Help Protect Polar Bears From Oil Drilling

In his last days in office, former President George W. Bush pushed through a plan to sell off almost all of Alaska's Arctic waters to oil companies. Now Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is perilously close to following the Bush administration's roadmap for destruction of America's Arctic in the name of oil-company profits.

Human-caused global warming is melting sea ice and ravaging the Arctic ecosystem. In fact, the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, and scientists predict that summer sea ice will be gone within the next five to 10 years. Some of America's most iconic -- and most gravely threatened -- species depend on Arctic sea ice. As the ice melts, the fate of polar bears, walrus, and ice seals hangs in the balance.

Arctic oil and gas development would deliver a powerful double blow to America's fragile Arctic, from which the ecosystem would be unlikely to recover. Such unnecessary development would both further weaken Arctic species suffering the impacts of climate change, and simultaneously contribute a large dose of deadly greenhouse gases to an already overheated planet.

The Arctic is the "least studied and most poorly understood place in the world," according to the U.S. Arctic Commission. The full range of impacts from development is unknown. What we do know is that currently no technology exists to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic's icy conditions. Government scientists predict that if there is offshore drilling in the Arctic, there is a 40-percent chance of one or more large oil spills in the Chukchi Sea alone. This is an unacceptable risk.

Please send a letter today to let Secretary Salazar know that it's time to step back from foolhardy Bush-era Arctic-drilling plans that would destroy America's Arctic.