There has been a lot of discourse throughout the world on whether or not the Willow Project should be approved and if it would actually benefit us. You might have seen videos on Tik Tok, posts on Instagram, or even one of the hundreds of petitions made to stop the government from approving it. For those who don’t know, the Willow Project is a plan to drill into Northern Alaska to produce over five hundred and seventy five million barrels of oil in a span of 30 years. Yes we would have our own supply of oil, but it would destroy the environment at the same time.

Unfortunately, Biden has approved of the Willow project and many people were not thrilled to hear that news on March 13, 2023. There was a lot of pressure put onto Biden about whether or not he should approve of it because if he didn’t, he could’ve been sued because the legislation had already been passed by the Trump administration. Also, approving of something like this is not like Biden so there was most likely another reason he approved of it since he has talked about wanting to help the environment in the past. Approval of this is not helping the environment, it is actually the opposite. 

Alaska itself has been struggling with climate change recently and many species have been struggling or became endangered due to how unsafe it is there for them.

The New Yorker mentioned, “By the Administration’s own estimates, burning all that oil will result in the emission of about ten million tons of carbon dioxide per year, or some three hundred million tons over the life of the project.”

Not only would species go extinct from this project, but millions of tons of carbon monoxide going into the air we breathe isn’t going to help us either. It would only be a matter of time before humans become affected by the harmfulness of the Willow Project. 

Fortunately, Willow is expected and hopefully will cut greenhouse gas emissions which could help the environment but at the same time, harm it even more. The Willow Project also would be reducing gas prices so people who have no idea what this project is, want it to be approved so they could save some money and spend less, and destroy the place we live in unknowingly.