Green doesn't get it

So I wondered the other day (see April 22 posting below) how Rep. Mark Green could propose a ban on oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes but support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

A Green staffer had this explanation for the Journal Sentinel:

Green spokesman Luke Punzenburger said that compared with the Alaska refuge, the impact of a potential oil spill on an inland body that provides drinking water for 30 million Americans would be "substantially greater."

So that's the difference. There are people here. The concept of preserving wilderness, or natural habitat for wildlife, seems to have escaped Green entirely. It's population that counts.

That the explanation came on Earth Day makes it even more tragic.

Green wants to be governor. Do you suppose we'd still have a stewardship fund? Would he see any point in preserving any land that is inhabited only by wildlife, where no people live?