Oil is wealth. Not just wealth for producers, but wealth for everyone who uses or benefits from this resource.  Even more importantly, it causes vast improvement in the human condition. Simply put better sources of energy through exploration activities increase productivity and produce fewer negative externalizations. This effect is huge. Cheap, abundant energy lifts states out of poverty through advances in the Human condition with its high quality energy. 

And oil is indeed high-quality energy. It is liquid or a gas, which makes it easily moved and stored. It's stable, and it releases a huge amount of energy when desired by humankind. It's also much, much cleaner than many other types of energy. If it weren't for CO2 emissions, oil & gas would be a nearly-perfect energy source. There's lots to know about the oil industry -- people spend their entire careers learning small slices of it -- but if more people understood the facts, we would have more productive discourse in Alaska.