To the editor of the Chattanooga Times-Free Press:

The Free Press editor believes the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is “a distant, dark, uninhabited and rarely visited part of Alaska.” Distant from Chattanooga, perhaps. Dark only at night and in the winter. It is inhabited.

I believe the editor uses such language to describe ANWR so as to suggest that environmental damage caused by oil drilling is less consequential in such a place than if it occurred in, say, Chattanooga. Using his logic, one could establish a polluting facility on Mt. McKinley.

Environmental damage is damage to the planet wherever it occurs. The editor would like his readers to believe that one’s responsibility to the earth diminishes with distance. The editor brings new meaning to the cliche, “Out of sight, out of mind.”

At our present rate of consumption, ANWR could provide between 12 and 32 years of oil. And it would not reach the gas pump for about 15 years. The real reason to resist oil drilling in ANWR is because it is a band-aid at best and an environmental catastrophe at worst.

The editor would serve his readers better were he to put his language skills to work in promoting alternate fuel sources and conservation measures.