Christian Science Monitor: A controversial proposal to extract vast supplies of oil and gas from Alaska’s outer continental shelf pits America’s energy needs against environmental protection. Unlike similar clashes in the past, there’s a complicating factor this time: global warming. The US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) is offering the sale of oil and gas leases covering nearly 46,000 square miles in the Chukchi Sea off the northwest coast of Alaska. Initial geological studies …