sea ice, caribou, and ground like Jell-O

Here's the story I wrote about yesterday's hearing in Kotzebue.

Global warming is changing ice conditions off Alaska’s coast so much that elders and hunters can’t rely on their expertise to keep them safe, Northwest Arctic Borough Mayor Siikauraq Martha Whiting told a statewide commission Thursday.

“It’s almost like some of the traditional knowledge is null and void,” she said.

fish for the dogs

An elder from the village of Selawik, east of Kotzebue, told the climate commission today how when she tries to dry fish, the weather's wrong and the fish just don't come out right.
"I just work hard, and then feeding them to dogs," she said.
I guess she's talking about whitefish and northern pike, but I'm not sure. Her name is Emma Ramoth. This is a picture of her from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife page.

calendar of events

Here's a short list of events in Fairbanks and beyond related to climate change. Some are public, some aren't. If you want me to add something, e-mail me at stefanbusiness@gmail.com.

August 1, 2007
Meeting of Gov. Sarah Palin's sub-cabinet on climate change
10 a.m. DEC Environmental Health Laboratory, 5251 Hinkle Rd, off Boniface Ave. just south of Boniface and Tudor Rd. in Anchorage.
Only part of the sub-cabinet's meeting is public, and it's for presentations from invited speakers rather than public testimony.
Call DEC at 459-5009 for info.

August 14, 2007
Meeting of the Global Warming Working Group
Noon. Northern Alaska Environmental Center, 830 College Rd., Fairbanks, 452-5021.
The Northern Center hosts the monthly lunchtime meetings of the recently formed GWWG. The public is welcome.

August 21, 2007
ACCAP teleconference on fire and climate change in Alaska
1-2 p.m. Teleconference. Contact ACCAP coordinator Sarah Trainor at 474-7878 for info.
This talk by UAF's T. Scott Rupp is part of a monthly series of discussions put together by the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. A little presentation, lots of discussion.

alaska in the news

The NY Times had this story on ISER's updated study on the potential cost of climate change on public infrastructure in the state.

[Study author Peter Larsen] said he had begun the research “from scratch,” calling various state agencies. “I’d say something like ‘Can you tell me how much the changing climate over the last 50 years has changed this piece of infrastructure?’ ” he said. “On more than one occasion I had people laugh at me on the phone.”

from the window of a super cub

The Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission started its public hearing in Kotzebue this morning with invited testimony from the city mayor and an area wildlife biologist. The mayor talked about how changes in ice conditions were making traditional hunting skills irrelevant. The biologist talked about odd stuff happening with the local caribou herd, lakes draining, and tundra sliding downhill in big chunks. It'll be years before the changes show up in scientific studies, he said. For now, it's just what he's seeing from the window of his Super Cub.
To hear the rest of the presentations or give public testimony, call (888) 295-4546.
Click here for the agenda.

seepage

Here's a shot from a few weeks back of some oil seeping out of the ground on a trail in the White Mountains National Recreation Area north of Fairbanks. At first I thought these must be from rogue dirtbikes, but they were so many, and so random that I'm pretty sure they're from some kind of oil coming up from the ground. Anyone know anything more about this?

fairbanks sun

Where else can you decide to go for a paddle at 9 at night and still have a few hours of daylight? Here's a shot from the Chena River a few weeks ago. Sunset is around 12:45 a.m. now, sunrise around 3, but it never really gets dark, at least not before 2. I can't really say after that.

putting a price tag on climate change

The University of Alaska Anchorage's economic research arm just released an updated estimate of how much more the state will have to pay to build and maintain public infrastructure because of climate change. You can find the report in my reading library and see the AP's story on it by clicking here.
The dollar figure they give is about 3.5 billion to 6 billion between now and 2030, on top of the 32 billion it would cost otherwise.

back in fairbanks

Alright, I'm back. Here's the agenda for Thursday's meeting in Kotzebue of the Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission. Public testimony is scheduled for the afternoon.

taking a break

I hate to say it, but I'm in sunny San Francisco for about a week and probably will be hanging out with family and enjoying the beach more than writing about climate change. More when I get back. The one big thing of the horizon is the Legislature's Climate Impact Assessment Commission meeting scheduled for June 28 in Kotzebue. There's talk of chartering a plane or two to take commission members to Shishmaref and Kivalina, two of the villages facing relocation, the day before.

calculating emissions

Here's the story I wrote for Sunday on emissions of greenhouse gases in Alaska. The headline, played big above the fold, got me one nasty phone call from a man who said he burned only 5 gallons of fuel oil a winter and lived here a lot longer than I, which I'm sure is true.

Alaskans pump, treat and ship millions of barrels of oil a week. They make jet fuel and put it in planes carrying cargo around the world. They drive, watch TV and warm their homes in frigid temperatures.

Add it all up and Alaskans turn into greenhouse gas pigs. Per capita, Alaska residents each year emit more than three times as much of the gases linked to global climate change as people in the rest of the country, according to a study completed in February by the Center for Climate Strategies. . . .

Click here for the whole story.
NPR did an interesting story recently on the effort to track down greenhouse gas emissions records nationally. Basically, there isn't comprehensive reporting in the U.S. like there is in Canada, but the federal government does keep track of carbon dioxide coming from power plants.
Lots of Web sites have carbon footprint calculators, including the EPA's and BP's, but my favorite is Planet Slayer's, which adds a bit of humor to an otherwise humorless topic. Well worth a visit.

paddling the upper chena

On Sunday, I paddled about 25 miles of the upper Chena River with a friend. It started blowing hard about half-way through, and we could hear thunder. It hailed a few miles up the road. We saw all kinds of ducks, at least one grayling, and, right at the end, a bald eagle. Ian knows a whole lot more than I do about permafrost, and he offered his thoughts on the various river-eroded bends and thin layers of vegetation when we passed them. The scraggly black spruce in the picture rely on really shallow roots and don't get very big at all. A tree a few inches thick might be 100 years old.
At one point, we came to a dirt wall on an outer bank that served as a cross-section of earth about 20 feet thick -- tiny black spruce on top, about a foot of moss and roots, then dirt that Ian figured was frozen solid about a foot in and all the way down. We grabbed at sticks and chunks of wood captured in the dirt in sediment layers a few feet apart. Ian guessed the piece I pulled into the boat (sending globs of soft dirt all over) was a few thousand years old. There was a special smell to the dirt as it thawed out and stuff started decomposing again.

NASA focus

In his talk last week to the Fairbanks chamber of commerce, University of Alaska's Buck Sharpton gave a broad overview of and outlook for research funding. NASA, he said, has "reduced dramatically" its support for scientific research in favor of a push to put a man on the moon in 2018.
In other NASA news, there's apparently a difference of opinion between NASA's head and some of its researchers on climate change, which NASA studies along with space. Here's the enviro rag Grist's take on the subject.

climate change as a social issue

A high-up in the US Conference of Catholic Bishops will be in Anchorage tomorrow for an all-day talk on the role of the Catholic community in addressing "moral questions" raised by climate change. John Carr is the USCCB's secretary for social development and world peace and has represented the group at the Vatican and in visits around the world, according to a new release.
"According to Carr, Christian values such as 'the virtue of prudence, the pursuit of the common good and the protection of the poor' are important contributions to the climate-change debate, and should be at the heart of policies aimed at addressing climate change," it reads.
UAF forestry prof Glenn Juday and DEC water quality manager Jim Powell will also talk, along with others representing Alaska Native concerns, industry, health care, and fishing. Representatives from each of Alaska's three dioceses will be there to listen and learn and start planning activities for their areas. The event is at the Dimond Center Hotel. Click here to learn more.
The Catholics' argument goes something like this.

At its core, global climate change is not about economic theory or political platforms, nor about partisan advantage or interest group pressures. It is about the future of God's creation and the one human family. It is about protecting both "the human environment" and the natural environment. It is about our human stewardship of God's creation and our responsibility to those who come after us.

That's from a 2001 statement by the USCCB.
After the IPCC published part of its latest report this winter, the chair of the US bishops' international policy committee, Thomas Wenski, wrote to Congressional leaders and urged them to heed the report's warnings and do something. He stressed three ideas.

A Priority for the Poor
. . . Poor families and children, vulnerable workers, and farmers will likely be most impacted by climate change and bear the greatest burdens as we address its causes and consequences. The poor have the fewest resources and capacity to escape the costs of climate change. We all know too well who is left behind and who pays the greatest price when disaster, floods or droughts occur.

The Pursuit of the Common Good
The challenge of global climate change is a pre-eminent example of how our debate and decisions should reflect the pursuit of the common good, rather than the search for economic, political or other narrow advantage. Our obligation to pass on the gift of God’s creation to future generations without doing irreversible harm is but one aspect of the demands of the common good. We urge you to resist and restrain predictable interest group pressures and narrow appeals. Instead, we urge to you to help build up common ground for common action to advance the common good.

The Practice of Prudence
. . . The traditional virtue of prudence suggests that we do not have to know with absolute certainty everything that is happening with climate change to know that something seriously harmful is occurring. Therefore, it is better to act now than wait until the problem gets worse and the remedies more costly.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought this was pretty darn interesting.