Looks like the Change Agent class down in the Department of the 3.7 GPA has had a field trip.

Two St. Cloud State University professors and about two dozen other people gathered outside U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy's St. Cloud office Tuesday and urged him
to vote against opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group, an environmental advocacy group, sponsored the demonstration. It was intended to pressure Kennedy to vote against the 2006 federal budget if it includes drilling in the 1.5 million acre Alaskan refuge.

Environmental groups have focused their lobbying efforts on Kennedy and a handful of other House Republicans who haven't said how they will vote.

The 6th District Republican, who is a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2006, won't decide how to vote until he's seen the final bill, spokeswoman Anne Mason said.

He has opposed drilling in the refuge in the past and is working to keep it out of the budget, she said.

Of course, they might have looked up Kennedy's record. Or his press statement. But research doesn't appear to be their strong suit down in the D3.7GPA.

Graduate student Laddi Makene said the United States doesn't need oil from the refuge and should instead focus on alternative, sustainable forms of energy.

"You're going to destroy the environment. You're going to displace the people. You're going to pollute the area," Makene said. "It's only a three-month supply of oil, so you destroy the entire ecosystem for a three-month supply of oil."

That's quite impossible. There's at minimum 5.7 billion barrels of oil recoverable at a price of about $24/bbl, and as prices rise efforts would increase to recover more. We consume about 23 million barrels per day, of which about we import maybe 9. Is the student assuming we supplied the whole world out of one field in Alaska? I can't see how this number is determined.

And are these students getting credit for this activity?