Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

Many questions remain.

Will more animals die during,
a) oil drilling in the Alaskan Wilderness Preserve, or
b) production of footwear for the protesters?

How much oil is in the ground up there in Alaska anyway? In your heart you know that somewhere there's a guy in a cubicle who had to come up with an estimate for his boss. He probably didn't have the budget to do the kinds of tests he wanted to do so he just flew up there, stomped around in a big furry outfit, stuck some poles in the ground, and proclaimed it to contain five billion barrels of oil. He knew he'd be working someplace else before anyone was the wiser. As the data worked its way up the chain of management, every manager tacked on a few billion barrels to puff up his own importance. Now we're pretty sure that the entire planet Earth is comprised of nothing but two inches of topsoil covering a huge ball of oil.