The Willow Project — Capitalism versus The Environment
Writer’s Blog 7
I am currently in an Anthropology class all about environmental issues and their causes and effects. It is all about the interaction between the environment and society. I have become much more educated on environmental injustice and how things like globalization and industrialization affect the environment and how the negative effects of such industrialization and climate change inequally affect marginalized communities. When I heard about the Willow Project, it proved to me how real and ever-growing these issues are.
The Willow Project was approved by the Biden Administration on March 13th, 2023. The project is a massive oil drilling project in Alaska. The project would produce 600 million barrels of oil, ultimately contributing significantly to climate warming. In fact, the oil produced from the project would be enough oil to release 9.2 million metric tons of carbon per year. Online activism against the project has been huge, bringing the controversy to the forefront. Beyond the fact that the project will be devastating to the environment, the Biden Administration approving the project goes directly against their promises made in 2020.
Projects like these have historically been rationalized as “critical infrastructures.” However, the work they do directly destroys the critical infrastructure of the indigenous people who live off the land. Critical infrastructure for some means the destruction of livelihood for others. By using this language, it somehow allows these corporations to put themselves on the moral high ground. As such, those who will bear the burden of the project’s effects are not being listened to or given any thought at all.
“My hometown, Nuiqsut, is the closest town to the proposed Willow Project, and we have the most to lose. Our people feed their families with traditional subsistence activities like fishing and hunting caribou, moose, birds, and more. The Willow project’s massive infrastructure would bulldoze straight through these crucial habitats, redirecting the animal’s migratory paths, moving them away from nearby villages, and endangering the food security of local people”
— (Ahtuangaruak, 2022).
This huge project with irreversible climate warming outcomes is happening right now against the will of the environment, the indigenous people who inhabit the exploited land, and much of the nation. The project is a blatant example of corporations and governments favoring money over human life. Exploitation over conservation.
