I just watched the unabridged version of the exchange and I agree with everything that Dr. Brinkley stated. Oil isn't evil, it's necessary and will be for some time until we can successfully transition to another source of energy. However, we should carefully choose our source regions and designate areas as industrial, such as locations in the Gulf of Mexico, the Middle East, etc.
The US currently uses ~7 billion barrels of oil per year, increasing at a rate of 2% each year. ANWR, by median estimates, will produce 10.3 billion barrels of oil during it's (median) estimated lifetime of 65 years. This averages to ~160 million barrels of oil per year or approximately 1.5% of our total annual usage. (**it should be stated that production from a producing well usually follows a left-skewed bell shaped curve where production starts off slow, then reaches maximum levels for a time, then tapers off eventually approaching zero. In the case of ANWR it will take about 10 years to place the well and begin production, and another 6 years until it reaches full capacity of 400 million barrels per year, by year 40 it's production will be essentially zero.)
Regions of exceptional beauty such as the Grand Canyon (Transition metals), Arches National Park (Uranium), and the Arctic Wildlife Refuge (Oil and Gas) should be spared from the extraction industry. These regions are national treasures and priceless symbols of the American landscape.
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