I can't imagine anything AK could do to slow its own GHG production would make even a small dent in the GHG sources the state's Big Oil players send elsewhere.
I wonder how other states heavily dependent on fossil fuel revenue, eg, Texas, are responding to the threat.
Well, Texas has more installed wind power capacity than any other state. In fact, wind farms routinely beat out natural gas powered power plants on a $ per kWh basis.
3
Why aren't Republicans from Alaska inviting their colleagues and other deniers up to see what's happening in person?
12
"...that could mean that the rest of country might be able to learn from our successes and failures...
Yea verily - where do we sign up...
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/09/us/fringe-benefits-from-oil-give-alas...
"...Alaska is the only state in the nation where redistribution of wealth is written into the state Constitution. The Last Frontier State pays people to live here...
Actually, NYT was wrong on that one - NYS's had one of those amendments for eighty years...
"...After July first, nineteen hundred forty, membership in any pension or retirement system of the state or of a civil division thereof shall be a contractual relationship, the benefits of which shall not be diminished or impaired...
3
Hogwash.
Alaska has little to sell but carbon.
So Alaska will NEVER be part of the solution.
4
If you voted red in Alaska, I have no sympathy for you. Your politicians have had ample time to develop and implement a climate strategy. Obviously, they thought filling next year's coffers with oil and gas money was more important. You reap what you sow.
6
$100 trillion in climate policy is more than an exercise in public opinion. The CAGW hypotheses is apocryphal and unproven. It is the worst sort of scientism. Political leaders who impose or accept taxes or regulations on fossil fuels will be seen as fools.
Climate change is a false premise for regulating or taxing carbon dioxide emissions. Nature converts CO2 to calcite (limestone). Climate change may or may not be occurring, but is is surely NOT caused by human fossil fuels use. Changes in temperature cause changes in ambient CO2, with an estimated 800 year time lag. Fossil fuels emit only 3% of total CO2 emissions. 95% comes from rotting vegetation.
All the ambient CO2 in the atmosphere is promptly converted in the oceans to calcite (limestone) and other carbonates, mostly through biological paths. CO2 + CaO => CaCO3 (exothermic). The conversion rate increases with increasing CO2 partial pressure. A dynamic equilibrium-seeking mechanism.
99.84% of all carbon on earth is already sequestered as sediments in the lithosphere. The lithosphere is a massive hungry carbon sink that converts ambient CO2 to carbonate almost as soon as it is emitted. Full implementation of the Paris Treaty is now estimated to cost $100 trillion by 2030--$13,333 per human being. Nearly two-thirds of humanity's cumulative savings over history. And will not affect climate at all.
1
A political party that would lie to it's constituents about the fact that the planet is in danger due to climate change because they were paid off by the oil industry
WILL LIE TO THEM ABOUT ANYTHING and cannot be trusted. Um, do you think that the Republican constituents will ever draw this conclusion?
8
This article should at least mention methane release from arctic tundra that is defrosting...
4
Yes, it seems conservatives denies a disaster until it effects them personally.
7
Entrenchment of GOP denial was cemented just a decade ago - especially as Koch and other families used money to co-opt the Tea Party and force climate denial all the way into the Republican Party. Prior to the 2007 elections, Mike Huckabee spoke of the moral obligation to address warming. Then Fox bought him. Brownback in Kansas favored market solutions, but admitted solutions were required.
Even Sarah Palin: "As governor in 2007, Palin issued Administrative Order No. 238 establishing the Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet [...] some of what she stated in that order:
"Scientific evidence shows many areas of Alaska are experiencing a warming trend. Many experts predict that Alaska, along with our northern latitude neighbors, will continue to warm at a faster pace than any other state, and the warming will continue for decades. Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is also a social, cultural, and economic issue important to all Alaskans. As a result of this warming, coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, retreating sea ice, record forest fires, and other changes are affecting, and will continue to affect, the lifestyles and livelihoods of Alaskans. Alaska needs a strategy to identify and mitigate potential impacts of climate change and to guide its efforts in evaluating and addressing known or suspected causes of climate change.""
https://www.adn.com/commentary/article/she-denied-climate-change-sarah-p...
1
Sorry Alaska, you're a little too late. Severe consequences are coming to you no matter what you do now.
Maybe, with all of our efforts, those consequences won't be existential.
To this point, Alaska and South Florida have suffered the most visible effects of climate change. In both states, conservatives have discovered that the EPA's Scott Pruitt is a dangerous liar and that the state (well, not Florida under Governor Rick Scott, who will spend for hurricanes but not for mitigation) and local governments must take important steps to make their communities more resilient.
It's not enough, but together with the scientifically inclined states of the West Coast and the Northeast, the knowledge that we must act to save ourselves from climate change may be slowly spreading, as all manner of phenomena, droughts, 100 year floods, heavier hurricane rainfall, rising seas, etc. have a multiplier effect on the national consciousness.
The time scale is not favorable but at a certain point the trickle of change will become a flood. I hope the Times will establish a scale, as the Union of co=Concerned Scientists did with its nuclear Doomsday Clock, to measure the U.S. response over time and report on it frequently.
Become a nag to your readers and the wider world.
7
I think nothing large enough will be done until it is too late. I'm 70 I'll be dead, but my great grandson will pay dearly ( he is 2 )
4
Mosquitos. No one ever mentions the Alaska state bird. When you spend a summer on the tundra you are beset by swarms of them. With global warming we are likely to also see the diseases these little insects can deliver. Warming winters make happy mosquitos.
2
The article fails to mention how Alaskans personally profit from the state's trust fund that is funded by taxes on oil - taxes paid by the rest of the US citizens who consume the fuel. Every man, woman and child in Alaska receives these payments each year. They are all on the dole and this will make it hard to break them of the oil addiction.
3
Even where the existence of climate change is impossible to deny, people rationalize support for carbon usage by simply ignoring that it's almost certainly making life much more difficult for their children and grandchildren. It's a hard decision to face. So they put their heads in the sand . . . or the thawed tundra.
15
So, the anti-tax, anti-government GOP "leaders" in Alaska finally, at last, realize that taxpayers may have to shoulder the burden of the damage being done by climate change. In effect, the future costs for moving villages away from rising waters are a government financed subsidy of oil and gas corporations. Starting ASAP, polluting companies need to PAY NOW for the damage their products will create. Maybe then they will find the only profit to be made is to get out of the fossil fuel business and into the green energy business. No more taxpayer funded subsidies to fossil fuels, please!
6
Carbon Fee and Dividend at the federal level is a way to fix the broken energy market while protecting household purchasing power and growing the economy. It does what you ask for, but in a way that will not come back to hurt us. cclusa.org
Well, it is swell to know that Kara Moriarty, the president of the state's fossil fuel industry group, accepts the reality of the problem and favors a global carbon tax. I wonder, do we know if she's shared this revelation with Trump yet?
2
Until the mid 90's, even Republicans accepted the science of climate change...that is, until the fossil fuel interests adopted the tobacco industry's playbook of attacking science, confusing the public, buying off politicians through legal bribery, all for the purpose of thwarting any policy response. If this had been an honest campaign to avoid regulation, the message would have been akin to: "The only thing worse than climate change is doing something about it." However, since it would've been hard to convince Americans to care more about oil company profits than Earth's climate, fossil fuel interests resorted instead to building a massive disinformation industrial complex that, within a few years, convinced a substantial portion of American society that the scientists were not to be trusted...and despite the implausibility and enormity of the stakes, it worked and continues to work, and has delayed an effective policy response for over 20 years and counting. It's just a matter of time before our own eyes begin to prove that the scientists were right all along...and that time is arriving even sooner than we thought.
It's extraordinary to think how a relatively small handful of people with untold financial power can organize a disinformation army to weaponize language and hack into the minds of a people, in service to their narrow interests at the expense of the greater good, and to do so free of any accountability for the immeasurable harms they cause.
12
" Climate change is a global problem, so unless you’re talking about a global carbon tax, I’m not sure this would move the needle in a state with only 750,000 people.”
We had a global agreement--Trump backed out.
18
If they're serious about tackling climate change then they'll have to stop consistently voting GOP, and that begins with getting Murkowski out. An unlikely flip, I think, because of the general poverty and prevalent gun culture there that skews it conservative. So I suppose they'll need a Plan B very, very soon.
6
The Merchants of Doubt have done their work well. I lived in Alaska for 10 years, part of it in the NW coastal area that has some of the impacted villages. Signs were evident as climate impacts are amplified in the extreme regions. To contemplate the obvious outcomes of human greed and hubris to concentrate wealth into the pockets of the few is mind numbing. As long as a good portion of the population refuses to acknowledge the veracity of the science of climate change by continuing to reward those who choose to maximize private profits & socialize the costs of fossil fuels we are likely to find ourselves w/o a livable planet. It’s not all about us all the time.
13
Anyone ever consider Russia and its impact on Alaska as they drive huge icebreakers through the Baltic sea? Have been doing so for some time - any thoughts?
There is a river that flows from Russia that has been recorded at almost boiling temps - any thought on the impact of that?
Lastly, but most important, while the population of Alaska is small, the populations of third world countries is out of control. Some have quadrupled in just 20 years - wonder what the impact of that might be as many of these countries cannot (never could) sustain this accelerated growth given that most of them have significant arid and mountainous regions. As the forests are cut, so too goes the Earth's natural ability to minimize CO2.
Thoughts?
7
Thoughts? I'm skeptical of your statements.
Russia's "impact" from icebreakers? Seems they showed more foresight than the US. But what impacts are you trying to imply from 40 ships? Genuinely interested in hearing that.
What are the names of those nations with populations that "quadrupled in just 20 years"? By the way, Alaska's population has more than quintupled since 1950 and the average Alaskan generates far more emissions than people in these countries you imagine.
http://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/pop/estimates/data/TotalPopGraph.pdf
Name that Russian river, too, please. The "near boiling" one. So we can be sure the entire river's flow is hot, not just a bit from a hot spring somewhere. There's a lot of boiling water in Yellowstone, but the Yellowstone river flows through and out of the park at normal river temperatures.
So, more details, please. And note that as more permafrost thaws, the amount of greenhouse gas to remove from the atmosphere will increase.
11
Thoughts.
The Baltic sea isn't anywhere near Alaska.
River from Russia to where that is boiling? If it's on the Kamchatka peninsula, it's volcanically heated.
Dear Ma
Please instantly cite your river somewhere in Russia "that has been recorded at almost boiling temps."
And please instantly explain how the icebreakers are changing the climate.
Appreciation in advance.
3
That, of course, is the standard Republican attitude to just about everything: I will not believe it or endorse it, unless it affects me personally. If it doesn't, forget it.
18
"At least 31 coastal towns and cities (i Alaska) may need to relocate, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Make that half of Florida and Louisiana ,the coastal cities of the Carolinas , NYC , Manhattan , Boston , Cape Cod , etc , etc but the bill be trillions not millions.
So say no more GOP evolution deniers such as EPA sec. Pruitt , just spend more on the military.
32
First, these Republican states that don't believe in climate change should be getting Zero in federal funds to battle forces they say don't exist. Second, we need to re-balance the books here between what states pay in to the federal government and the largess they back from it. There should be a cap so that states that put in so little get back a maximum 1% more than what they put in. I live in New York, and I'm tired of funding Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, etc., etc. Time for some good old fashioned American self-reliance. The feeding trough is closed.
45
Ok let me get this straight- the Alaska people reap the benefits of fossil duel development yet readily takes federal money (ie taxpayer dollars from the other states) to relocate a village due to climate change. The state knows it has a problem and comes up with the same logical/workable proposals that have been talked about for years by the progressives, yet the industry continues to push back on modest tax proposals that will be used to help Alaska deal with the problem caused by the industry. Two take aways. The industry cares nothing for the state of Alaska and the industry expects taxpayers to foot the entire cost of climate change remediation after those in the industry made a fortune. I for one do not want to foot the bill for relocating people who for years received subsides from the industry. Although the rest of us used fuel provided by the industry, we certainly didn't get a monthly stipend from it.
35
The republiscum get what they deserve. But decent people in Blue States should be asking themselves, Why are we paying our tax money for those subhumans?
#calexit
17
As usual, conservatives waiting until the absolute last moment to do the right thing. It has to threaten THEM personally before they decide to act responsibly. Hope it's not too late.
28
Of course, the U.S.senators from Alaska are silent. Their party requires allegiance to the big lie.
28
The state that lives on self-interest and corporate corruption is now concerned? By the way, you might have to get a job now that these subsidies you live on may end. And, now, it impacts you so you have become concerned. Hah, you must be kidding.
14
If Alaskans are worried that they alone can't have enough impact, then conservatives and moderates from the state need to reach out to conservatives and moderates all over the country to tell them that climate change is real and the damages are already showing up. When liberals point this out it is easy for them to ignore; but if they start hearing arguments from people on their side of the aisle, they may listen. The worst that can happen is that they will call you them "snowflakes" or "Liberal nut-jobs"
12
Alaska reducing its statewide emissions is like a gun manufacturer cracking down on gun violence in their factory while still making sure to hit production quotas.
29
I try to live by an expression I believe in: "Say what you mean, and do what you say". I said "try", because I am human (therefore, subject to error).
Alaska's oil and gas industry has already done enough, right? What I'm really writing about is Trump having pushed for & received approval from Congressfor drilling on millions of acres of public land; all because of the oil and gas lobby, which (apparently) has a bottomless pit of cash, to get what they want; much like the NRA and Big Pharma.
I call them the "Big 3" of PAC's in Washington, DC.
Having grown up in Louisiana, I've seen what mishaps have occurred here & offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
(Sourcing Wikipedia, & I am sometimes paraphrasing): British Petroleum, better known as "BP", is 1 of the world's 7 oil & gas "Supermajors". BP is the 6th largest. They have operations in 72 countries.
Some of BP's "lowlights" are the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion, killing 15 workers. In 2006, the largest oil spill in N. Alaska, resulting in a $25M civil fine (then a record).
These (and several more incidents caused by BP) were dwarfed by the largest marine oil spill in world history in 2010, when their Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded offshore Louisiana, nearest the southernmost tip of the state.
Ultimately, BP was convicted of 11 counts of manslaughter, more felonies & paid over $25 billion in fines, penalties, & claims (I'm not counting cleanup costs).
Best of luck, Alaska.
13
Hmm, better late than never I suppose. So strange as this is the part of the country that is going to feel climate change the most. I suppose being trumpsters makes it difficult to vote for your own well being. Just like Kansas. Almost woke up too late folks. Better start scrambling.
15
Let me see if I can get this straight. They want to export 2 contradictory things to the rest of the world:
1. effective ways to combat global warming/melting of the arctic/sea level rising
2. Alaskan oil
I hate to break it to you, kids, but this kind of schizophrenic "thinking" isn't going to cut it. It is beyond frustrating to witness the stupidity of so-called adults, who unfortunately hold tremendous power in their hands to affect the rest of the world, being stubbornly unwilling to follow a simple thought to its logical conclusion. It makes me seriously wonder what kind of education Alaskans receive in their schools.
The kind of reasoning applied here is the equivalent of a christian fundamentalist having a degree in archeology, digging up fossils millions of years old while holding the belief that the world was created a few thousand years ago.
The tolerance for cognitive dissonance in some people is just simply astonishing. The alarming part is, there is no IQ test for voting. (Or for being president.)
15
How ignorant can we be? "We" elected a corrupt embarrassment as Pres. of the U.S. who believes he is right about everything and knows more than any expert about everything - including science, and the science - YES- SCIENCE - of climate change. He then hires an oil and gas lobbyist - Scott Pruitt - whose life mission appears to destruction of the natural world and all life - including his own and his own family. How sick can we be. Should we continue creating national and regional energy and climate policies on what we "believe" or want to believe - what trumpty dumpty and Pruitt want you to believe or shall we create policies based upon good science, facts, ethics and morality? Or should we just keep doing what we've been doing, make believe that everything will be just fine because we have a sick and corrupt government and political class that is wholly owned by the fossil fuel industry and they all say, "climate change is a hoax" (pay no attention to real scienctists, believe "me"). It's not about Alaska - it's all about all our behavior and our belief that humans have "always been around and always will be, which is obviously insane. Or are we just another species that comes and goes in a flash (300,000 years is a nano second in earth time). Too bad - we had huge potential for good - for some silly reason we chose greed for gold instead of a love of a god life for we and our children. We had huge positive potential - we're cooked because we chose the fool's gold.
17
Ah the good folks who gave us Sarah “I’m not a scientist” Palin now worry about climate change.
Not very mavericky.
19
Have little sympathy for red state citizens getting harmed by climate change. Their inability to recognize this was going to happen astounds me. As Abe Lincoln once said ... ‘god must have loved the common man, cause he made so many of them’
16
Kudos, Alaska! You finally see the boat is sinking and are rolling up your sleeves to bail out the water. So many votes for more drilling, though. You know that when you bail water to the other side of the boat, it's still in the boat, right?
20
Just another example of hypocrisy run amok in the Republican Party. They will sit idle, despite all the proof and learned study on the topic from scientists across the world, and do NOTHING until the problem slaps them across the face in their living room of the trailers. The entirety of the GOP simply are not made up of credibly intelligent people and instead openly celebrate a dumbing down agenda to their trailer park constituency.
11
Mr Trump, do "jobs" really justify the destruction of our planet?
9
Alaska is a sped-up version of the change in planning that's, quite simply, being forced upon the residents, businesses and the government there.
All that expensive North Slope infrastructure, and the expensive pipeline shipping the oil, will become a maintenance nightmare as the land below melts and flows - or the land above, like the hillsides along the pipeline and support highway:
"State looks for help fighting ‘blob’ oozing toward Dalton Highway" is about one slumping hillside but mentions there are 20 such locations - so far.
https://www.adn.com/arctic/2017/05/20/state-looks-for-help-fighting-mile...
"North Slope permafrost thawing sooner than expected"
https://news.uaf.edu/north_slope_permafrost_agu15/
The National Park Service has to plan for reality: "Series: Alaska Park Science - Volume 12 Issue 2: Climate Change in Alaska's National Parks
NPS Alaska Planning and Designs for the Future with Climate Change"
https://www.nps.gov/articles/aps-v12-i2-c16.htm
8
Sen. Murkowski is such a "moderate". She just told Pruitt that his important work allowing polluters to poison and kill the planet for $$$$ was being overshadowed by his ethics problems.
12
Murkowski voted for the tax cuts for the rich, didn't she
for permission to ruin some natural reserve with oil drilling? Love her showboating. God knows how
much destruction and havoc she has caused in Alaska.
Hope she loses her next election. Hope the erosion of
Alaska goes fast and the oil companies have to leave or drown. Alaska first to go, can East, West, and
Southern coasts be far behind. How to build your
own house boat with found materials. How to raise chickens and vegetables and berries on board. How
to live the safest life in natural caves. All future book
titles.
2
The methane gas released from the tundra was not mentioned in this article. This is one of the largest perils our planet faces.
Go to Woods Hole Research Center, www.whrc.org for more current information on this.
10
Alaska is already seeing the dramatic effects of global warming while we in California are seeing the effects of global cooling.
2
The mind boggles. Finally acknowledging that humans do not seem capable of appreciating their impact on themselves. Maybe evangelicals will finally get the apocalypse that they desire. Sorry about the rest of us.
5
Climate change, as shown by empiric evidence, is being tackled by Alaska. Just don't expect support from Trump, a willful denier out of stupidity and arrogance...until his golf courses get drowned, a just response to his irrelevancy.
3
Alaska's policy on fossil fuel is analogous to a scenario where marijuana use in the state is illegal, but growing it and exporting it is OK.
3
Trump will kill all of these ideas to avoid even the tiniest hint that climate change is real. This inconvenient truth must be suppressed. Count on the oil producing corporations to spread enough money around to keep politicians and corporate mouth pieces like Fox, CATO and the Heritage foundations well on check.
4
Keep electing Lisa Murkowski and suffer the consequences.
7
Hate to touch a sensitive spot, but California produced more oil than Alaska in four of the last five years. Care to comment?
Both states are near the bottom of the chart -
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_crd_crpdn_adc_mbblpd_a.htm
California petroleum production in January 2018 was lower than in Alaska
https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/#/series/46
Hard to tell if that's a true structural change, or just short-term shifts - how have your Senate votes affected California's oil output?
This is a big problem that is going to require more and more places that have reserves to just leave them in the ground. That will affect incomes, that will affect state tax receipts - but it needs to be done. In all the states.
1
It's obvious that any Alaskan action to fight climate change through tax changes won't have any direct significant effect on climate change. But enough individual states take action, then action at the federal level becomes easier to accomplish. Look at the status of marijuana today. Change at the federal level now seems inevitable. It's a long road. It's easy to look at the first few steps and ask "what's the point?" But you have to take start taking steps to get to a destination. You never get anywhere sitting on your butt.
7
Most likely too late. However, better to do something than nothing. Sadly, I don't have much hope for the country let alone there rest of the world at this point unless there is heavy and relentless push back against naysayers across the board.
13
Alaska is caught between a rock and a hard place. They'll be one of the first mightily impacted by climate change. Yet they've got the carbon energy sources, and a large chunk of their economy depends on that sector. Hard to believe I'm in agreement with what sounds like a spokesperson for oil and gas. But . . .
" “Climate change is a global problem, so unless you’re talking about a global carbon tax, I’m not sure this would move the needle in a state with only 750,000 people.” " is exactly right. Alaska will be impacted regardless of their own initiatives as greenhouse gases don't respect borders (if only?). Their population is a proverbial drop in the bucket. They could cut their emissions to zero but as long as they keep exporting oil and gas they'll be negatively impacted by the melting permafrost, rising sea levels, coastal erosion.
Cue the jokes about selling some pristine coastal real estate in Alaska. Just like the Florida jokes. None of this will end well for either state, both Republican strongholds that will be among our first states to really feel the impact of climate change.
At least maybe Alaska could become a serious agricultural state with all that open land when winter is shortened, the growing season is lengthened, and temperatures are significantly higher.
7
Unfortunately, they do not have much in the way of topsoil so Alaska's agricultural potential is severely limited even if the temperature is more conducive to growing plants.
11
The growing season in Alaska is constrained not only by temperatures and poor topsoil quality, but also the short season of daylight. You can’t grow crops in the dark.
3
Alaska's emissions do not come from oil it exports to other states. Carbon dioxide is emitted when that oil is burned, which mostly happens outside Alaska.
Several rankings I have seen seem to attribute pollution to the supplier. This rewards a state for importing its oil and its cars, even though moving the oil and the cars to the state may create still more pollution than if they were produced locally. An exodus of manufacturers does not reduce an areas "carbon footprint" if the residents respond by importing similar goods from elsewhere.
NIMBY-ism often adds to the problem in the realm of climate change. How we compare regions and measure progress should reflect this.
5
Being an Alaska resident, I can barely get excited when I hear of the state's politicians talking about action to address anthropocentric climate change. For example, on numerous occasions I have corresponded and talked with Senator Lisa Murkowski. Her stance is that although human attribution for climate change might affect us, the contribution is too small to warrant a shift in Alaska's energy production. It is unlikely she will support any actions that reduce drilling for oil or coal. And, lest we forget, she is Chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
Alaska will be one of the last state to take or support meaningful action to mitigate climate change.
43
And on what basis, pray tell, does she believe that the human contribution to global warming is "too small"?
1
“The state will continue to be an energy producer for as long as there is a market for fossil fuels,” the men wrote in a recent op-ed for the Juneau Empire. This is not fighting climate change. This is continuing to contribute to creation of the problem.
21
Well, this is pretty troubling for the folks in Alaska -- mother nature vs. the politicians. I'm pretty sure mother nature will prevail here... eventually.
There is a great quote for climate change situations like this: "You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."
Alaska is experiencing the consequences of the USA ignoring reality. And with the Trump regime pushing their collective head deeper into the sand, Alaska will continue to feel it in very real ways, as will we all.
Seems like Alaska needs new leadership... as does the USA.
Vote!
102
"Gov. Bill Walker, 'a former Republican' who won election as an independent in 2014, created a task force headed by Lieutenant Governor Mallott that would propose specific policies to reduce emissions and help the state adapt to the impacts of global warming."
What American needs to help solve a rainbow of real problems is a much bigger number of 'former Republicans' who abandoned truth, facts and good public policy in favor of lies, denialism and Gas-Oil-Pollution.
Time for the GOP to take its greedy head out of the oil well.
53
Socrates: I don't want to be the grammar police here, but your middle paragraph might easily be misinterpreted. I think you meant to say:
What American needs to help solve a rainbow of real problems is a much bigger number of 'former Republicans.' Republicans have abandoned truth, facts and good public policy in favor of lies, denialism and Gas-Oil-Pollution.
I would say nothing, but your message is important.
Alaskan politicians: "We simply can't stop drilling, in fact we should open up the ANWR because our state needs more revenue. Oh, by the way, we will be happy to accept FEDERAL money to relocate our citizens."
49
That's the right-wing way: I'm against it until I need it.
8
I taught geology and Earth Science in higher education for years. In the 1980's atmospheric heating and climate change were new topics starting to be better understood. Subsequent research over the last three decades has predicted the changes we are now seeing, The latent heat capacity of water has masked abrupt changes due to heating, but the seas are now showing signs of heat absorption. In recent years I tell my students that Earth will not be returning to the equilibrium that allowed homo sapiens to evolve and flourish due primarily to greed. Homo sapiens will continue to convert chain carbon fuel sequestered in rock to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because it is cheap, convenient and portable.
42
This is how the climate change political wars will end. In response to overwhelming evidence and personal experience, cities, states, and regions, where elected officials have to rub elbows with and listen to their affected constituents rather than just to lobbyists, will quietly shift policies toward adaptation and then mitigation. Even the Koch Brothers and their ilk will find ways to make money from renewables. The rest of us have to hope that this transition occurs before we have triggered irreversible, catastrophic changes. Environmentalists can't afford to gloat about Alaska's belated attitudinal shift. At least on this issue, we need to move to a post-conflict world where everyone pulls together to try to solve this greatest of societal challenges.
22
We've already triggered irreversible, catastrophic changes and to think you can avoid them by continuing to drill for and burn fossil fuels is to worsen the problem.
26
Denial isn't just a red state Republican phenomenon. In lower Manhattan, there's an explosion of population and consequent building. Does anyone still remember Sandy? Yes, there has been some retrofitting, but not even remotely enough to protect against the next possible storm surge. And this in supposedly enlightened NYC!
17
Right now we are all paying the price of carbon pollution. We need to make polluters pay the cost of carbon pollution and return most of the money raised to everyone as a rebate.
This policy is called a carbon fee and rebate. I am so glad that the Alaskan government is recommending this idea. Economists agree it is the best way to reduce carbon pollution.
Go Alaska!
8
The media regularly report climate impacts arriving sooner and with greater amplitude than expected, from ice melt to ecosystem degradation to slowing of deep ocean ventilation.
The Earth is like a giant iron ball, it takes a lot of pushing to get it to roll. Well we’ve been pushing unprecedented fast and hard and it’s starting to roll.
Before long we’ll be begging it to stop.
24
What the article is describing are, in the scheme of things, relatively shorter-term problems for Alaska resulting from climate change. In the very long-term, it's possible that a warming climate will provide an overall net benefit for the human inhabitants of areas (like Alaska) which are located at higher and currently inhospitable latitudes. It's those drier areas of the world located closer to the equator in which the negatives of climate change will almost certainly greatly outweigh any positives, and which will suffer most.
7
As the ice thaws, so too does the staunch denial of climate science. That alone gives me a gloomy sort of hope. Perhaps it's too little, too late, but I'll take any action over the heels-and-heads-in-the-ground strategy we've witnessed since the 70's.
Thank you, Alaska, for your leadership. May other red states follow, and may your action on climate only increase from here.
28
It's sometimes said that we live in a "post truth" society in which facts are irrelevant and the only thing that matter is the ability to put an ideological spin on issues and events. I believe this is true--to a point. But eventually reality reasserts itself, as we see happening here.
Eventually, the United States will reach a political consensus and take significant action on climate change. The president may talk about a Chinese hoax, Republicans may rail against a conspiracy of climate scientists, but eventually their words will ring hollow as the people of the world continue to experience the obvious changes in their environment. The only question is: will it happen in time to fend off disaster?
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"Impossible to ignore" -- yeah, that's what Al Gore said awhile ago.
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Man is not affecting the climate.
Ice core samples from the Antarctic show it used to have vegetation. It used to be warm. Now it's cold.
Pretending we can change this is so foolish as to be laughable.
I admit I don't know, though it seems obviuos that we can create holes in the ozone layer, pollute the air, cut down vast sections of rain forest, etc. While 'climate change' certainly helped Erik the Red name Greenland, from whence comes your certainty. We may not be the source of changes, but are we a contributor? Can we do anything about it?
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The Antarctic certainly did have vegetation, tens of millions of years ago. It also used to be way north of the South Pole. That change took millions of years. Now the change takes millions of minutes. There is a difference, even if you won't tell time.
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Man is affecting the climate. If you need proof, and you are receptive to scientific evidence, I strongly suggest you look at the contrails research that was conducted after 9/11. There was a measurable change in the earth's temperature due solely to the grounding of flights during that period. Make of the data what you will, but scientists agree our air traffic alone is impacting the climate. And that's just air traffic.
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Maybe they might notice that the best way to fix this mess is not to elect greedy swamp creatures who couldn't care less about the average Alaskan.
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If Alaska and the rest of the USA wants to truly fight climate change then they better pick better leadership in elections, ones that care more about tomorrow and less about putting money in their pocket.
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The study of human activities causing climate change has a long history. It was clear to climate researchers 30 years ago that the high latitudes would have quicker rates of warming than the planet at large. It has been proved true. Alaska will not only warm rapidly, but ,as it does, add methane to our atmosphere (the "great aerial ocean" of Alfred Wallace). That methane will accelerate global warming, as it is a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. 10 years ago melting permafrost bringing methane release was covered in a short book by E Kolbert, "Field Notes from a Catastrophe'.
The steady research, published science and data collected on sea, land and air has been resisted by the right wing in the US every step of the way. As an example, global circulation models (pioneered by Smagorinsky and Watanabe were attacked at every millimeter of their publication. The GCM is a fiercely tough problem. But its urgency compelled good scientists to pour their energy and skill at solving it. We know the message of global warming and GCM, but fools still fight the message. Who?
Easy - Pruitt, who sits in the seat of the EPA, still trying to stem the flood of clear evidence of anthropogenic global warming. I suggest we send him to the Netherlands, to inform them that seas won't rise. They'll laugh or cry, but they won't give him a job on sea barriers. His appalling stupidity barely merits employment as a street sweeper.
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As an old CSNY lyric went, we are caught in the devil's bargain, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...
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Wait, this affects me? OK, now it's a problem.
Classic "conservative leaning" thinking.
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Alaska is in a conundrum: the oil they extract and export gets burned, warming the global environment, which negatively affects Alaska.
Perhaps they could use some of their oil to form a gigantic, temperature-controlled plastic bubble, to be placed over the state.
No foreigners or polar bears allowed.
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It is not a conundrum at all, it is only misrepresented as such. The reality is, eco tourism could be a win-win for Alaska, but the drill til you kill crowd isn't going to allow it.
The time to sit on the sidelines is over. You guys need to get organized and vote Murkowski out and someone more forward-looking with a brain, in.
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Melting Arctic ice is of course more evidence of the man-made climate change, and existential on-going event. Remember the word "existential" refers to "human existence."
But nothing will be done in Washington DC. The political failure of solving this will be viewed in the dystopian future as the biggest blunder of mankind.
And the reason of course is human greed and lack of vision and critical thinking. The Renaissance and growth of human knowledge and science will have meant nothing.
“In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowing. That was the haughtiest and most mendacious minute of 'world history'—yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die. One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life...” Friedrich Nietzsche 1873
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Is this analogous to vultures coming home to roost?
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I see you are throwing Nuclear in the barrel with renewable forms of energy. I would like to see the Life Cycle Analysis calculations of the total carbon footprint for a Nuclear Plant shown here to include the massive amounts of concrete used in construction, the fossil fuels used to mine the environmentally toxic ore, the processing of that ore, the cleanup of the site after decommissioning and the storage of the spent fuel- which uses considerable resources in perpetuity.
Do not be fooled, Nuclear is not clean and it is not green. It is the world's most dangerous way to boil water. There is not one private insurer in the US that will underwrite a Nuclear Plant.
From The Ecologist:
"Using 0.005% concentration uranium ores, the van Leeuwen, Berteen and Wallner analyses agree a nuclear reactor will have a carbon footprint larger than a natural gas electricity generator. Also, it is unlikely to produce any net electricity over its lifecycle."
https://theecologist.org/2015/feb/05/false-solution-nuclear-power-not-lo...
Almost 40% of known Uranium reserves are of that low concentration. Larger than a natural gas electricity generator. And no net production of electricity. Does not sound very green.
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Not to mention, in addition to the known dangers of anything nuclear, including the waste, there is also a security issue. As this paper reported recently, foreign hackers are already present in our electricity centers, poised to cut us off. Since everything is digital, it is only a matter of time that hostile entities will get control of our nuclear power plants.
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@ Margaret, Our nuke plants are and continue to be highly vulnerable. They have also been infiltrated already. The private corporations who own them don't want to invest in security measures in ALL areas. They are repeatedly found by the NRC to be lacking in better protective modes for cyber and other threats.
There’s little that can be done locally to fix a global problem. There is little point in blaming Alaska for its source of current revenue. If the oil doesn’t come from Alaska, it will come from somewhere else.
Alternative energy implacements are nice, but will have so little effect as to be pointless except by example. Alaskans will have to divert oil revenue to help those affected by climate change. Asking for federal assistance is appropriate too.
To make any real difference, Alaska Republicans are going to have to speak up in Congress and make it clear that it won’t be just Alaska that will suffer from the effects of climate change. It’s a global problem requiring global cooperation. They’re going to have to take on other Republicans, the Kochs, the whole oil power structure. The first thing they should do is change their position on drilling in the Arctic Wildlofe Refuge.
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"There’s little that can be done locally to fix a global problem."
Rubbish! The 'global problem' is the sum total of human activities, all of which are local.
A statement like the one above is a typical excuse used by someone who can't muster the resolve to make personal lifestyle changes as every responsible citizen of the globe must do. What changes have you made to your carbon footprint GiGi?
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The dramatic changes seen in Alaska will spread rapidly.
"Given the conclusion that decade to decade warming in the near term is practically built in by the planet’s energy imbalance, and combining this with the fact that the summer bell curve is already shifted rather dramatically, suggests that we should be close to a time that global warming becomes obvious to most of the public. "
James Hansen
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A national revenue-neutral carbon fee and dividend as espoused by the Citizens Climate Lobby has been gaining traction in Washington with supporters on both sides of the aisle. One of its strongest selling points is that, like Alaska's oil royalty Permanent Fund, the fees collected are distributed directly back to residents. Alaska has set a model for using the revenue from fossil fuels to support its citizens; to extend that model with a carbon fee and dividend would set an example that we as a nation could follow to accelerate our efforts to avoid the looming disaster of global climate change while simultaneously stimulating our economy.
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Finally, a dyed-in-the-wool Red State that happens to be on the front line of climate change -- and seemingly understands the implications.
Turns out permafrost isn't permanent after all, and Alaskans are now paying the price for their own, and the world's laziness and profligacy in taking the easy road, i.e., continuing to extract and rely on fossil fuels.
The Senate desperately needs to hold on to the votes of Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski, both Republicans. Both have reliably voted with the fossil fuel industry and against climate regulations in the past. Now we'll see what happens when push finally comes to shove.
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I'm not sure what you mean by "now we'll see what happens." Both will vote against climate regulations because they would be kicked out of their party fast. That kind of greed is what drives all of this. People are selfish and greedy and need to protect themselves; they get tons of money from the fossil fuel industry. Alaska politicians thus are all greedy, selfish, thoughtless and useless.
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Please don't condemn Alaskans until you have lived there. 85% of state revenues come from oil and gas so it is just simplistic to expect some sort of self-destructive move away from fossil fuel development. I applaud the task force for, first, recognizing the problem (yes, and the contradictions!) of global climate change and second, working within the economic realities, doing something to mitigate the effects.
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I have lived in Alaska. You are correct in saying they have built their entire well-being around one industry. Unfortunately it is a finite industry. At some point in the not far-off future, there will be no more payout for oil for them to continue to export. I would like to see Alaska take aggressive moves towards more industries and away from just the one, for Alaska's sake as well as for the health of the whole world.
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True.
But Alaska could very easily pivot from fossil fuels to renewables.....plenty of sun in the summer, and lots of wind all year round.
That both Walker and Mallot, as well as both GOP US Senators, all voted to open ANWR to drilling, tells me that they all still have their heads stuck in the proverbial sand.
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I also have lived in Alaska and suspect that the cost to Alaskans of maintaining infrastructure in regions of discontinuous permafrost such as Fairbanks will exceed the monetary gain that they receive from oil production.
I don't understand - Alaska is NOW concerned about the effects of climate change yet voted for Trump who campaigned on pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement (and did) and voted for 2 Republican senators who voted yes to Scott Pruitt as head of EPA who is actively undoing regulations to safeguard against climate change including auto emissions and power plants. And they are glad to open the ANWR for oil and gas knowing that contributes to climate change and the negative impacts on their communities.
Actions speak the loudest and all I can say is that Alaskans deserve what is coming.
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Problem is what happen in AK does not stay in AK alone.
We are all susceptible to burning fossil fuels.
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The right-wing philosophy: it's not a problem until it affects me personally.
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Yes, everyone who voted for Trump and Republicans deserves the awful consequences of the worst case climate change scenario but no child deserves this and none of the creatures that comprise our beautiful world deserve this. So to try to give our children - all children - a chance for a decent, healthy future we continue doing what we can to slow climate change.
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