Global Warming: If we want to protect the climate, we cannot afford to burn the oil reserves already identified, making it foolhardy for government and industry to spend billions developing more. Both U.S. President Bill Clinton and BP Amoco's CEO John Browne have made widely publicized statements supporting action on climate change - while at the same time encouraging and participating in a massive expansion of oil production in the Arctic. The Western Arctic, including Alaska and northwestern Canada, is on the frontline of climate change, warming at a rate from three to five times faster than the Earth as a whole. The resulting reduction in sea ice alone is a major threat to unique Arctic species such as polar bears and walrus.

Dangerous Technology: The Northstar and Liberty projects will use untested and risky technology to transport the oil ashore through a pipeline buried beneath the seabed. Sub-seabed pipelines have never been used in the Arctic, and for good reason. The pipeline will be subjected to the usual stresses and strains and occasional failures associated with pipelines (642 reported spills totaling 1.2 million gallons have been reported by the operators of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline since it opened in 1977). The pipeline will also be at risk from potentially unstable permafrost, and from gouging and scouring by ice as it moves and piles up throughout the long Arctic winter. Northstar and Liberty would be located in an area of the Arctic Ocean that is either frozen solid or in 'broken ice' condition for approximately ten months of the year, and in an area that is subjected to prolonged periods of darkness during the Arctic winter.

Oil Spill Danger: Spills are virtually inevitable: the Final Environmental Impact Statement indicated that there is up to a 1-in-4 chance of a major spill over the life of the Northstar project. BP Amoco and government submissions admit that they will be largely unable to clean up or contain oil spills in this extreme yet vulnerable environment; and the worst case scenario, a blowout during broken ice conditions, could have catastrophic consequences for generations.

Cumulative Impacts: The sprawling and expanding industrial complex at Prudhoe Bay which now covers 800 square miles will soon spread from the borders of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the east, and as far west as the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The oil industry and government look at each project in a vacuum, without accounting for the cumulative effects of industrial noise and disturbance, chronic air and water pollution and human activity associated with oil production on whales, seals, polar bears and other wildlife of the Beaufort Sea; as well as on the people who have called the Arctic 'home' for thousands of years.