Palin on BP crisis: drill in ‘safe’ Alaska reserve

Sarah Palin, not usually known for her rhetorical skills, has found a novel angle on the disastrous BP oil spill by using it as a stick to beat environmentalists who oppose oil drilling in Alaska.

Palin expounded her feat of logic on the microblogging website Twitter, a hotbed of left-leaning and liberal metropolitan types.

"Extreme Greenies," she wrote. "See now why we push 'drill, baby, drill' of known reserves and promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?"

Palin was referring to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in her home state of Alaska, which she supports opening up for oil exploration.

Environmentalists say drilling will endanger a pristine wilderness which is not even scarred by roads and that it will disrupt the calving grounds of caribou. They want to expand the area under protection to prevent oil extraction for good.

The controversy over whether to drill in the ANWR has raged since the 1970s. Quite apart from the "extreme greenies" view, many wonder whether the amount of oil available there makes it worth the investment. The US Geological Survey estimates there are between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels of oil, which would account for between 0.4 and 1.2 per cent of global oil production.

Palin's intervention comes a month after she was roundly mocked for suggesting the Gulf of Mexico oil spill happened because BP is not an American company. She tweeted: "Gulf: learn from Alaska's lesson with foreign oil co's: don't naively trust - VERIFY."

Critics were quick to point out, variously, that her husband Todd had worked for BP for 18 years, that a US company was responsible for the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, and that another American company, Halliburton, is also involved in the current BP oil spill.

Meanwhile, the Twitterati have not taken Palin's latest criticism lying down, either. A user called Kellyoxford replied to her "extreme greenies"
outburst: "Suggestion for BP: Use Sarah Palin's giant mouth to cap the leak." Within an hour of Palin's post it was a 'top tweet' on Twitter. ·