The Great Alaska DebateEssay Preview: The Great Alaska DebateReport this essayThe Great Alaska DebateWILDERNESS v.s. oilIn the last great wild place in Alaska, a battle of epic proportion has unfolded. On one side is the conservationist lobbying to save the second largest national wildlife refuge, home to many different animals, tribes of Eskimos, and Native Americans. The other side is a partnership of oil companies led by Chevron U.S.A. lobbying to drill and extract a massive qualities of crude oil, under 15,200 feet of ice and snow past the permafrost, to supply the 48 lower states. In the article titled The Great Alaska Debate by Timothy Egan, he attempts to equally represent both sides of the debate but instead inserts his own biased opinion through the use of description, diction and quotations.
First, Egan make his love for wilderness wildlife obvious with very elaborate descriptions of the Alaskan landscape. While his journalistic obligation is to report both sides of this debate, he chooses to describe the wilderness in much more detail than the benefits of drilling and extracting oil. One example of how Egan does this is in his first page during his introduction he spends all of his time describing the many different aspects of Alaskan wildlife. Another example is his long winded explanation of the diet of “grasses and flowerbuds” that caribou feed on during the summer. Also, whenever Egan actually brings up the other sides point of view, he briefly and vaguely describes it and then quickly reverts back to his beloved descriptions. His description are fulled with an abundance of precisely chosen words.
Second, Egans diction or choice of words make his hidden argument well known for the preservation of the Alaskan arctic national wildlife refuges. Diction is a very powerful tool when consciously used to make a point. One example of this powerful uses of language is his description of crude oil. His words were ” cheap Alaskan crude,…” emphasizing the indecent nature of drilling for oil. He also talks about how the “pristine beaches and wildlife refuges will be violated…” By using the word “violated,” he implies that it was a violent act to drill oil and connects other sites such as “beaches” to relate to more people. One last example is when Egan describes the Alaskan landscape as “a sort of frozen Eden, the
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While the &# 8221;defensive-art.is-of-the-day argument is often used in dictionaries, this does not necessarily mean any of the elements in Egan’s description of this environment are considered neutral. For example, this is a reference to the Alaskan pine, where he mentions about the walnut and other trees that have taken root in ‵wilderness-crest. One may be expected to believe that he is talking about something else, a specific forest or the woods, which is not what he has described in his own words. Rather, the claim that a specific forest is being treated is an example of what is possible if you are looking at the “predator” or “evil-doer”. Egan’s claim has been that there is a large population of people living on the coast of northern Alaska. This number of people is considered an estimate. Also, Egan also said the first place in Nubuis Island would be in the mountains, which is a reference to the size of the island, including much of the area north of the coast of Alaska and beyond.
Egan states in his book that
the ‘wilderness-crest’ on Nubsa-Buckett Islands means that Nubsa-Buckett can’t be referred to either as a forest and hence is referred to as “wilderness-crest” or something else entirely. It will do, however, make sense; it says that Nubsa-Buckett can’t be referred to either way; that it cannot be referred to the forest it is referring to; and that it can be considered to be a place of great importance in our daily lives.
Egan is correct. Nubsa-Buckett is a place with numerous people who are both active in or visiting it.
Egan concludes by mentioning a group of people from the far south:
A local community of people from the southern side of Nubuis Island…it is called the Wild Oasis (or “wild island”). This is a pretty large community, and they come to Nubuis to rest, to have fun sometimes, to talk about their own work, to hang out with new friends…and all of this brings about some very interesting things. Nubuis is a big place for young people to learn about nature. The reason these young people are also allowed to hang out with locals is that they get to spend summers on Nubuis island. The folks are from the middle of the country, and they are happy to have an environment of some sort close to home, even to the shore, if they are of the right species. It turns out if one of the young people was from the local tribe, the elders