Oxen, caribou and bears spark “Oh, my’s about oil”

Photos taken in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge of musk oxen, grizzly bears and… Photos taken in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge of musk oxen, grizzly bears and thousands of caribou slid across the screen at Wednesday’#39;s Free the Planet meeting.

‘#34;This refuge will be gone forever,’#34; announced Chad Kister, 34, a member of the Alaska Coalition and Alaska Wilderness League, ‘#34;unless we can swing two senators in less than a month.’#34;

Kister, along with Free the Planet, a student-run environmental activist group at Pitt, wants the proposed oil drilling in the Coastal Plain of the wildlife refuge to be taken out of the Bush administration’#39;s 2006 fiscal budget. One of the senators Kister thinks could swing that vote is Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Kister presented a slideshow of the Alaskan landscape while recounting the 90 days he spent hiking 700 miles through tundra and mountain ranges in the summer of 1991.

‘#34;I found oil spill after oil spill after oil spill,’#34; Kister said of the wetlands surrounding Prudhoe Bay, the northernmost point of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline, 30 miles west of the refuge border. Kister said the amount of air pollution in Prudhoe Bay exceeds that of Washington, D.C.

Kister has fought for the protection of the Arctic refuge for the past 17 years, but he said he has never been more concerned than now. He doesn’#39;t want what he saw in Prudhoe Bay to happen to the 19 million-acre refuge, which he says is the largest wildlife refuge in the world.

‘#34;Oil companies say they’#39;ll only make a 2,000-acre footprint, but they’#39;ll really sprawl throughout the 1 million-acre costal plain,’#34; Kister said.

Jasmine Pogue, a senior at Pitt and member of Free the Planet, wrote a letter to Specter after Kister’#39;s presentation. She asked Specter to speak with those who will vote on the budget, and to rethink their position on the refuge oil drilling.

‘#34;I wish I could be so dedicated to something, go days without food in the Arctic. It’#39;s a shame that more people can’#39;t get serious about the environment,’#34; Pogue said.

Pogue was amazed by the graph Kister presented, which showed that all the oil that could be drilled in the refuge could be made up just by putting more air in car tires.

‘#34;I heard a lot about the issue and figured we should get involved as a group,’#34; Free the Planet President Katie Middlecamp said.

Middlecamp said that Free the Planet will hold a letter-writing session at their meeting next Wednesday, at 8:30 p.m. in Room 104 David Lawrence Hall, for anyone who wants to write to the senators. The organization will also table with cell phones, so students can call their senators between classes.