Dwight R. Lee’s argument primarily centers on the Audubon Society, which owns the Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary, and focuses into their strategy, which is to help others promote their business, which in turn promote their own business. The Audubon Society ”has serviced to reaffirm and promote those values in a way that helps others, many of whom have different values, achieve their own purposes.” (Lee, 122) The argument also offers sufficient and persuasive claims on the benefits of ANWR drilling, such as its ability to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign resources, how most of the infrastructure needed for transporting oil from nearby Prudhoe bay to major us markets is already in place, and also because of how to mitigate the risks of recovering oil in the arctic environment. However it doesn’t deny the fact that there are environmental risks of drilling for oil in ANWR – thus, it holds a realistic viewpoint. “Certainly, environmental risks exist, and the society considers them, but if also responsibly weigh the costs of those risks against the benefits as measured by the income derived from drilling.” (Lee, 122) However, with this statement he also states that this harm caused is decreasing proportional with the technology. The approach to its argument is assertive, as it highlights both sides to the issue, and asserts that it is difficult to comprehend the issue as the “answer depends on subjective values.” (Lee, 120) By providing thought provoking statements about fuel-efficient cars that provides less security, he finalizes his argument with the issue of whether or not human life is less valuable than nature.
Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins’ argument suggests that there are alternative uses of energy that is more productive in meeting the three goals of energy policy more effectively than drilling in the refuge, and that “the existence of such alternatives makes drilling even more economically risky.” (Lovins, 130) The refuge is “unlikely to hold economically recoverable oil.” (Lovins, 129) The notion that technological advances in finding and extracting oil can still make refuge oil profitable, as it could “make extracting refuge oil cheaper – but those same advances would also cut costs everywhere else… [and] makes global oil more plentiful and therefore cheaper, so it renders high-cost areas less competitive.” (Lovins, 132) The argument is effective in demonstrating that oil is becoming more abundant but relatively less important with effective examples of how increased energy productivity “has major policy advantages” (Loins 134) as it improves the environment and protects the earth’s climate, it is fully secure and already delivered to customers, immune to foreign potentates and volatile markets, rapidly and equitably deployable in the market, and supports jobs all across the US. The argument also provides evidence that efficient use of refuge oil using the efficiency options available in 1989 “could save today the equivalent of 54 “refuges – but at a sixth of the cost.” (Lovins, 135) This argument also proposes the notion that “cheaper, faster energy alternatives now succeeding the marketplace are safe, clean, climate-friendly, and overwhelmingly supported by the public…. They remain profitable at any oil price, offer economic, security, and environmental benefits rather than costs.” (Lovins, 136) The strongly argument states that drilling for refuge oil is a risk the nation should consider taking only if no other choices is possible.
While neither argument boasts profound effectiveness in terms of its persuasiveness, the second argument, due to its effective approach in highlighting the issue at hand, made it much more apparent in its views. Above all, exploiting refuge oil takes the focus off the real cause of the oil shortage, our excessive consumption, resulting in a beautiful wildlife refuge would be disturbed by humans once again, with the lives of animal in the environment changed in the process. Furthermore, technological advances energy strategies are more effective than refuge-oil as the drilling may not yield much of anything. Thus the reserve can be saved as a last resort decades from now when we've exhausted other supplies.