The Willow Project. This project is an oil drilling project by ConocoPhillips, an American company that started this project on the northern slope of Alaska.
The basis of this project was originally to construct five drill pads for a total of two hundred and fifty oil wells and other associated infrastructure including roads airstrips, pipelines, gravel mines, etc.
Oil was discovered in the west alpines of Alaska in the Willow prospect area, in 2016, and in October 2020, the Willow development project was approved in the record of decisions of the Bureau of Land Management. After a court challenge in 2021, the BLM issued its final supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) in February 2023.
It is expected that the Willow project could produce two hundred thousand barrels of oil per day, and after 30 years it will produce up to six hundred million barrels of oil in total. Willow could generate between eight and seventeen billion dollars in revenue, According to estimates by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
In June 2021, officials at ConocoPhillips stated it had, "identified up to three billion barrels of oil equivalent of nearby prospects and leads with similar characteristics that could leverage the Willow infrastructure... [Willow] unlocks the West".
If this project shows potential and has been accepted by officials, why is it receiving so much backlash?
Only a week after the Willow project was approved, a new report was issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by the United Nations (IPCC). “There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all,” the report noted. Once passed, the 1.5 degree-tipping point would precipitate a cascade of devastating effects, including rising sea levels and extreme heat waves, that could lead to millions of deaths worldwide by the end of the century. The only way to prevent the worst from happening, say the IPCC authors, is for the nations of the world to stop burning fossil fuels—an activity responsible for more than three-quarters of the carbon emissions that are driving global temperatures upward.
This forced the Biden administration to acknowledge the environmental harm being caused by the project. The bearer of land management released a statement conveying the information of the side effects of the completion of the willow project. The statement said that if the project was completed, it would release approximately nine million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which is roughly equivalent to the pollution created 200 million gas-powered cars and it could also result in the loss of five hundred and thirty-two acres of wetlands, six hundred and nineteen acres of habitat disturbances for polar bears and more than seventeen thousand acres of disturbances for birds.
so, what can we do about this?
by contacting advocacy groups and sharing the posts they make to spread awareness of the harm that will be caused due to the project. social media is a powerful tool that can change the state of our earth if people believe they want to.
Willow Prospect area
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