Nicholas Kristof's travelogue-commentary on oil drilling on the Arctic coastal plain isn't the worst thing I've read on this touchstone of the environmental movement. Kristof even allows that US dependence on foreign oil has forced it into foreign entanglements, and drilling might be acceptable if done by an environmentally-conscious (Democratic) administration. But then he indulges in the usual overblown rhapsody about the national treasure of this magical coastal plain. A magical land which, in Kristof's own words, consists of "endless brown tundra, speckled with ponds and lakes, boggy and squishy to hike in." Why is it that it's always the most godawful unattractive wilderness that environmentalists first leap to defend? This planet is supposed to be for the edification of human beings, not elk.
Casting a Cold Eye on Arctic Oil [NYT]