, the Dome of the Rock of environmentalism. Indeed, among environmentalists, religious adjectives crowd out all others. ANWR's coastal plain is "holy," "sacred," "divine," and "hallowed," not merely by the Gwich'in (who don't actually live there), but by the journalists and activists who just like knowing it's there. Drilling is therefore not just "greedy," but also sacrilegious. It would not matter, environmentalists insist, if there were a trillion barrels of oil safely extractable with a corkscrew and a turkey baster. To them, drilling isn't bad policy; it's blasphemy.

Because passions so completely trump reason on this issue, ANWR becomes ripe as a wedge issue for opportunistic Democrats. For example, Sen. Joseph Lieberman says ANWR exploration "would cause irreversible damage to one of God's most awesome creations." This is irresponsible absurdity. Not only would the damage, in fact, be reversible; this area simply cannot hold a candle to God's most awesome creations. The Post (and the New York Times) had it right in the 1980s, when they supported exploration-with far more intrusive technology than today's-in this truly remote, bleak, and nigh-upon-inaccessible redoubt on the top of the world.

Of course, the activists cannot admit this, so they compare ANWR to places most people have actually been or plan on going to: Yosemite, the Everglades, and even the entirely man-made Central Park. This sort of distortion is rampant. "The simple fact is, drilling is inherently incompatible with wilderness," former president Jimmy Carter wrote in the New York Times. "The roar alone-of road-building, trucks, drilling, and generators-would pollute the wild music of the Arctic and be as out of place there as it would be in the heart of Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon." Never mind that all of that harmless noise pollution would occur in pitch darkness, drowned out by a 120-degree-below-zero wind chill. Even Jimmy Carter should know that music is like trees falling in the forest: It's only music if there's somebody there to hear it.