The New York Times wrote recently on conflict between the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Minerals Management Service.  In brief, these two agencies plan to implement two different policies that will impact the polar bear population.  The Fish and Wildlife service intends to list the polar bear population as endangered, while the Minerals Management Service intends to open up potentially vital habitat for the polar bear to oil companies.  The energy problems surrounding this notwithstanding, this is a beautiful example of how two kinds of sustainability come into direct conflict with one another.  Which is more important – energy or saving world species?

This is where value judgements enter quite strongly into play, and, much as we might like to ignore the fact, sustainability is in fact a value – more specifically, it’s a personal value rather than a cultural value, since the culture of the United States as a whole has yet to embrace the idea.  Economists would say that sustainability is also a part of a person’s utility, since doing things to assure sustainability increases a person’s well-being.  When that’s the case and sustainability is not prevalent enough on a cultural level, which way do you swing the pendulum?  Do you declare the species endangered to protect their habitat, or do you attempt to increase our energy independence by allowing drilling operations?  Doing both is certainly entirely possible, but one act makes the other inherently more complicated.

I’m not sure there is a right answer here, but there is certainly a more correct answer given the direction of the economy and the overall political environment: declare polar bears endangered and protect their habitat, but allow for drilling elsewhere if it is feasible and can be done in a reasonably low-impact manner.  I acknowledge the relative absurdity of the previous statement, since by definition, no drilling is low-impact, ever, and the likelihood of such drilling occurring anywhere within the lower 48 states is likely to be met with extreme resistance by concerned citizens.  The debate over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and drilling rights there notwithstanding, Alaska is, plain and simple, an easier state to drill in, since much of its population is concentrated.

One hopes that we can arrive at a sustainable solution for both the problem of habitat and energy independence; indeed, it’s the only thing we can reasonably attempt as a nation.