Help Protect ANWR in 4 Easy Steps

Step 1. Understand that the Republican-led Congress is - once again - desperately trying to sneak oil rigs into ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), an area of million acres of pristine wilderness in Alaska. (Step 1.A. (optional) Read about ANWR on Wikipedia.)

Step 2. Read Rep. Dennis Kucinich's essay "Dancing with ghosts," which points out that preserving ANWR is about more than saving wild lands and caribou. It's a chance to not make the same mistakes America made with the rest of our indigenous peoples. As he says:

The history of the United States' relationship with our native peoples has been one shame-ridden chapter after another of expropriation, humiliation and deception, theft of lands, theft of natural resources, destruction of sacred sites and massacres. The U.S.' relationship with our native peoples has been an endless cycle of exploitation and contrition. Massacres and apologies.

Who in the future United States will apologize to the descendants of today's Gwich'in tribe, whose humble, natural way of life, religion and culture is threatened with extinction by the plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? The Gwich'in tribe has lived on its ancestral lands for 20,000 years in harmony with the natural world.

Step 3. Use this completely - almost ridiculously - easy web form provided by the League of Conservation Voters to tell your senators to cut the shit. The vote may occur tomorrow (Wed., Dec. 21), so don't wait. Do it now.

Step 4. Sleep peacefully tonight.