Photo courtesy of Unsplash
I never thought I would help save the Arctic Refuge from a place as far away as Connecticut. Growing up, I knew of the vast beauty of Alaska, but living in New York and attending college in Connecticut made me feel so far removed from it. It wasn’t until I got involved with the Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign that I learned of the wondrous tranquility of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the danger facing it.
Located in Northeast Alaska, the 19.5-million-acre Arctic Refuge is home to forty-five species of land and marine mammals along with various indigenous communities, making it a hub of ecological and cultural importance. Unfortunately, a severe threat looms over the future of the refuge: industrial development. Although 8.9 million acres are fully protected from such disturbances, the 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, critical for the Porcupine Caribou Herd and the Gwich’in People, is not. Politicians and oil companies salivate over the prospect of oil drilling and fossil fuel extraction in the refuge, trampling over the rights and cultures of Indigenous peoples and the wellbeing of numerous species, including caribou, birds, fish, polar bears, and wolves.
The year 2017 marked a step forward for oil drillers in achieving their goal of industrial development in the coastal plain. Congress embedded a backdoor provision within the 2017 Tax Act that enabled the Trump administration to facilitate a last-second lease sale in the Arctic Refuge. To promote industrial exploitation of the precious site, the Trump administration held a final lease sale in its final days in power.
Fortunately, President Biden stopped this by suspending the oil leases as soon as he assumed the presidency. However, the danger of oil drilling remains with another lease sale required by federal law in 2024. With the political polarization of environmental protection, there is no telling what the future may hold.
To protect this site and end Arctic drilling, the Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign (ARDC) is working tirelessly to convince banks and insurance companies to not provide insurance cover for oil and gas development in the Arctic Refuge. As of June 2022, the six largest American, five largest Canadian, and eighteen international banks have established policies to divest refuge drilling. Fourteen international insurance companies have issued policies to protect the Arctic Refuge, to rule out any energy exploration in the region. To date, AIG is the only U.S. based insurer to commit to protecting the Arctic Refuge from development.
Despite the positive strides being made, the work of the ARDC is not finished. Along with continuing efforts to delay the Tax Act implementation in courts, the corporate sector of the campaign focuses on pursuing corporate targets, like insurance companies, and convincing them to update internal policies to ban the support of oil and gas development in the Arctic.
The ARDC has found its way to Conn as part of a more extensive network of Connecticut universities. Other schools involved in the work include Trinity College, the University of Hartford, and UConn Hartford. Hartford and the surrounding Connecticut area is a major insurance hub, so the campaign is broadly focused on insurance companies pledging to not insure drilling in the Arctic Refuge. College students are a powerful constituency to motivate insurance companies to change their practices to align more with the views of the next generation of workers, many of whom are potential employees for those companies.
I met Sam Cowles, the ARDC Field Organizer, during my first week of classes. He told me about the issue of drilling in the Arctic Refuge, and I was interested in learning more. I signed the petition for Conn students, showing my support for the campaign, and volunteered to get more involved. As a potential Environmental Studies major, I have been searching for ways to participate in environmental activism. This was the perfect opportunity to help a critical cause and make a difference. A few of my peers are also members of the campaign and have similar experiences to me. A first-year, Coral Vargas, learned of the work the same way that I did: by signing the petition and showing up to informational meetings. Coral also recruited a friend and fellow first-year, Dylan Field, to join her in the effort. Another student, senior Philip Nicholson, heard about the opportunity through one of his professors, as the ARDC did community outreach through faculty to help get the word out to students. We have petitioned students and faculty, made posters to promote visibility, and wrote letters to local newspapers to spread the word about the fight to protect the refuge.
This student engagement, here at Conn and throughout Connecticut, has resulted in over a thousand petition signatures, hundreds of photos with individuals who support the cause, dozens of calls into Travelers headquarters to raise awareness within the organization, opinion pieces and Letters to the Editors submitted and published, growing the coalition of those involved from college faculty, concerned community members, small businesses, and members of city council, using the voice of the student body through student council resolutions, and a culminating rally that was held outside Travelers Insurance headquarters in Downtown Hartford on Nov. 10.
At the rally,, the Gwich’in Steering Committee, Sierra Club Connecticut, Connecticut Citizen Action Group along with the Arctic Refuge Defense Campaign held a rally outside of Travelers Insurance headquarters in Hartford. The event brought together activists from across the country and across Connecticut to demand action on the issue. Over 64,000 nationally-collected petition signatures were handed over to executives at Travelers and we are awaiting their response.
Photo courtesy of @megansteelephotos
As a member of the campaign on campus, it has been a fulfilling experience to get involved in this grassroots movement and gain knowledge about the ecological and cultural importance of the Arctic Refuge. Not only has it expanded my understanding of the issue, but it has also encouraged my peers and me to step outside of our comfort zones and speak out for what we believe in. Being a first-year college student in a brand new environment has been stressful at times, so having the opportunity to work with people to protect something bigger than ourselves has been truly rewarding. I have learned of all the reasons to protect this land: habitat for various species, cultural heritage of Indigenous communities, the safety of nature, and prevention of habitat loss and species decline. Abusing the land for oil and gas development destroys its thriving ecosystem. It deepens human dependence on fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which are primary contributors to climate change.
Protecting the Arctic Refuge and other spaces of ecological prominence must be a top priority to prevent the crises of species and cultural loss.
If you’re interested in getting involved in the campaign at Conn, send an email to karnold@conncoll.edu. To learn more about the national campaign to protect the Arctic Refuge, visit the ARDC website at this link: https://www.arcticrefugedefense.org/
