Alaska's Black Gold
Film Summary
High Definition
52:00 mins
Current Events & Society
/ Science & Nature
/ Wildlife
North America
Brief Summary
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) – “Alaskan Serengeti” – is a vast wilderness near the top of the world where an incredible pilgrimage of 100,000 caribou makes its way to the ocean and back every summer. This place is a national treasure. Just under the surface is another kind of treasure – the promise of oil. Oil virtually runs the planet. And we use it in just about everything… from plastic toys and rubber tyres to the clothes we wear. Supply simply cannot keep up with demand. With prices climbing at the pump, experts are scrambling to cast a net further and deeper in search of oil. Alaska's wildlife refuge is high on the list of places to dig. But at what cost do we satisfy our desire for energy? The story of ANWR is really the story of Alaska. It is a state where the push and pull between the environment and the oil industry has been constant ever since the discovery of oil in Prudhoe Bay in 1968. In the 1970s, thousands of workers flocked north to be part of one of the most ambitious construction projects of its time – the trans-Alaska pipeline. Thanks to this economic boom, Alaska became one of the wealthiest states per capita. Now companies are extracting the oil from the ground. And sometimes they make mistakes. On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker crashed into a reef and leaked 11 million gallons of oil, fouling the ecology of the Alaska coast for more than 1,000 miles. It was the worst oil spill in US history. Today, nearly two decades later, some say the effects are still being felt.
Year Filmed: 2007
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