At a time when most college seniors are frantically filling out job applications, Harvard University student Leah Aylward dipped a stack of students’ resumes into a vat of motor oil and produced the slimy result to the cheers of a crowd of protesters gathered outside the Harvard Science Building yesterday.
The protest, sponsored by Ecopledge and the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, took aim at oil giant BP/Amoco’s recruitment of college students, an organization they claim has pursued an environmentally unsound policy of oil exploration in the Alaskan wilderness.
“We are telling BP that we, as students, will no longer accept their hypocrisy,” Aylward said. “Companies value college students as one of their most precious resources, and we’re showing them that we care about more than just money and benefit packages.”
The protesters, who represented Harvard, Boston College and 15 other Bay State schools, gathered to blast BP/Amoco’s oil exploration plans in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which they say will disrupt the breeding ground of the gigantic porcupine caribou herd, the chief source of food for the native Gwitch’en tribe.
“To destroy the caribou breeding grounds would mean the end of a 40,000-year way of life” for the Gwitch’en, said Elizabeth Hagan, co-chair of the Sierra Student Coalition. “By protecting the refuge and refusing to drill, we could set a new precedent for the way that Americans treat native people.”
In addition, Hagan said the refuge is home to numerous species of migratory birds and is the only polar-bear birthing ground in the United States.
According to Aylward, BP/Amoco’s current drilling operation in Alaska’s Proudhoe Bay resulted in 104 spills in 1997-98 and the Proudhoe Bay oil field, drilled by several oil companies, averages 500 spills a day.
“They’ve spent millions of dollars trying to convince the public that drilling in the Arctic will only have a small footprint on our environment,” said Smith College MassPIRG spokeswoman Janet Niver. “Their record in nearby Proudhoe Bay has shown that to allow BP to drill in the American arctic equals sure destruction.”
Hagan also took issue with Bush administration claims that ANWR oil is necessary to ease the energy crisis gripping the West Coast, quoting a U.S. Geological Survey study that found it would take eight years to begin pumping large quantities of oil out of ANWR. If and when the oil from ANWR does become available, Hagan said, there would only be enough to last six to eight months at current consumption levels.
Drilling in ANWR, Hagan said, “would be a tragedy, both from an environmental perspective and from a human rights perspective.”
Although BP/Amoco said it has spent millions of dollars developing alternative energy sources, protesters maintained the multi-national oil company remains committed to petroleum production. According to Maggie Loo, a protest organizer, 99.9 percent of BP’s operating budget is devoted to petroleum production.
Loo stated a group of BP/Amoco shareholders has filed a special resolution calling on the company’s directors to research alternative energy sources. Loo urged Harvard, which owns stock in BP/Amoco, to support the resolution.
“As BP/Amoco shareholders, the Harvard Corporation has a voice and a choice to vote in favor of this resolution in the upcoming 2001 annual general meeting,” Loo said.
BP/Amoco did not return phone calls for comment.
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