Trump Admin Opens Up Alaska for Drilling, Threatening Already At-Risk Arctic Biodiversity

We begin today's show with the historic announcement by the Trump administration to approve a plan to drill for oil off the Alaska coast. On Wednesday, the Department of the Interior approved Hilcorp Energy's proposal to drill in the Beaufort Sea, six miles off the Alaskan coast. It would be the first oil and gas production facility in federal waters in Alaska. Hilcorp plans to build a nine-acre artificial island about 20 miles east of Prudhoe Bay, not far from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Dubbed the Liberty Project, the operation plans to extract about 70,000 barrels of oil per day on the state's North Slope. This latest move continues the Trump administration's targeting of the Alaskan Arctic. We're joined by Subhankar Banerjee, activist, photographer and professor of art and ecology at the University of New Mexico. He is the author of "Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land" and editor of "Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point." His work is included in the exhibition "Nature's Nation: American Art and Environment" at the Princeton University Art Museum.