This is the last place in the world that we should be exploring for oil and gas, period. Ben Gruel, Arctic refuge campaign director at The Wilderness SocietyCBO’s estimate assumes that all 800,000 acres are leased for $7,500 per acre, according to The Wilderness Society report, which is based on research conducted by Virginia-based Key-Log Economics and funded by The Wilderness Society. But in recent years, the average acre on Alaska’s North Slope has sold for around $41, the analysis found. The report adds to previous research showing that the purported economic incentive of opening the area could be wildly off-base. ASSOCIATED PRESS An airplane flies over caribou from the Porcupine Caribou Herd on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska.

Source: Huffington Post December 20, 2018 10:52 UTC