Page 38 - Microsoft Word - geo class task.docx

• Positive: Organisations like Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and
people such as Leonardo De Caprio are ambassadors for climate change
and use Kaktovik as an example of why we need to change our attitudes
towards energy sources
• Precarious balance of tourism and indigenousànot encroaching on
tradition or being invasive but advocating to wider world importance of
preserving it
• Mining, oil drilling and the Trans-Alaska pipeline, TV shows like Ice Road
Truckers along the Dalton Highway and FIFO workers in Prudhoe Bay in
the mining industry
o Trans-Alaska Pipeline: Transports oil from its extraction in
Prudhoe Bay and delivers it to the northern-most ice-free point of
Alaska: Valdezàstretches 800 miles and almost directly follows
the Dalton Highway, constructionà1975-7
§ Impacted aesthetic of tundra slightly, unpopular with
indigenous peoples and runs the risk of spilling and
interfering with biophysical interactions
§ Oil discovered in Alaska: 1968

Suggested management strategies

1. Gradual increase in renewable energy sources as a precursor to gradual
decrease in reliance on fossil fuels and oil extracted from region
a. Could have wind turbines or hydroelectric poweràincrease of this
as already seen in Toksook Bay on the Bering Sea
b. Will see limitation of impact of progressive climate change and
greenhouse effect on the tundraàtherefore less permafrost
melting
i. HOWEVER, not easily done now that America is very pro
non-renewable energy sources and even if we halt all fossil
fuel burning now temperatures will continue to rise for at
least another century

2. Reduction of large trucks crossing the tundra
a. Increasing air pollution by trucks begins to decrease, not as much
pressure and compaction of permafrost and saferàvery
dangerous for truckies to drive along the Dalton Highwayàtrucks
can get caught in breaking ice, hit wildlife etc
b. Trucks are often transporting goods between Prudhoe Bay’s oil
and mining industries and the rest of the state