Through ignorance and drilling, we will destroy our planet

“White House sets sights on ANWR,” Sept. 15 news story.

President Donald Trump and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, through their abject denial of global warming, have given the fossil fuel industry free license to pollute even more.

The fossil fuel industry will not give up its lucrative profits to become good corporate citizens. They will fight to the death to protect their interests at the expense of our common well-being. Looking back into history, one will discover that 99.9 percent of every species that has ever lived on earth has gone extinct.

To think that it could not happen to humanity in the 21st century is betting against very long odds. Thank you Mr. Trump. Maurice Skibba, Arvada

BBB

While I’m disturbed by the illegal methods Trump is using to drill on the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, I’m more concerned that Sen. Cory Gardner’s D.C. office told us he was leaning towards voting to drill.

Drilling threatens the cultural, spiritual, and physical lives of the Gwich’in people who depend on the caribou that calve on the Coastal Plain. The plain supports millions of animals, fish and birds that tourists come to Alaska to see.

Since the passage of the ANILCA in 1980, the Coastal Plain has been protected from oil and gas leasing and development. The ANILCA doubled the size of the Arctic Refuge to 19 million acres to “conserve fish and wildlife populations and their habitats; including the Porcupine caribou herd to fulfill international treaty obligations, and to provide for subsistence uses.” This public land belongs to the people. Phyllis Mains, Cortez, CO