Outrage has flooded in from many environmentalists as Joe Biden has approved The Willow Project. Now that it has been approved, drilling may begin at any time.

The Willow Project is a plan developed and run by oil company ConocoPhillips, and approved by the Biden administration.

According to environmental science teacher Kim Wilson, the project, like all oil drilling endeavors, will have a huge negative impact on the surrounding environment.

“Burning fossil fuels is changing our atmosphere,” Wilson said, “and it’s making our atmosphere hotter, and that’s changing all of the earth in different ways and in ways that we don’t understand and ways that are somewhat catastrophic.”

Wilson said that many scientists have been “sounding alarms” about the effects of climate change.

“When you take carbon out of a carbon storage area underground, and you release it into the atmosphere in a different form as carbon dioxide, you’re gonna start making this hot blanket around the earth, and it’s getting hotter and hotter, and that’s going to change everything,” Wilson said.

This project has garnered the attention of many, including many students at Souderton. 

“This drilling is going to be globally damaging and will cause possibly irreparable damage to our ecosystems,” SAVE member Lucy DaLuz said.

Fellow SAVE member Wendy Righter is disappointed in the Biden administration, as they seem to be going back on their promises that were made at the Paris Climate Agreement.

Wilson agrees, and wishes the United States were moving towards more renewable energy sources.

“Investing all that money that they’re going to use to drill from our oil into the EVs or into alternative energies, you know, why can’t a company switch gears and go more towards renewables rather than just pursue this thing that we know is gonna destroy the planet,” Wilson said.

According to political science major Cassie Rodrique the Willow Project “is a carbon bomb.”

“My understanding is that the Biden administration with the department of interior approved a plan that locks us into decades of continued reliance on fossil fuels,” Rodrique said.

Rodrique says that the willow project gives up acres and acres of Alaskan wilderness and is taking us in “the opposite direction” of where our country should be going.”

Rodrique also thinks that the upcoming 2024 election may have influenced Biden’s decision to approve the Willow Project.

“I think that Biden is quietly trying to backpedal to keep the more moderate voting block that he secured in 2020,” Rodrique said.

Wilson says that the biggest problem with the Willow Project is the carbon emissions. However, according to Wilson, it is still important that we all do our part to lessen our own carbon footprints.

“ In your own personal life you can use less, just use less period,” Wilson said. “Because that’s driving this.”

By being responsible consumers and watching what we buy and what we produce, our carbon footprints can be lessened.