Navigation for this website
Goals
Background Information
Alaskan Citizens' Perspective/Research
Progress Journal
Sources
About Me
----------------------------
Navigation for Mission 2007 Websites
Team 10: Social Implications
o
Alaskan Environmentalists' View
o
Alaskan Corporations' View
o
Alaskan Native Americans' View
Mission 2007
o Team 1:
Hydrocarbon Potential
o Team 2:
Exploration Strategy
o Team 3:
Production Strategy
o Team 4:
Exploration/Production Impact
o Team 5:
Baseline of ANWR Ecosystem
o Team 6:
Ecology of Migratory Species
o Team 7:
Ecology of Non-Migratory Species
o Team 8:
Economic Impact
o Team 9:
Political Ramifications
Mission 2007 Forum
PHOTO TAKEN BY SCOTT McGUIRE JULY
2000
smcguire@mit.edu
___________________________
Last Updated:
5:41 pm 13th Nov 2003
Please feel free to browse;
I'm sorry-- it is under construction right now but will be updated every
other day! |
|
Research Page
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mission 2007
-------------------------------------------------
* Alaskans feel that they should have more of
say in what happens to their land versus those in the states, which is why
our group
is most important.
---------------------------------------------------
The Relevant Facts:
According to Common Wealth North (a non profit organization that
discusses issues of Alaska State), it will be good for Alaska State
because:
1. High Income for State Treasury = more power for the state of
Alaska
2. Economic benefits from construction activity
3. Long term project mainentenance jobs
4. In state ownerships of a project
-------------------------------------------------
But we must consider what will happen when the oil runs out.
-------------------------------------------------
According to an article written by Don Shackelford in the
Anchorage Press (weekly circulation of 16,000), a summary of
the book Crude Dreams (by Jack Roderick) :
1. Instead of America being dependent on foreign oil, Alaska's
economy will be dependent on oil.
2. Alaska could be analogous to third world countries that whose
economy is saved by oil which almost always leads to social
disruption as Alaska has gone through in the past
3. receive checks yearly from Permanent Fund, $24.2 billion as of
June 2003, it conserves the revenue from oil drilling and trys
to spread it out like Social Security. It was a voter's decision
to create this Fund.
4. Love/Hate Relationship because it destroys and exploits but they
get money.
-------------------------------------------------
Some people argue that drilling ANWR will be the only was to pay for
the deficit that Alaska has now. There is as much controversy with the
Alaskans as there is with everyone. I have not found a real majority yet.
-------------------------------------------------
According to Tom Moran, from Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
(daily
circulation of 20,000),"Increasing Revenue"
1. State's Cash running out, oil can pay for bills
2. But if there was drilling it would not start making money until
after all the reserve money is gone (estimated to be Jan 2007).
According to Andrea Doll from JuneauEmpire (daily
circulation
7,500) a barrel of oil would not be seen until 2010.
3. It's a leap, it might not even cover the costs.
--------------------------------------------------
According to Alaskan Citizen, Ben Crosby,
one of our mentors for Mission 2007, recorded on November 5th 2003
1. Citizens are very active voters,
especially concerning local government.
2. For the most part, according to trends, most Alaskan citizens do not
have a tendency to save any of Permanent Fund dividends.
3. Permanent Fund Dividends are given out to all citizens of any
age, including infants.
Analogous to non-renewable resource, Red Dog Mine
(a zinc mine near
Kotzebue) in Alaska:
In this situation, there was a lot of "fast cash" that citizens flocked
to. There were many jobs being created by this excavation of
non-renewable resources (zinc). There were jobs created that
maintained the services needed to keep up this project of taking zinc out
of the mine. [analogous to drilling in ANWR, oil being a non
renewable source and how this will create jobs for Alaskans].
Fathers and Mothers would go to this mine and work there for relatively
incredible amounts of cash that they were not used to. This created
a multitude of problems including:
1. Family break down due to absence of parents.
2. Lack of income once the renewable resource was gone and the problems
that arise.
---------------------------------------------------
Conclusion:
Although it is true that drilling oil in ANWR will
create jobs and might help pay off the deficit of Alaska State, questions
arise as to how fast this money will come in to help pay off the debt and
how long the jobs will last. From past examples of job creation and
increased revenues from non renewable resources such as the Red Dog Mine,
the results are not very favorable because they have resulted in quick
wealth and when the jobs were eliminated because there was no more zinc,
the wealth was eliminated as well. Meanwhile it weakened family
units due to absence of parents who worked far from home.
There is a Permanent Fund and this will help
distribute and lengthen the wealth from oil, however, most Alaskan citizen
mentality is not to save and if given the opportunity they have come close
to voting on getting larger chunks of the dividend.
From estimates, if we decided to drill today, a
barrel of oil would not be seen until 10 years later and this will not
help with the current deficit of Alaska State.
There will be increased power in Congress for
Alaska, however, instead of the US being dependent on foreign oil, the
power of Alaska State will be dependent on something as unreliable as oil
drilling.
|
