northern flux

fall

2011-09-02T10:03:00.004-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, before evening even arrived, the dew dropped like it hasn't all year. The tools I was working with clouded over, metal turned cold to the touch. Sandhill cranes arrived flock after flock on their way to places like Arizona, dropping out of the sky with long legs dangling. It was the first day that felt solidly of fall. Moose season opened yesterday, but Ian and I are gearing up for caribou instead. We'll leave this afternoon and drive north with oversized sleds and a canoe, look for caribou somewhere north of the Brooks Range, then hike the mandatory five miles from the road over tussocks, maybe lining a canoe up a creek. Sometimes there are specific things one learns hunting, but mostly it is senses of things, built up over time -- how close you can get to an animal before it spooks, whether it is smell or sight or something else they find most frightening. One also learns how to think about hunting. Last year we saw thousands of caribou and came home with nothing; other years have been more lucky. And while veteran hunters probably have the right to credit skill over luck, it would be foolish to think you are in control. The best you can do is prepare, put yourself in the right spot, and wait, and there's something wonderful in that.

talkeetnas

2011-07-25T14:27:00.006-08:00

Near the end of our 15-day hike, James, explaining some lack of equipment or maybe physical preparation, remarked, "I thought this was going to be a river trip." I laughed, because it seemed like a gentle way of saying, "What did I sign up for?" We'd endured near-constant rain and clouds, soggy feet, slippery rocks, and miles of tough bushwhacking -- the kind of challenges that can wear on you, but also make you feel you've survived, make you appreciate the sun even more. In the end, I don't think any of us would have traded our trek for anything.
It had, in fact, started as a river trip -- maybe a float in ANWR, or a hike-float combo through Gates of the Arctic (there are so many choices in Alaska). In the end, Toby and Darcy proposed something closer to Anchorage, with fewer bugs and no costly fly-ins, but still awesome. We started on the Glenn Highway and hiked 140 miles through the Talkeetna Mountains to the rail line northeast of Talkeetna, off the Parks Highway. We followed Jeep roads for the first day and a half and found some old tracks again on the last day, but in between, we followed only caribou trails -- up this valley, over that pass and down again. We watched caribou float over the tundra and a grizzly bear devour a caribou calf. We picked our route based on the elevation lines of topo maps.
For three days, we made camp in a high valley near even-higher peaks where a bush pilot had formed a crude runway by placing white rocks in a straight line on a patch of tundra. A pilot flying a two-seater with tundra tires brought us food, fuel, beer and wine, which we bundled at night in a contractor bag swollen like Santa's sack. The sun came out and we climbed a 7,300-foot peak with spectacular views of mountains and glaciers. Awesome indeed. (Read Darcy's account and see more pictures here.)
From our pilot, we learned that NOLS makes a trip through the Talkeetnas each summer. Toby, from whom I have learned a great deal about wilderness travel, scoffed at the idea of paying for such skills, and I think it irked him to imagine that our trip was not unique. (After Day 2, we saw no one but our pilot.) So for the rest of the trip, we joked about those NOLS kids -- how they could always light a fire with one match, how they were expert bushwhackers who never complained about the weight of their packs.
Today there's a story in the paper about a bear attacking the NOLS group, seriously injuring two. It sounds like they might have run, which is a no-no, but also did things right, like making lots of noise. It's hard to know what to think. It's only the second bear attack in NOLS history, according to the story, so maybe there's comfort in the odds. No matter how prepared you are, with bear spray or firearm, I imagine there's always some risk -- a trade, I guess, for the opportunity to experience places as wild as this.

clamming

2011-03-20T19:11:00.005-08:00

Big moon, very low tide. I wish I knew enough about the workings of this planet and moon to know if they were related. In any case, the monthly extreme low tides around Juneau happened this weekend, a nice minus 3 feet or so, so Jesse and I joined some friends to dig for clams. I'll take full credit for getting us there a little late, around 7:45 this morning. It's Sunday! There were at least a half-dozen cars and trucks already at the pullout. We spent about an hour digging in the mud, moving over rocks, trying to avoid getting squirted in the eye by a leggy worm or a big clam. Some are duds -- shells filled with rocks and sand. Some break when you dig for them. If you're not too picky, you can fill a 5-gallon bucket in not too much time. We stopped digging when the tide came in. Tonight we'll steam the little guys in white wine and garlic, put the bigger ones in saltwater with cornmeal to filter the sand from them.

boat soup

2010-07-27T08:17:00.007-08:00

I've been working, for sure, but somehow yesterday felt like the first big day of building. It didn't rain, my chisel was sharp, and the need to get going somehow seemed more apparent. (The bigger the project, the longer the rush to deadline?) I finished cutting and shaping my floor joists, made more sawhorses, souped up my mailbox post, and cut a joist pocket in a sill.
The sense of urgency comes partly from the same thing that motivates every Alaska builder – the desire to not get caught without a roof when it gets cold – and partly because I’m timberframing with white spruce. The wood shrinks a lot when it dries, and tends to twist. The best would be to cut it all immediately after it’s milled and get the frame up before the timbers dry. The joinery might stop the timbers from twisting. Instead, I have stacks of timbers cut at various times -- from last week to months ago -- at various stages of drying. So I add a strong sixteenth to my joist ends in the hope they’ll shrink to fit. (The sills that will house them have already shrunk.)
It’s nice to think of timberframing as modular, and it can be in some cases. Every brace in the frame should be identical. But sometimes the qualities of each timber, each piece of once-living wood, make customization necessary. A four-by-six joist might be only three and seven-eighths.
Boat soup is a mix of pine tar, linseed oil, and turpentine. It treats boats and outdoor wood without sealing it in varnish or nasty chemicals. The pine tar I have comes from a boatbuilding supply store, but is made for horses: “Wash and dry hoof. Apply below coronet band of hoof and hoof wall. As a hoof pack, apply to bottom of hoof prior to shoeing.” The tar makes the wood dark and sticky. You have to recoat every year or so, and the wood probably won’t last as long as pressure-treated, but that's fine with me.

moto

2010-07-22T11:08:00.004-08:00

It's a sorry indication of my fitness that my outdoor adventures now come atop a 650cc dirt bike. But then there's nothing really to complain about. Last night, after a long day of rain, the sun came out under giant picture clouds. I motored up Murphy Dome on the old road, turned to slippery mud from the rain. A cloud blew through the trees over the road. I bumped over rocks on a trail to the summit. At the top, maybe 10 o'clock at night, the sun was setting over mountains to the west and north. Cottongrass, Labrador tea, blueberries, dwarf fireweed. A fox scurried down the 4-wheeler trail in front of me. I rode back down the mountain, the air cooling, humid enough to fog my visor and mirrors. I passed the turn to my house and kept riding, to catch just a little more of this late, golden summer sunset that will last only so long.

juneau, and the next thing

2010-03-21T21:05:00.003-08:00

It's a wonderful thing here in Juneau to be able to walk out your door, maybe with a cup of coffee, and hike from sea level up 2,000 feet till the sun filters through the trees and the water and mountains and snow come into view. It was just a mini-hike I took today, up to the top of the tram on the way to Mount Roberts. I saw three skiers stumbling down in ski boots, and two mountain bikers pushing their bikes up the narrow trail.
I have no good excuse for not blogging, except that I really haven't had much outdoor adventure to write about, and have hardly covered anything related to climate change or the environment. Here at the capitol, discussion of either comes in the form of resolutions against federal climate legislation or concerns over federal Endangered Species Act listings. There is talk, and action, related to renewable energy and conservation -- more than in most states, I believe -- but lawmakers almost never mention environmental benefits when explaining their support for either.
I have spent much of my non-work time planning my next Alaska adventure -- building a small cabin. In February, I bought an acre of land in Fairbanks, on a sloping, mossy, tree-covered lot on the north side of a hill in Fairbanks. It's likely to get no direct sun for at least a few weeks in the winter, but it's above the coldest parts of town, and above the pollution caused by poor air circulation and lots of cars and wood stoves. I don't have a simple explanation for wanting to do it, and now. Or rather, I have several. I miss using my hands, and that part of the brain that looks for creative and elegant solutions to physical problems. I like thinking about the experience of a physical place -- what you see as you walk up the steps to a door, or where the light will be in the evening. I want some kind of home, a place to return to and leave from, but also just a place where I can sink big screws into the rafters and now worry about a landlord or deposit.

glaciers, grizzlies, and Alaska's big city

2009-10-20T14:28:00.004-08:00

I have to admit I'm warming up to Anchorage. I still think the city itself is kind of a dump, but the land around it really is amazing -- mountains, glaciers, salt water and fresh water.
On Saturday, Toby took me for a hike up Ram Valley, where neither of us had been, to climb Raina Peak, at 6,795 feet. We parked the car at about 1,400 feet and hiked under a power line, along a narrow road, and up through tall, dead grass and thick alders more suited to bears than humans. After bushwhacking and sidehilling, we popped out in the valley to see a big grizzly eating overripe blueberries 400 yards away. Before he could hear or smell us, the bear dropped to his belly on the tundra in a way that must have been efficient but was not very stately. We chose a path around him and checked over our shoulders as we hiked to see that he hadn't moved. Then he disappeared. We worried he had dropped into alders between us and him, but we kept an eye out and never saw him again.
We hiked steadily up the tundra to a spit of rock coming down from the peak, then followed that up, climbing over rock ridges as necessary to avoid spots that were too steep to climb without ropes. Not having hiked much this year, I got sloppy after a few hours. Footing was hard on the loose rocks. We turned around a few hundred vertical feet from the top. The views were amazing, and even more so because of the quick transition from wooded lowlands to soft tundra and finally to rock, covered only by multi-colored lichen. We half-ran down scree fields and rushed across the tundra to make another friend's birthday party nearly on time.
On Sunday, Toby and Darcy and I set off on another expedition -- to hike and float from Girdwood to Eagle River over Crow Pass and down the north fork of the Eagle River. It's a trip that people do fairly often on foot, I understand, often spending a night or two on the trail. There's also a trail marathon along the route, for which Toby once held the course record. Once again, the hiking was spectacular. We climbed past old mining operations, along short cliffs, and past waterfalls. We paused at the pass and soaked up some sun, then hiked another bit to where we could see a handful of glaciers. We passed mountain goats on the trail, seemingly unafraid.
The trail covers about 13 miles of rock, grass, and fairly thick woods before reaching Eagle River a little below the glacier that gives it life. There wasn't enough water to float, so we crossed the milky, fast water and picked up the trail on the other bank and kept hiking. After a few more streams added their water, we blew up the packrafts we'd carried over the pass and paddled a few miles. Canyon-like walls rose from the glacial valley. A grizzly sow and two cubs lumbered up the bank 100 yards from us.
Our route proved somewhat ambitious, and despite hiking fast all day with little rest, we still had miles to go when we pulled our boats from the river at nightfall. The sun had long since disappeared, and even as we floated, ice formed on our packs and paddles. On the trail, fresh frost glistened back at us from the light of our headlamps. We reached the nature center and road a little before 10. The night was clear, and the stars came out as bright and unpolluted as from my Fairbanks home, maybe even brighter.

yukon fish

2009-10-05T08:32:00.003-08:00

Yay! Jesse and I had a story come out over the weekend in the New York Times. It's about the poor runs of king salmon on the Yukon in recent years and how they're affecting people. Be sure to check out the slide show. Both can be found here.

mighty mighty yukon

2009-09-06T19:56:00.004-08:00

We're done! After 50 days on the river and about 935 miles in the canoe, Jesse and I made it to the ocean on August 31. Against the advice of nearly everyone we met and despite a stern warning from a volunteer with the search and rescue squad in Emmonak, we paddled the last 11 miles to the Bering Sea in a fall storm that kicked up 30 mph winds and threatened to push the surf over the low ground. It took about 6 hours of paddling -- at times so hard we had to grunt -- and large quantities of chocolate, but we managed to get there through wind and waves and even stay dry at our ocean camp. Like most of the trip, the weather proved erratic, and we had a few moments of sun on the first day of September. The beach, if one can call it that, looked something like the Great Plains and something like the Serengeti, or so said Jesse.

yukon paddle

2009-07-05T14:52:00.004-08:00

For the last several weeks, the floor of my cabin has been cluttered with gear: waterproof totes and bags, buckets, cooking pots and rubber boots, tent stakes, sleeping bags, wool clothes, bug nets. Yesterday I finished making a pair of canoe paddles, cut the handle off my $3 frying pan, and bagged up 145 pounds of food.
In less than a week, I'll be leaving Fairbanks on a five-week paddling adventure down the Tanana and Yukon rivers. If all goes well, we'll make it 900 miles to the Bering Sea before fall storms kick up in mid-August. I'm paddling with a friend from college, a freelance photographer now, and the goal is to do some stories about the trip and how the horrible returns of king salmon are impacting Yukon River villages.
In planning, I've felt a bit like an amateur. What do we do about bears? How long should our painters be? Which is not to say I've never been on a wilderness trip. In 2002, I spent 30 days paddling solo down the Hudson River, and last fall I kayaked the Noatak -- one of the most remote rivers in all of Alaska. But most of the Hudson is settled, and on the Noatak, I relied on experienced companions.
So I've been preparing -- gathering gear, reading, talking with people, paddling. Last week I did a test run of sorts, floating the first 50 miles from Fairbanks to Nenana with my friend Ian. The last time we did it, two years ago, I was newer to Alaska: "There's signs of life, like little marks on trees for fish camps, I'm guessing, and a sign for Skinny Dick's, but mostly the river is wild," I wrote. "Ian likened it to a highway -- it's fairly well traveled, and you can't really get lost -- but I mostly saw it like a big, remote river."
Well, this time was different -- I saw the highway. The current is strong, but manageable, the river braided, but easy to follow. The river feels more like a path through wilderness than wilderness itself. There will be sections of river more than 100 miles between villages, but it all seems doable now with some good gear, paddling skills, and common sense. I think I'm getting that Alaska perspective.
I can't imagine blogging much during the trip, but certainly upon return!

fishing for fish

2009-06-22T18:02:00.005-08:00

In the end, the money worked out about the same. Fred Meyer was selling whole Copper River reds for $3.99 a pound Thursday afternoon when we left for the Copper River, the truck loaded with empty coolers, long-handled dipnets, sleeping bags, a hand truck, and enough cheese, chocolate and salami for a few days. We made it back Saturday night with about 40 pounds of fish -- 30 pounds headed and gutted -- and spent about 90 bucks on gas and another 30 on miscellaneous stuff, for a total of about $120, or $4 a pound.
That wasn't how it was supposed to be. The limit is 15 fish per person, but somehow we ended up in Chitina during a lull and netted only eight fish between the two of us. The day they were running strong, I had to work. We both caught kings, which would have more than doubled our take (and given us the most highly-coveted, oily salmon species), but the Alaska Department of Fish and Game isn't letting dipnetters keep kings this year. Runs have apparently been bad around the state. I respect the idea of conservative management, but there certainly seems to be a lot of politics around who gets to keep the fish that are taken.
In the end, the time, work, and effort we put into fishing seemed large for a sinkful of salmon. On Friday, we spent 17 hours hiking in, scrambling down rocks to the river, and standing with a net in the silty, roiling glacial water waiting for the tap of a fish hitting the net. The idea of driving 320 miles one-way to gather our own food seemed like an odd twist to the idea of eating local.
But time and money are poor measures for the experience itself -- for learning again how to do it, for getting up early and pushing the body as hard as it will go, for truly knowing where your food comes from and how it got to your plate. We cleaned the fish in my cabin Saturday night and broiled a fillet around midnight. Oily, mild, and good enough to eat the skin.

immediate action report

2009-03-31T16:29:00.005-08:00

The silence on climate change here in the capitol has been deafening, as the saying goes. I spend a good chunk of my time in the building, and aside from a few side mentions from the public during testimony on energy-related bills, there has literally been no mention of the issue. Gov. Sarah Palin mentioned climate change in her state of the state address, but only to note that her sub-cabinet group on climate change was studying the issue.
Anyway, the Immediate Action Work Group, a temporary group set up under the sub-cabinet, just issued its latest report. It has a few broad policy recommendations that suggest they're still trying to come up with a process that makes sense. But it also has several FY 10 funding requests, many of which are not currently in the budget bills working their way through the Legislature. If any of them are going to make it in, it's going to take some quick, effective lobbying. The session ends April 19. As for who will do that lobbying, beats me.

dan moller

2009-02-22T11:19:00.003-09:00

This is why Juneau is amazing. Drive across the bridge from town to Douglas Island and up the hill about half a mile, then hike for a few hours and you end up here.

jumbo, and other news

2009-02-20T12:41:00.003-09:00

Sorry for the delay. I had a story about renewable energy run in the New York Times, with photos, video, and a blog post to boot! More on that later. And yesterday afternoon I climbed a small mountain on Douglas Island. The snow was deep, and came all the way down the water. The trees are huge, of course. And the bits of blue in the sky and white of the mountains down the channel were striking -- so blue at times that I mistook the sky through the trees for something man-made. I made it to the shoulder on Jumbo just as it was getting dark, then skied down the winter trail (snowmachine trail) with shaky legs as the trail disappeared and lights came out in Juneau below.

soggy juneau

2009-02-01T23:34:00.003-09:00

Alas, I missed the powder day at the mountain this weekend. That was yesterday. I got out today, when the sky was so thick you could hardly see across the channel, and hiked up to the tram. It was only a few miles, but offered a taste of the mountains all the same: the chill of wet skin at the top, the warmth of good clothes and exertion, the perfect asymmetry of the hike up and down. The snow, knee-deep at the top, thinned and turned to slush on the way down.

wind-powered gas line?

2009-01-26T21:53:00.002-09:00

There was a funny moment today in the Capitol when a VP from Canadian pipeline builder TransCanada updated lawmakers on his company's proposed $26 billion natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to Alberta. Trying to demonstrate the small footprint of the pipeline's compressor stations, which pump gas down the line, the VP, Tony Palmer, compared the facilities to wind turbines -- a whole station would cover an area smaller than the spread between two turbines, he said, and the tallest building would be only one sixth as tall as a wind turbine. It seemed like an odd comparison. Palmer actually said something like, "So if you're familiar with wind turbines, . . ." which I imagine most Alaska lawmakers are not.
Once on the subject, Palmer took the opportunity to mention that TransCanada is building Canada's largest wind farm -- totaling 740 megawatts, or several hundred utility-scale turbines. This also seemed like an odd thing to note. Did Palmer think oil-state legislators would be impressed by the green-power project? Lawmakers did include a softly worded requirement in recent pipeline legislation requiring companies to say how they would handle future carbon regulation, but environmental concern is rare here.
Palmer went on with his presentation, and a little later, one of the committee members, Bryce Edgmon, returned to the turbines. Is TransCanada planning to put turbines in Alaska? he asked.
This really was an odd question. Lawmakers have studied this project for many months, and it's hard to imagine that something like using wind turbines to power a giant natural gas pipeline would simply slip past unnoticed.
But Palmer's response suggested the idea wasn't completely off base. TransCanada is planning to use natural gas to power the compressor stations, he said, but the company has used electricity on other pipelines, and has built power plants (burning natural gas) at some compressor stations.
"Will those be things that we look at?" Palmer asked himself. "Clearly they will be."
So maybe Edgmon is onto something.

dan moller

2009-01-25T14:57:00.006-09:00

It's been another weekend of beautiful weather and marginal snow. I skied Saturday above the Dan Moller cabin, atop a ridge on Douglas Island with views down Seymour Canal and Stephens Passage. Tonight we're all hoping for snow. And no, that's not my dog.

mt troy

2009-01-20T18:53:00.003-09:00

Well, the boots are out. I've been a little busy lately, but did get outside this weekend. On Saturday, I hiked up to the tram with my snowboard, although I didn't bother with the heavy, wet snow. On Sunday, I skinned up Mt. Troy with some folks and got in a few turns, despite crusty ice at the top and small ridges formed by runoff below that (shown here). With any luck, it's a temporary downturn in the skiing conditions. I can't complain about the sunny skies and T-shirt weather.

stuck in a cold place

2009-01-13T13:35:00.002-09:00

I made it to Juneau.
I mention this because for a while there, I thought I might not. I left Fairbanks on Friday, a little later than planned, and promptly got stuck a few hours down the road in Tok, the place that was so cold last week it made national news. I’d stopped to send an e-mail and noticed smoke from under the hood. It was just getting dark. A woman stopped behind me – as people will do when it’s cold in Alaska – and offered to follow me into town. Later, when I ran over a rabbit and stopped again, we checked the oil, found none, and added a quart. It was windy, and you had to be careful with your fingers. The oil turned to molasses in the minute it took to pour it.
This woman and later her husband, longtime Tok residents, showed a kindness that went beyond helping the needy traveler and took me somewhat by surprise.
I followed the woman to her house, where her husband added some more oil. When I noted the cold, the husband explained that it had actually warmed up – it was only 62 degrees below zero, and had been 69 below a few nights before. We could see now that oil was splattered on both sides of the engine.
I spent the next 20 hours at Fast Eddy’s restaurant, the accompanying motel, and the towing and service shop across the highway. I once tried walking the half-mile to the gas station for a candy bar, but turned around when my nose started to tingle. The temperature never got above 39 below.
At first I considered pushing ahead, as the problem itself wasn’t that bad (there was oil in the engine, it just wasn’t showing on the dipstick) and would presumably resolve itself if I could just get out of this frigid cold.
But it wasn’t a good time or place to be driving an unreliable car. Even with bunny boots and down, 60 below would give you a chill fast. And the Yukon isn’t exactly populated. I remembered that awful Jack London story about the man whose life depends on his ability to start a fire in the cold, and I decided to get the car fixed.
The shop, Willard’s, gracefully fit me in to what was clearly a booked schedule – cars, tractor trailers, even a U-Haul were failing in the cold. My problem proved to be a frozen pressure control valve, which meant the truck basically just had to thaw out. The mechanic, short on sleep and with hands that looked like he’d given up on washing them, worked the ice out of various tubes and valves.
At Fast Eddy’s, where I must have drank a quart of coffee, everyone was talking about the weather – about the dog musher with the totally white nose, or the thermometer bottoming out at 65 below, or the pipes that froze in the school and flooded the computer room. I eyed humongous plates of food and watched the cars drive by out the window. I had already missed one ferry to Juneau and worried I would miss another.
When I finally got my truck back at 4:45 Saturday afternoon, I got in and drove. I reached Canada a few hours later, crossed Chilkat Pass around midnight, and drove back into the U.S. a little after 1 a.m. The snow was deep, the trees huge. And it was warm.

how to tan a caribou skin

2008-12-29T22:45:00.001-09:00

I finally tanned my caribou skin this weekend after putting off the project since early November. I did one last year, and remember the whole process being frustrating and hard – the kind of work that makes you physically sore. And it all needs to happen at once.
My goal this time was to meet the standard spelled out in John and Geri McPherson's Primitive Wilderness Skills, Applied and Advanced: the finished robe should "drape over your arm like a blanket, not fold like paper."
In my limited understanding of the process, actual tanning – with tannin, alum, or other chemicals – changes the chemical composition of the skin. Another, simpler way is to just replace the water in the skin with oil (also a chemical change, I suppose) and work the fibers as the skin dries.
That’s what I tried, partly with some caribou brains, which look like strawberry yogurt and are only safe because spongiform encephalopathy hasn’t been found in Alaska, and partly with a mixture of Ivory soap and neatsfoot oil.
I thawed out the skin, fleshed it, scraped off the membrane, shampooed and rinsed it, rubbed the brains and soap into it, and worked it hard on the stretcher.
Forty-eight hours later, it’s done. The skin is more like a blanket than paper, but still a little stiff, a little greasy, and not quite like store-bought. Not that you can buy a caribou skin. Caribou have warble flies that live under their skin at various times of the year, and the bugs leave unsightly marks. The store here instead sells tanned reindeer, the domestic version of caribou.
I can't help but wonder now if a turn in the dryer with some tennis balls wouldn’t soften up the skin. But there’s a good chance that would lead to disaster for the dryer or the fragile, hollow hairs, so I think I'll stick with what I've got.

calculating your carbon hoofprint

2008-12-29T14:06:00.000-09:00

In Planet Slayer’s carbon calculator, you start out as a pig. A pig with a charming face and long eyelashes, but a pig all the same. A dog in a white lab coat named Prof. Schpinkee is watching over you with arms crossed, ready to help you figure out how big a greenhouse hog you are, and the best you can hope for is to be an “environmentally sustainable ‘green’ pig.”
Planet Slayer’s may be the least forgiving, but it’s just one of many carbon calculators available online. Tallying your footprint is the logical first step toward reducing your impact or “offsetting” your emissions with purchased carbon credits, and conservation groups, oil companies, and government agencies are all offering their own versions.
But figuring out how much carbon you spew is not easy, and not all calculators are created equal. I tested six – by the Environmental Protection Agency, The Nature Conservancy, BP, Conservation International, ClimateCrisis.net (Al Gore’s thing), and Planet Slayer (a project of the Australian Broadcasting Corp.) – and offer my unscientific review here.
The first thing to recognize is that carbon calculators don’t all calculate the same thing. The one on ClimateCrisis.net seems to be limited to home energy use and transportation. It lists the national average for per-capita emissions as 7.5 tons, which is nowhere near our full greenhouse gas footprint. Likewise, the EPA’s calculator is limited to emissions from home energy use, driving, and waste disposal. Conservation International’s and BP’s are limited to home energy use and transportation, including driving and flying.
Only The Nature Conservancy and Planet Slayer attempt to capture total emissions, or all the emissions “your choices create each year,” as TNC puts it. In the U.S., that’s something like 24 tons (22 if you just look at CO2 or 26 if you include the carbon dioxide equivalent from methane). At least that’s what you get if you divide total U.S. emissions by the number of Americans, which probably wouldn’t include the carbon impact of, say, a TV made in Japan and sold in the U.S.
Carbon calculators are by necessity crude tools. They generally factor in things like how much you drive, how you heat your home, how many people you share your house with, and so on. Your carbon count can start from zero and build as you go or start with an average and shift up or down depending on your energy choices. For everything else – if it’s included at all – carbon calculators generally just plug in a figure based on your country or state’s average. That is, they don’t try to tally up the carbon associated with every iPod, health insurance plan, and public library.
All calculators make the point that you can reduce your footprint by changing how you live, and they try to educate as they count. If you recycle everything, EPA’s calculator takes about 400 pounds of CO2 off your tab. If you eat a lot of meat, TNC’s calculator tacks on a few extra tons. Understanding the impact of those choices is simply a matter of watching the numbers in the right hand column go up or down.
That said, some calculators are more explicit than others. BP’s, for instance, offers direct lessons from a man with green hair, as he sips coffee at home or installs a solar panel on a roof in hardhat and sweater vest. “Compared to a car, public transportation can be a more efficient way of using energy to move people around,” he says as he walks through an airport.
Where most calculators fail, IMHO, is in areas where carbon impacts are harder to quantify. Direct energy consumption is pretty easy, even if some big assumptions are involved – driving a car that gets so many miles per gallon so many miles a year will burn a certain amount of gas and produce a certain amount of CO2. Ditto with flying, home heating, and electricity.
But the carbon behind everything else is harder to figure. Most calculators don’t even try, and rely instead on those big averages. The one that doesn’t is Planet Slayer, which makes the point that there’s carbon behind almost everything we buy and do. One question in its calculator asks, “How much money did you spend all up last year?” Answer less than $10,000 and you, the pig in the trailer, shrink to smaller than the average Aussie pig. Choose $40,000 and you get some extra rolls of belly fat. Pick $70,000 and you turn into a slobbering, snotty swine who can’t keep his gut off the floor.
Planet Slayer explains in the fine print that it’s assuming there’s 1.6 kilograms of CO2, on average, behind every Australian dollar you spend. And that your driving, household energy use, and eating habits account for less than 20 percent of your overall emissions. “The thing that makes a real difference to your bacon-ness is how you SPEND the rest of your money,” it explains.
This expands the common dialogue over carbon footprints from simple things like what we drive and what kind of light bulbs we have to what we eat and what we do for fun. It also leads to some unexpected assertions, like the one that taking a cab is less polluting than riding a bike. “Not really, but because we pay so much to ride in taxis ($1/km), it leaves us less money to spend on stuff that’s even worse for the environment.”
Even if the U.S. economy is more efficient than Australia’s (just guessing here), the idea of a pint of oil behind every dollar is important. When you imagine downing a cup of oil with every cup of OJ, that juice starts to seem less appealing.
Planet Slayer lets you clean up your act by spending on “stuff that’s better for the environment,” like energy-efficient and second-hand items, rather than “ordinary stuff,” like eating, drinking, and going out. The implied lesson isn’t spend less so much as spend wisely.
Partly I blame us media for ignoring this concept. But it also seems like a bit of a third rail for green groups and politicians, even those serious about reducing emissions. Suggesting that people need to buy less stuff is not really going to fly. The effort, justifiably I suppose, has been to reduce the carbon in our economy rather than shrink the economy itself.
In any case, focusing on home energy use, transportation, food, and waste is probably a good start, and complex enough. I tried out the six calculators on my own life and got a wide range of answers. Each calculator asked for different inputs, and none really fit my Alaska lifestyle (living in a dry cabin, eating my own food); Gore’s calculator, which allows you to input the year and make of your car, also mysteriously omitted Toyota’s 1997 line of vehicles. That said, I tried to be consistent with my inputs.
Here’s what I got.
EPA: 12.9 tons (home energy and driving)
Climatecrisis.net: 15.3 tons (home energy and transportation)
Conservation International: 18.3 tons (home energy and transportation)
BP: 12.5 tons (home energy and transportation)
Planet Slayer: 31.9 tons (everything)
The Nature Conservancy: 43 tons (everything)
TNC’s 43 tons is a pretty strong indictment. And according to Planet Slayer, I used up my sustainable share of the planet’s resources in 7.9 years. I think I was unfairly billed for heating and electric costs, and I don’t spend that much money on “ordinary stuff,” but I'm definitely no green pig.

real cold

2008-12-29T12:04:00.002-09:00

Here's the iPhone weather forecast for Fairbanks.
Current temp: -42
MON: Hi: -30 Lo: -45
TUES: Hi: -33 Lo: -44
WED: Hi: -29 Lo: -44
THUR: Hi: -33 Lo: -42
FRI: Hi: -32 Lo: -44
SAT: Hi: -15 Lo: -44
Which is to say, it's cold here!
There are some novelty aspects to the cold -- the snow squeaks, it's harder to breathe, and for some reason you can hear car tires on pavement a half-mile away.
But the biggest impact probably has to do with air quality. When it's cold, people burn more fuel to heat their homes, and cars pollute more. The cold also tends to create temperature inversions, in which cold air is trapped close to the ground and air circulation is minimal. You can tell where the inversion tops out by watching where the smoke from power plants stops rising and simply spreads out flat. (The pic is from the university's coal-fired power plant on Saturday.)
Today the borough's Air Quality Index is unhealthy, meaning "everyone may begin to experience health effects." The main cause is PM 2.5, or fine particulate, which has been linked to everything from aggravated asthma to reduced lung function and premature death. The federal 24-hour standard is 35 micrograms per cubic meter. Yesterday's level here was 36.9 micrograms. Today's is 61.5.

coal - clean enough to bring inside?

2008-12-28T12:47:00.004-09:00

A story I helped write is out in the New York Times. Click here to see it. There's even a slide show. The story is about people burning coal for home heating, and how the high price of heating oil and natural gas (at least for the 18 months leading up to September, I guess) has renewed interest in the "alternative" fuel.
The idea first caught my attention up here when I read that some 400 tons were being burned each year in the Fairbanks borough. (Tons always seems like a lot, but coal is pretty bulky and heavy -- a typical home uses about 5 tons a winter.) Then, as often happens when new ideas come to your attention, I heard about coal everywhere -- my prof at UAF used to burn coal, the Golden Eagle Saloon burns coal, a friend of a friend burns coal. Honestly, I was surprised anyone was still burning coal. My parents had a small coal stove in New York City, but that was the 1970s.
Here in Alaska, the town of Healy, where the Usibelli coal mine is located, has burned coal for a long time -- at the school, the community center, and a big housing unit for tourism workers, among other places. The mine burns coal at its office building and maintenance shop, and miners get free coal as a job perk. But the trend in the last two years is startling. Lots of people who never burned coal before are starting to. Last year, the mine sold about 650 tons of coal for residential and small commercial. This year -- through October only -- it's already sold 1,500 tons. Here in Fairbanks, you can see people driving around with pickups filled with coal. The community food bank has switched to coal heat, along with about a dozen churches, a laundromat, and a few apartment buildings, according to the owner of North Pole Coal, which sells coal and coal stoves. Coal is locally available and cheap. Vendors say coal-burning technology is better now than decades ago, when pollution was less of a concern, and a lot of the heaters are outside, with buried pipes bringing hot water to the home. Handling coal still leaves your fingertips black, but would you really want to hold heating oil instead?
Coal gets a bad name for its carbon footprint, producing much more CO2 per unit of energy than oil or natural gas, and that's what seemed so backward to me at first -- that Americans would be switching to coal just as the rest of the world is trying to green up, or so it seems. But the numbers are small enough (only about 200,000 U.S. households burn coal, and it's a tiny amount compared to coal burned to make electricity) that the carbon impact isn't a huge deal. More important, at least here in Fairbanks, is what the coal burning is doing to air quality. Fine particulates are becoming a critical issue here, and it seems a cruel twist that people are switching to polluting wood and coal burning just as the borough is considering partial burn bans. And, according to some people, the coal furnaces stink.
The pics are of North Pole Coal's shaker-sorter at the Usibelli mine, an outdoor wood/coal furnace, and Mark Sanford, the owner of North Pole Coal.

when climate change isn't a future threat

2008-12-28T12:24:00.002-09:00

Remember Gov. Palin’s sub-cabinet on climate change? Remember its Immediate Action Work Group? Well, that group is still at it, and excuse me for venturing my thoughts after observing only a few hours of a meeting this week in Anchorage, but here goes.
The IAWG seems to be undergoing some growing pains. Last year, the group’s task was fairly clear – figure out which of the expected climate-related impacts have to be dealt with immediately and deal with them. The group did that – recommending and securing about $10 million in state funds for coastal communities threatened by erosion – and with such success that it decided to continue its mission beyond that initial time period.
Now the group’s mission seems less clear. It could simply do round 2, once again identifying immediate (next 12-18 months) needs and addressing them. Or it could expand its definition of “immediate” to include more communities or more threats. The goal of the meeting Monday was partly to identify criteria by which to evaluate new requests for help.
The issue is predictably complex.
First of all, what’s immediate? The working group does have language for assessing various threats, but most of the potential threats deal with coastal erosion, which is tough to predict. Based on historical storms and impacts, dozens or even hundreds of communities are at some risk. A smaller number are at greater risk, based on sea ice trends or the proximity of infrastructure to the shore. But in most cases, there’s no way to know whether the damaging storm will come next summer or five years from now. “The variability of this is extreme,” said John Madden of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
Second, what’s a climate impact? Scientists generally believe coastal erosion is increasing with warming temperatures and reductions in sea ice, but erosion has also been happening forever, since long before humans started changing the climate. The question of causality wasn't really an issue last year, as far as I know, but could be in the future. Officials in Ketchikan are blaming a climate-related increase in rainfall for damage to bridges, and officials in White Mountain point to climate change to explain falling river levels, bark beetle damage, and drying soils.
The challenges point to another, larger question the state will have to answer at some point – whether to respond to climate-related threats separately, or through an effort integrated within its departments. Last year, the IAWG addressed a need that was clearly not being met – a wide range of residents and government officials publicly testified to the lack of coordinating agency on the issue of coastal erosion. Things like wildfire management and bridge replacement, on the other hand, already fall under the purview of specific state departments, even if the factors influencing them are changing. The IAWG risks becoming an attractive funding option for local governments or departments frustrated with the slow arrival of cash for priority projects.
I don’t mean to suggest the IAWG is lost at sea. Its latest report – available in draft form on its Web site – is an impressive document.
In one sense, attributing the risks to climate change doesn’t really matter. Coastal erosion and wildfire threats must be addressed regardless of the cause. Extra funds could simply be added to departmental budgets for dealing with new challenges. And encouraging departments to plan for a changing climate seems easier than having a group of climate experts identify climate-related threats across all arenas, from infrastructure to fish and game.
The question of attribution is also complex – are community leaders really in a position to judge what’s causing a given threat? Figuring out if climate change is behind the erosion in a specific village would require at least a soils expert, a cryologist, an atmospheric scientist, and a roomful of elders.
But if the state wants to get serious about addressing climate change, creating a public awareness of its tangible costs would probably help. Imagine the impact of a budget line reading, “Projects for dealing with climate change - $100,000,000.” (Separate groups within the sub-cabinet are already looking at adaptation and mitigation measures.)
But that’s the big picture. At the meeting Monday, the IAWG was trying to figure out what to do in the next few months, mostly with coastal erosion. First there’s the question of which communities are at most risk. Then there’s the question of which projects will best address those risks, and whether it makes sense to invest in communities that may soon be forced to move.
Members seemed engaged and committed to their task, but I can imagine being overwhelmed by the complexity of the issue and the responsibility of assessing threats to life and infrastructure and allocating resources accordingly.
At one point, officials from a few villages were given the chance to testify. Over a scratchy phone connection, many hundreds of miles away, one tried to explain why his village was in danger and they needed money now. He spoke English, of course, but it wasn’t clear he was getting through. The IAWG consulted for a minute and decided he should apply for a specific grant. Just what he wanted to hear, I’m sure.

the hunt

2008-12-26T19:44:00.000-09:00

I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I'm getting pretty into hunting. I bought my first shotgun last month and have been out after ptarmigan, grouse, and hare when I have the time and the sun is up. The allure is partly just getting outside, but it's also something more -- something cultural or even spiritual, I guess. I'm far from being a subsistence hunter, and the supermarket is closer and easier than the woods, but a few weeks ago, as I was tramping through the snow and trees, it occurred to me that I was out there looking for food -- something people have done forever. I felt more in touch with that history, and more aware of the animals I was after. I went down rabbit trails. I followed grouse footprints in knee-deep snow. I saw the sunrise and the sunset. Yes, I could admire the animals without a gun, but there is something different about (respectfully) becoming part of the ecosystem as a predator in it.
The pics are from Murphy Dome (top two) and the hike a few weeks ago, along the Circle-Fairbanks Trail.

bernie karl's vision for alaska

2008-12-17T21:43:00.004-09:00

Can Alaska become energy independent?
That was the title of a talk tonight put on by the university's energy research center. It was supposed to be a panel discussion, but no one wanted to debate Bernie Karl, so it became a talk. Local author Niel Davis started with a brief history of energy use in Alaska -- he literally wrote the book on it -- and then it was on to Karl, whose "talk" was actually an hour-long, half-shouted rant that included a fair amount of cursing (about the foolishness of our addiction to oil, among other things) in the library auditorium.
Karl owns the Chena Hot Springs Resort off the grid about 60 miles from Fairbanks, which made some waves (and the Today Show) recently for its use of ground-breaking geothermal energy technology. Disneyland will be using similar technology soon, and Karl is trying to interest oil companies in it to make power from hot water raised during oil production. That project led to a brief affair with hydrogen electrolyzed with excess green power (not sure where that project's going) and some serious dabbling in year-round, sub-arctic greenhouse production, which enabled Karl's "better than sex" tomato soup. Next year Karl hopes to bring in a pair of small, electric vans made by disabled veterans in Minnesota.
One project that hasn't panned out is the petroleum-free village of 200 homes fueled by hot water (I think) and willows. But, as Karl says, you have to be OK with rejection if you're going to get serious about alternative energy. Or, better yet, turn that rejection into something positive.
The idea is something of a mantra to Karl -- take what others see as waste and make something good from it. Karl seems truly surprised -- and ashamed for us as humans -- that power plants waste perfectly good heat right up their smokestacks, along with huge amounts of water and carbon dioxide. One of Karl's other businesses is a giant recycling center near North Pole that stockpiles and sells scrap metal. And his latest energy scheme is firmly based in the idea of making use of waste. The plan is to build a "smokestack-free" power plant based on the Chena technology but fueled by waste paper, cardboard, and willow rather than hot water. The plant will be located at his recycling plant and rely on 600 acres of willow grown on a three-year rotation. Waste heat and water will fuel a 1-acre greenhouse producing 3,300 heads of lettuce a day. CO2 will feed single-cell algae and, in times of excess, the willow farm. (Karl doesn't have a clue how extra CO2 will affect plant growth, but would rather test it on 600 acres than on a few trees in a lab.)
Somewhere in the middle of explaining his vision of sustainability and trying to prove his sanity, Karl took out his rubber-band wallet and flipped through a wad of bills, saying, "I turn it all to green." ("It all" in this case being household waste, heat, water, pollution, and so on.)
Karl is a journalist's dream. He's remarkably entertaining and quotable, to the point that anyone speaking after him seems unimaginative and overly serious. But he's also a nightmare in the sense that you never know if he's for real. I've seen the tomatoes and soaked in the hot springs, so I know they're real. But Romanian willow farming? NASA sampling the algae at Chena? Maybe it's irrelevant, but he's also un-PC in a way that can make you cringe and not just laugh.
When Karl finished his rant, he held a friend's young baby in one arm and explained how the economics of green-power projects look better when you consider the value of not trashing the earth. "It's their future," he said. "What value do you put on that?" The baby stared at the side of Karl's head, then started to whine.
I'm not sure Karl ever directly answered the question at hand -- whether Alaskans can really heat their homes, power their tools, and fuel their cars with sun, water, and algae -- but the implication was yes. According to Karl, the only things missing are vision and some imagination.
"Sustainability is there -- if you want it," he said.

climate spending

2008-12-15T14:54:00.015-09:00

Gov. Palin released her 2010 budget plan yesterday, and while she hasn't exactly pitched a plan for tackling climate change, there is a fair amount of climate-related spending. Palin is proposing to spend about $6 million to deal with coastal erosion ($3 million for Shishmaref, $2 million for Newtok, $800,000 for Koyukuk) and another $50 million to jump start renewable energy projects (a legislative mandate). She included $184,000 for her own climate change sub-cabinet group, which is studying adaptation and mitigation measures, and another $300,000 for the state's climate change impact mitigation program, which started last year. There's also $5 million for public housing energy-efficiency upgrades, which are apparently a HUD requirement. Minus the $300 million shot in the arm for weatherization and energy efficiency programs, that's about what the state spent this year.
It's hard to really judge Palin's plan for dealing with climate change. On the one hand, the spending on coastal erosion is significant, and the money for renewables -- if lawmakers allow it to be spent -- is huge. On the other hand, Palin's spending is not a direct acknowledgement of the human role in climate change -- coastal erosion is an emergency no matter what caused it, and renewable energy is attractive economically. The governor has been less generous with things that only make sense if you acknowledge the human role. (To be clear, Palin does acknowledge a human role, but seems skeptical -- like many Alaskans -- of the IPCC assetion that humans are responsible for most of the recent warming.) Palin's sub-cabinet is taking the bargain-basement approach to crafting its climate action plan, as far as I can tell, and the governor has been reluctant to increase funding for climate-related research. This year, when the university asked for new money for energy, engineering, and climate-related programs, the governor went with energy alone. Then again, the focus is renewable energy.

the power of green building

2008-12-12T14:37:00.003-09:00

John Davies, a geophysicist and research director at the Fairbanks-based Cold Climate Housing Research Center, got a little choked up today talking about green building. Well, to be fair, he got choked up recounting how Desmond Tutu, at a green building conference last month in Boston, explained to a bunch of builders how the election of Barack Obama had restored "the world's" faith in democracy. Whatever. In any case, Davies' passion for green building was clear.
Davies was giving a primer on the relatively new LEED program for residential buildings (and, more generally, the benefits of building smart) to a Democratic party group here in Fairbanks. The residential certification program, put together by the US Green Building Council, follows the commercial LEED program that's been in place for years. It takes into account everything from site selection and building materials to air quality and energy use. Builders must meet basic criteria in all fields, then earn the extra points needed for certification by doing extra things within any field. Certification comes in different levels -- silver, gold, and platinum -- and can even apply to entire neighborhoods.
The way Davies described it, green building done right is a win-win all around. It's healthier, better for the environment, and saves money. Even if the upfront construction cost is higher, the energy savings make up for the higher costs. (Combined mortgage and utility costs are typically lower, Davies claimed.)
This got me thinking. Surely people consider the "operating cost" of a home before buying or building -- but not like they consider the miles per gallon on a car. I asked Davies about this after and he said people often don't consider operating costs, and would have a hard time estimating those costs if they did. Davies likes the idea of requiring an energy audit upon sale of a house, or even a Energy Star-like rating for a house -- stick it on the breaker box.
When I asked why anyone wouldn't go green, his first answer was "sloth." People have other stuff to do, he said. But it's also a lack of education, he added. Home builders need to know how to design and install the stuff, and homeowners need to know how to maintain it.
Davies tossed out some impressive numbers on green building -- 30 to 60 percent less energy, 70 percent less waste -- and mentioned Obama's ambitious plans for greening the economy. But echoing Tutu, he also warned against aiming too low -- billions of people using small amounts of finite resources won't work in the long run. "Less bad isn't good enough," he said.
We need zero-emissions homes, zero-energy homes, Davies went on. "It's a pretty daunting challenge."
When he first considered the challenge, Davies recalled, he thought, "Zero-energy homes in Fairbanks? How the heck do we do that!?" But that's what we need.
Davies got kind of serious. I could see the former state lawmaker in him.
"We have to get to sustainability," he said, "or eventually Mother Nature will get her revenge."

the reasons i'm here

2008-11-10T13:57:00.006-09:00

Excuse my delinquency. I've been taking advantage of a flexible schedule and some outdoorsy friends to get outside and enjoy the best of Alaska. Over Halloween weekend I did another caribou hunt with my friends Ian and Trystan up on the haul road. The obligatory 5-mile hike out only added to the adventure.
This last weekend, I skied with some other friends the 11 miles out to Tolovana Hot Springs -- a few rustic cabins and natural hot tubs tucked away in a recently burned black spruce forest. It was about 10 degrees the night we stayed there, and the wind blew hard the next morning. Ice crystals formed in our hair as we soaked in the tubs

temperature change

2008-10-26T13:13:00.003-08:00

No, not global warming, just coming back to Alaska from Virginia. I got back Sunday night and pretty much stayed inside all week. It's been unusually cold for October -- this weekend the high is about 10 degrees -- and I've been a bit of a wimp. I went out Friday night and the car started doing those wintery things -- the oil is thick like molasses, the tires are hard, the suspension stiff, and I'm pretty sure the crack in my windshield got a little longer when I turned on the defrost. Anyway, I finally went outside yesterday, first to help a friend put a roof on his cabin, then to ski around the dog mushing trails, and realized the cold isn't all that bad if you just dress for it. Today it's sunny and beautiful.

wild. wonderful. coal.

2008-10-18T09:44:00.007-08:00

Larry Gibson isn’t impressive in stature. He’s not much more than 5 feet tall, has a bit of a belly, and was wearing Velcro shoes and a bright yellow T-shirt when we met him Thursday – so he wouldn’t get shot, he half-joked.
But he is an impressive speaker. Gibson is an advocate against mountaintop coal mining, and he apparently gets quite a bit of press. His T-shirt read, “WE ARE THE KEEPERS OF THE MOUNTAINS. LOVE THEM OR LEAVE THEM, JUST DON’T DESTROY THEM.” Then it listed a few phone numbers.
“I don’t want to just be seen,” Gibson told me and a big group of reporters on a coal-focused field trip, "I want to be heard." (I’m at the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual conference.) We had driven about three hours from Roanoke, Virginia to eastern West Virginia and climbed a long dirt drive to a small collection of homes. Now we were standing under a tin-roofed shed and listening closely.
Gibson wanted us – and the people who read what we write – to hear how coal was fouling the air and making people sick, how it wasn’t sustainable or necessary (he’s pushing for wind turbines on mountain tops instead), and how mining jobs weren’t that great anyway.
We took notes and snapped pictures as he talked.
When Gibson finished, he introduced his friend, Chuck Nelson, a retired underground miner. Nelson had wrinkled, dark skin and big bags under his eyes, and before he spoke, I wondered if he’d been crippled in some way by his profession. (It turned out he wasn’t.)
Nelson’s case was also multi-faceted. With mountaintop mining, the jobs have shrunk dramatically; people are getting sick in awful ways (brain cancer, gall bladder problems); and mining is destroying the land. Nelson said he used to pick wild ginseng, gather nuts, and hunt – “Everything we needed, the land provided for us,” he said. Now it’s useless.
Nelson held a half-pint mason jar as he talked. He argued that coal was neither “cheap” – at least for people living here – nor clean, and said mining coal was even dirtier than burning it. He talked about sludge ponds and a particular disaster where one fell apart and spilled.
“This is some of the sludge that come outta that pond,” he said, holding up the Mason jar.
The jar got most of the way around the group before one woman unscrewed the cap and popped the lid off like it was a jar of jelly. The sludge was thick and dark and had globs of stuff in it. One reporter snapped a picture with his iPhone; another touched the substance – as if in solidarity – then wiped his finger on his sock. Nelson charged that big papers and politicians had failed to act because they were bought out by the coal industry.
It started to drizzle, so we set off to see the mine before the rain came. We hiked down a rocky road past big walnut trees and trailer homes with furniture outside, then up a slight hill till we reached a metal gate. Gibson called it the “Gate of Life." Before it was natural and alive, he said. Beyond it was dead.
Gibson explained that we’d actually be on mine property once we crossed it, adding that he personally didn’t mind getting arrested. He’d been arrested before, he said.
A man with a video camera filmed as Gibson spoke.
We climbed through the gate and followed Gibson up a grassy trail and out onto a small plateau. A little further, the land dropped off beneath us and the mine appeared below. Haul trucks rumbled along wide dirt roads with loads of rock, dumping the waste over dirt banks. The mine itself was a combination of flat spots and uniform slopes. One knob in the distance was still covered in trees.
The mine has already taken down the mountain about 900 feet in four years, Gibson told us, and has another four years of mining to go. “This mountain’s got 39 seems of coal,” he said.
Off to the right, a slope was covered with a man-made product aimed at restarting plant growth. To the left, charges were already set in the rock. In the distance, the leaves on the trees were starting to turn gold.

Our next stop was another mine a 45-minute drive away. This time we had permission, and guides from the mine and a West Virginia mining association.
The mine’s general manager, Rocky Hatworth (I think), got on the bus and joked about bringing a bunch of reporters to a coal mine. (The suggestion was that environmental reporters are environmental advocates, a label I try hard to avoid myself, but that’s another story.)
We drove up another dirt road to the mine site and parked on a wide, flat spot above the operations. A miner followed us there in a big haul truck, and when he parked it next to the bus, reporters went over to have their pictures taken by the giant tires. Down the hill, the ground was shaped in rigid contours, some of it with grass starting to grow back. Haul trucks carried loads of dirt and dumped them over a bank. Reforestation techniques are getting much better, the mining association guy told us.
We gathered by a small cabin parked on the dirt and met the mine’s owner, Andrew Jordon. Jordon is huge, but has a boyish and gentle look. Despite the cool air and drizzle, he wore only a T-shirt.
Jordon talked about growing up in the area and hunting in the hills around the mine. He explained how he got his degree in mining engineering, started his company, and developed the mine.
“To me, it’s very important to do this right,” he said.
Jordon said the hunting was still good around the mine and explained that the cabin was actually a hunting cabin for his employees. The cabin was built entirely of oak – from floorboards to bunk beds – that workers had rough cut from local trees. (They don’t just mine the mountain; they cut the forests on top.)
Jordon and Hatworth talked about replacing topsoil, bringing back local trees, and working with local university researchers to find the best ways to reclaim the land. In short, they argued that the impact on the land didn’t have to be that bad, or even negative at all – the woods would come back, and the valleys they filled in didn’t have real streams anyway. It seemed like they believed it.
The mine was fading into fog and drizzle, but we could still see the new shape of the land and the old shape of the hills around it.
Some, I thought, would see little more than destruction and waste in the vista. I figured Jordon saw something more like temporary disturbance.
Reporters huddled around and interviewed the coal guys, who were friendly and funny and not like the big, bad “coal industry” one hears.
I asked Jordon an admittedly vague question: If everyone agreed on the facts – the impacts on streams and forests, for instance – would there still be a battle over the more subjective things, like the importance of local jobs and the value of leaving a mountain a mountain?
Yeah, probably, he told me. People who don’t support the surface mining just don’t want things to change, he said.
A few minutes later, we boarded the bus and started back to Roanoke, surrounded, it seemed, by coal. Coal filled trucks on the road and barges in the river and thin seems in the rock cuts of the interstate.

coal country

2008-10-16T05:31:00.001-08:00

Misty mountains, grazing cattle, golden fall colors, and rocky streams. I'm in West Virginia today on a field trip with the Society of Environmental Journalists to learn more about mountain top coal mining. We're getting a somewhat lopsided perspective on the issue from local academics and others, namely that mountain top mining and maybe even coal mining altogether needs to stop. I say lopsided because of the real value of the mining jobs and the overwhelming local political support for coal mining. That said, it's not hard to see the destruction of landscapes as a huge loss and real lack of vision.

winter

2008-10-09T22:10:00.003-08:00

Back on the skis!

source or sink?

2008-10-08T14:18:00.002-08:00

UAF prof Chien-Lu Ping has published new findings about the potential for arctic tundra to spew huge amounts of carbon dioxide and methane. Basically, Ping went around the state with a jackhammer (and willing helpers!) and dug test pits in the frozen ground -- more than 100 in all, according to a news release from the university. He found there was a layer of organic matter just above the permafrost and in the top of the permafrost that scientists hadn't accounted for and that could release large amounts of greenhouse gases under continued warming.
According to the release, Ping predicts that a 2-3 degree rise in temperature (unclear whether that's C or F) could switch the tundra from a carbon sink to a carbon source. I need to research that more, because there's been talk for a decade about the arctic tundra becoming a carbon source, although I do remember something about flaws in those old findings...
Photo courtesy of UAF.

critical habitat on the way - maybe

2008-10-06T20:20:00.007-08:00

Conservation groups have reached agreement with the feds on one big issue related to the polar bear listing -- the designation of critical habitat -- although it's still unclear what will come of it. The agreement came Monday in the form of a settlement between the Center for Biological Diversity and two other green groups on one side and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and the US Fish and Wildlife Service on the other. Basically it forces the feds to make a final determination on critical habitat by June 2010 and issue final guidelines for bear deterrence procedures by March 2010 (and issue proposed guidelines and determination in time to meet those deadlines). Conservation folks say the feds were supposed to do the habitat listing already (the law actually allows an extra year in cases where critical habitat is "not then determinable") and say they've been slacking on designations with other species listed under the Endangered Species Act. The agreement is essentially an affirmation of existing law, but an important one, according to conservation groups.
That said, it's still unclear whether any habitat will be designated.
"The difficulty is that the ocean per se is not the habitat, the sea ice on the ocean is the habitat," FWS spokesman Bruce Woods told me last month. And the sea ice is constantly moving.
Conservation folks, meanwhile, say it would be a complete violation of the law not to designate any habitat.
The designation of critical habitat steps up protection for the animal by barring activities that would jeopardize the habitat (and not just the species), and by extending Sec. 7 consultation requirements "from the critter to the critical habitat," as Woods put it. Federal agencies would be barred from doing anything, such as permitting oil and gas exploration, in a designated area if the action would result in "destruction or adverse modification" of the critical habitat.
"It could have a pretty big impact," an attorney for CBD told me last month.
But the Interior Secretary also has some discretion in designating habitat. Critical habitat is defined as areas within the species' range "on which are found those physical or biological features (I) essential to the conservation of the species and (II) which may require special management considerations or protection." (The Secretary can also designate some areas outside the species' range if those are found "essential for the conservation of the species.")
Unlike with the listing itself, the Secretary can -- and must -- consider economic impacts of designating critical habitat. "The Secretary shall designate critical habitat . . . on the basis of the best scientific data available and after taking into consideration the economic impact, and any other relevant impact, of specifying any particular area as critical habitat." The Secretary is only required to designate a certain area if he determines, based on the best science available, that failure to do so "will result in the extinction of the species."
The other part of the settlement forces the feds to come up with guidelines for the non-lethal deterrence of bears that pose a threat to public safety.
The conservation groups are still seeking to have the bear listed as endangered rather than threatened and to overturn the special rule issued along with the listing.
For what it's worth, the settlement is technically a victory for the conservation groups. Under the agreement, the feds acknowledge the plaintiffs (the three enviro groups) are the "prevailing parties" regarding the two issues and agree to pay for plaintiffs' legal costs.

parsing palin's language

2008-10-03T11:54:00.002-08:00

Palin offered a few more clues last night on her position on climate change, although she spoke so generally as to not really say much at all.
In response to Gwen Ifill's question, Palin first acknowledged that the climate was changing. Then she said she's "not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in climate." (Isn't that backwards?) "There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet," Palin said.
Biden was more direct. "The cause is man-made. That's the cause. That's why the polar icecap is melting," he said.
Taken simply at face value, I bet most scientists would be more comfortable with Palin's conclusion -- at least here in Alaska, it's pretty clear that cyclical patterns are playing a significant role in the recent warming. But in the context of the climate "debate," Palin's language signifies skepticism of the current scientific understanding while Biden's signifies trust in it.
Palin also echoed the idea she offered to Katie Couric, namely that the causes don't matter so much as the solutions. But those solutions don't make sense without an acknowledgement of the causes, and Palin's subsequent statements demonstrated that she at least sees human activities as a factor in climate change. Palin said she supports capping emissions of greenhouse gases and wants to ensure that other countries are also subject to caps. "We've got to reduce emissions," she said.
Andy Revkin at the NY Times had some good points on the vagueness of both candidates' comments on cap-and-trade legislation and "clean coal."

palin v polar bear

2008-10-03T11:27:00.003-08:00

Palin might point out that her beef is with the Interior Secretary (for listing the bears as threatened) and not with the bears themselves, but here's a witty analysis from the Guardian on how Palin might fare in a battle with a bear -- pretty well, it concludes, "unless the Alaska Legislature suddenly decides to uphold the right to arm bears." Read the whole thing here.
The polar bear listing is a legal mess right now. Palin has sued Secretary Kempthorne in an effort to overturn it completely. The oil group API (et al.) and the Center for Biological Diversity have both sued over the special rule Kempthorne wants to use, although with different requests. The CBD also wants the bear listed as endangered rather than threatened, which would require stronger protections.
The special rule was implimented immediately at the time of the listing in May, but only on an interim basis because it hadn't gone out to public comment. The public comment period is done now, but the Interior Department has yet to issue a final special rule.
I wrote a summary of the bear listing last week for Petroleum News.

palin and climate

2008-10-02T19:32:00.002-08:00

I was too busy grabbing quotes from folks at the Big I tonight to hear Palin's comments on climate change, but I did write something yesterday about her record on the subject. Basically, I argued that her hesitation to blame human activities could partly be populist politics, and that, whatever her motivation and beliefs, she's actually done some meaningful stuff. (And that a time will come when she really has to act or not.)
Anyway, that's at Alaska Dispatch.
A blogger at the Christian Science Monitor also looked into Palin's record and particularly the question of how one can address climate change without acknowledging its causes.

waiting for walrus

2008-10-02T10:58:00.006-08:00

Last summer, the sudden shrinking of sea ice and subsequent haul-outs of thousands of walrus caught scientists somewhat off guard. This summer, they were ready.
Chad Jay, a research ecologist with the USGS in Anchorage, had lined up a hunter in Point Lay and was ready to tag walrus there and in Cape Lisburne to help figure out how the walrus survived when they couldn't rely on ice.
"Basically we were all set, ready to go, tags in hand and just kind of waiting for the walruses to come to shore," Jay told me today. "But they never did."
A few reports have trickled in of walrus hauling out, but nothing like last summer, when walrus lined the beaches and caused scientists to worry about potential stampedes. This year, the lack of haul-outs came as something of a surprise.
And not because the sea ice didn't shrink. The ice did what scientists expected and disappeared far to the north, Jay said. It's just that bits of ice remained.
"There were some small oases -- micro bits of ice -- that were enough to sustain animals in offshore waters," said Joel Garlich-Miller, a walrus expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Satellite images couldn't pick up the ice chunks, but people passing in boats could.
"We were wondering," Garlich-Miller said, because walrus the USGS had already tagged were showing up in places satellite images showed to be ice-free. "We were wondering what was holding them there."
The lesson, or one lesson anyway, is that it's not just the size and location of the main ice pack that matters, but the quality of the ice there and elsewhere. (Sea ice extent measures the area of water covered by a certain density of ice.) UAF's David Atkinson stressed this point to me last year; this drove it home.
Generally speaking, 2008 was another grim year for sea ice. For the month of September, the average extent was 1.8 million square miles, the second-lowest figure in the 30-year satellite record and only about 9 percent more than last summer's record low, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. The drop in 2008 made it harder to see 2007 as an anomaly.
Mark Serreze, the oft-quoted NSIDC scientist, said last year the Arctic was "screaming." In a news release posted today, his language was less colorful but no less urgent. "Both within and beyond the Arctic, the implications of the decline are enormous," he said.
And while there was more ice cover than in 2007, scientists suspect there was less ice volume, as the proportion of thick, multi-year ice continued to shrink, according to the release.
Dwindling sea ice was the main justification for the Interior Department's decision in May to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Conservation groups are pushing for similar designations for walrus and four species of ice-dependent seals.
As the ice shrinks, scientists expect bears and walrus to spend more time on land, where finding enough food becomes an issue. That's what Jay was trying to figure out -- how and where the walrus feed when the do have to haul out. But he's doubtful any big haul-outs will happen this year.
"It's good for them," he said, "not good for us, looking to learn about their behavior.
"We'll try again next year," he added.

fairbanks emissions

2008-10-01T20:42:00.003-08:00

Fairbanks got a report card last week in the form of a borough-wide greenhouse gas emissions inventory. How'd we do? Depends on how you look at it. Borough residents produced the equivalent of about 39 metric tons (about 85,000 pounds) of carbon dioxide per person per year (excluding any emissions from airplanes), which is quite a bit higher than the national average of 24 metric tons. But if you factor in the need for space heating up here, which overwhelms the need for heating and cooling in the Lower 48, we actually do more with less CO2, so to speak. In the big picture, of course, 85,000 pounds per person is completely unsustainable, but that's another story.
The inventory was done by the University of Alaska Fairbanks' energy research center, the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, under the direction of Gwen Holdmann, the woman behind many of the energy projects at Chena Hot Springs. It serves a few purposes. First, it completes the first step in the borough's efforts to reduce its emissions through the ICLEI Cities for Climate Protection program. Second, it provides a baseline against which to evaluate the coal-to-liquids project some are pushing hard for the Fairbanks area. Proponents have promised to only support the project if it would reduce emissions overall.
The state finished its own inventory last year.
I won't bore you with too many details from the Fairbanks inventory, but here are a few that stood out to me.
-Each resident is responsible for about 500 gallons of heating fuel per year just for residential heating and 3,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity
-Coal-fired generation is a killer
-The Flint Hills refinery in North Pole, which burns mostly light straight run gasoline, is responsible for nearly 1/10th of the borough's emissions
-Lots of people drive pickups (there's about 1 registered pickup for every 2 cars)
-Eielson Air Force Base blows through about 45 million gallons of jet fuel every year, which produces more CO2 than all other non-aviation transportation in the borough
The full report is available at the ACEP Web site. Anchorage, Juneau, Kodiak, and Homer have also teamed up with ICLEI, so presumably they've done them, too.
Here's a shot of the Golden Heart City from the Chena River.

the noatak!

2008-09-29T12:13:00.002-08:00

I'm back! Actually, we've been back for a few weeks; I've just been a lazy blogger. But hey, it's summer in Alaska. Here's one of my favorite pics from the high peaks up at the Noatak River headwaters. And here's the account I penned for the News-Miner. While we were up there, Anchorage-based writer Bill Sherwonit was on his own adventure. And my paddling partner Diana's brother Sam was having another not far away. If it sounds crowded, it's not. The land up there is amazing -- wild even by Alaska standards. I quit the News-Miner in July and am working as a freelancer. I've been writing for Petroleum News and a bit for the French news agency AFP and the new Alaska-focused online rag Alaska Dispatch. The goal is to have more time to write about energy and climate change. And, of course, more time to get outside . . .

climate change in Alaska

2008-08-01T11:22:00.002-08:00

My opus on climate change in Alaska is finally out in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. It looks at four different areas that are already changing or might see big change in the future. It's just a start at that, and also skips completely any talk of what the state is doing or should be doing to respond. So there's stories to come!
You can find the series here.
On another note, I've left the News-Miner after two and a half pretty exciting years and am trying my hand at freelance. The goal is to spend more time writing about climate change, energy, and how Alaskans choose to use their incredible land (i.e., development issues).
But first, I'm going paddling for a few weeks way up north in the Brooks Range. Bears, wolves, grayling with giant sailfins. We're paddling the Noatak, a wild river even by Alaska standards....

renewables

2008-06-27T08:19:00.003-08:00

I got to write about renewables today. Here's the story, but first...
This is pretty amazing.
For one, these aren't small projects. I looked mostly at the ones sponsored by Golden Valley up in Fairbanks, two of which top out at 50 megawatts. GVEA's entire load is a little over 200MW.
Second, they seem to make economic sense, in that they'll save more money over the long run than they cost to build, in some cases two or three times as much. This sounds obvious, but in a lot of places customers are willing to pay a premium for "green" power. Here the green isn't even counted as a benefit and is simply icing on the cake.
Third, I'm pretty sure these are the conventional projects -- solar thermal, in-river hydro, wind power, geothermal. The state isn't funding the really far out stuff yet.
And last, this is just the start. Not all these projects will get built, most likely, but if $5 million in grants jumpstarts a few $10 million or $100 million projects, imagine what $50 million in grant money will do next year.

JUNEAU — With a little help from the state, Golden Valley Electric Association is looking to cut back on fossil fuels and start making hot water and power from the sun, the wind and the Nenana River current.
The Alaska Energy Authority, a public corporation of the state, this week gave the utility $212,000 to study four alternative energy projects across Golden Valley’s coverage area.
Two projects involve hydropower. The first would generate up to 50 megawatts of electricity at a dam on the Tanana River near Delta Junction. The second would make 10 megawatts of power from the Nenana River near Healy using generating units in the river rather than a dam.
A third project would generate up to 50 megawatts from wind turbines in the Eva Creek area near Healy, and the fourth would actually cut electricity usage by relying on solar energy to heat water at two facilities near Denali National Park and Preserve.
“This is kind of an opportunity to come up with some things that might be a little outside the box,” Golden Valley spokeswoman Dianne Porter said Thursday.
The grants are small in relation to the overall project costs. AEA put just $60,000 toward the dam project, which is expected to cost $130 million.
Porter said the grants will allow Golden Valley to assess the feasibility of the projects without using members’ money. The utility has pursued the wind power project for years, but the others are relatively new.
A total of about $5 million in grants was awarded statewide through a collaborative effort between AEA and the Denali Commission, a federal-state partnership.
Most of the 33 grants were awarded for pre-construction studies, but some grants were given for construction of alternative energy projects, including a geothermal power plant at Manley Hot Springs and a wood-fired heating system in Fort Yukon.
To qualify for the grants, project sponsors had to show the projects would save enough money in displaced fossil-fuel costs to offset the cost of construction. Three of the Golden Valley projects — all but the solar thermal project — are expected to pay for themselves two or three times over.
Karsten Rodvik, a spokesman for AEA, described the grants as a first step toward displacing costly fossil fuels and bringing down the cost of energy.
“The goal, of course, is the development of a long-term plan that provides low-cost, reliable, sustainable power,” he said.
According to Rodvik, AEA is planning to issue a similar request for proposals this summer for $50 million in grant money, or 10 times what was awarded this week, although the project criteria will likely be different.
The grants are considered helpful because alternative energy projects typically cost more to build than conventional energy projects. The projects can ultimately save money because they don’t require fuel.
State lawmakers and Gov. Sarah Palin agreed this year to put $250 million toward alternative energy projects during the next five years.

summer

2008-06-22T10:29:00.004-08:00

What better way to welcome summer than with some snowboarding?
Here's Gold Ridge at 6:45 a.m. It's been light since about 2:30.

gold ridge

2008-06-11T22:09:00.006-08:00

I hiked up the ridge again yesterday, this time with a friend and my ski-swap snowboard. We went as high as Gold Ridge, then turned around and came down in soft snow and steep terrain. Julie fell in a crevasse and I crashed hard, but otherwise it was a pretty mellow, wonderful Juneau hike. We saw ptarmigan (and their black fan tails) and a fat marmot. Still plenty of snow.

treadwell ditch

2008-06-11T10:15:00.007-08:00

Another trip report here.
I tried this one last week, and it turned out to be kind of a disaster. I told someone about if after and she said, Oh yeah, everyone tries riding the Treadwell Ditch Trail once.
The problem is, the trail sounds sweet. It follows a ditch (an inglorious name for a pretty neat piece of engineering) that was cut into the mountains and brought water from various streams from one end of Douglas Island to the other for mining operations 100 years ago. It's basically a dozen miles of downhill singletrack.
I started at the beginning, which you can access by slogging through some mud off the road to Eaglecrest. The forest is rich and green and wild, even if you can still hear cars on the road. I saw a bear climb into the woods about 40 yards away, and three porcupines over the course of the day. The trail was gently downhill, as I expected, but was not very rideable. I probably dismounted 75 times or so, and crashed about a dozen times, at one point grabbing hold of a sapling as I flipped over the handlebars and into a patch of devils club. (I still have the needles in my hand.)
The number and diversity of obstacles was almost laughable -- roots, rocks, wash-outs, avalanches, downed trees, a landslide, log bridges, collapsed bridges, foot-numbing streams, snow, and mud. I think that's it. I rode for about six hours and gave up above the town of Douglas when I reached Paris Creek without a bridge and no visible route up the other bank.
I'd like to say there are nice sections worth riding, but the trail pretty much stunk, at least for biking.

my sunday

2008-06-08T14:31:00.002-08:00

I've been wanting to do this trip for weeks, so this morning I tried it -- hiking up past the tram to Gold Ridge, past Gastineau Peak, and over Mount Roberts to Sheep Mountain, then skiing down to the Perseverence Trail. I made it to Roberts but ended up in blinding clouds and, believe it or not, light snow. I turned around after starting down the wrong ridge because I couldn't see anything. When I could see the ridge toward Sheep, it was narrow, scary, and covered in cracked cornices. I ended up skiing down from Gastineau to the trail through Icy Gulch, which was filled with the snow of many avalanches. Toward the bottom, a sizable stream flowed under the snow and popped out where there were holes.

palin on bears

2008-05-30T11:04:00.002-08:00

Gov. Palin was on Fox News Wednesday talking about the state's decision to sue over the polar bear listing. A few things of note:
-She's openly expressing concerns about impacts on development now, instead of just criticizing the scientific evidence.
-She's using the claim that U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens has been using about polar bears having a healthy population that's increased dramatically in the last 30 years. (I'm not sure to what extent that's true.)
-She's adopted the term "extreme environmentalists."

. . . But, you know, I will tell you, Neil, as you know, if extreme environmentalists have their way — and we do believe that what they would like to see, some of them, is oil and gas development shut down on Alaska's North Slope — then the economic impact to our nation would really be catastrophic there. . . .

Click here for a transcript.

the science according to murkowski

2008-05-30T10:39:00.002-08:00

How do you explain climate change to a skeptical public?
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski spoke at the Alaska Municipal League's climate change conference yesterday, largely about the details of the Lieberman-Warner climate bill and recent changes to it, but also about her reasons for supporting some kind of climate bill at all. She and Sen. Ted Stevens have long acknowledged changes in Alaska's climate, but both still publicly question a human role in them. Here, according to a written version of her speech, Murkowski seems to be very carefully making a case for action without beating anyone over the head with the IPCC findings. First she talks about all the changes Alaskans are seeing in the land, snow and ice, and plants and animals.

. . .What we can’t know for sure, is whether the changes are the result of a natural climate variation caused by an increase in radiation from the sun, a wobble in the earth’s orbit, or a change in Atlantic and Pacific ocean currents that is dragging warmer water into the Arctic Ocean. We certainly know the latter is happening. What we don’t know is whether the ocean current changes are a symptom of climate change or a cause of it.

Scientists, who have worked on the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, certainly believe the ultimate cause is the documented increase in man-made carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases that we have added to the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution.

The scientific case is strong that carbon emissions will raise a planet’s temperature, just look at Mercury. But since mother nature, due to volcanic eruptions, ocean warming, or permafrost thaw, can pump so much more carbon into the atmosphere than man can, for some there is an issue whether it makes sense for us to spend vast amounts to reduce our carbon emissions, since natural or worldwide emissions can dwarf whatever Americans do to eliminate or reduce carbon emissions. For them adaptation, not prevention is key.

I personally am of the belief that we should move to cut carbon emissions where we can without harmful costs to our economy and way of life, even if only as an insurance policy against significant atmospheric change, and because it might help to lower those adaptation costs in the future. We should do it just in case all those computer models and all those horror stories about sea level rise, ocean acidification, permafrost melt, killer hurricanes, deepening drought, global starvation and civil unrest may actually occur. . . .

Click here to read the full speech.

sun and other news

2008-05-29T11:04:00.003-08:00

It's been sunny and warm in Juneau for almost a week now. People are getting burned and tan, a little puzzled, and some even uneasy about the amount of sun. Instead of chance of rain 100 percent, it's chance of rain 20 percent.
Anyway, excuse the delay. I've been outside.
In terms of news...
The Alaska Municipal League is hosting a big conference on climate change this week in Anchorage, which looks pretty cool. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is scheduled to speak today.
The Anchorage Daily News had an editorial and KTUU had a story on the polar bear listing, and APRN did something on efforts to get other ice-dependent animals listed. Andy Revkin at the NY Times wrote about polar nations meeting and agreeing to be sensible with land claims as the arctic ice melts.

. . . The meeting capped a frenetic year of Arctic activity as countries vied to demonstrate their polar hegemony with a mix of rhetoric, military maneuvers and, in the case of Russia, a submarine voyage to the seabed at the North Pole.
One of the two participating minisubmarines left a titanium national flag on the bottom, 14,000 feet beneath the shifting sea ice. . . .

In national news, Wired did a big piece on climate change and how we might have to rethink some common assumptions about dealing with it. NPR did a story about their story. And Revkin wrote about a new U.S. gov report on the impacts of climate change.

will the listing help?

2008-05-26T11:04:00.002-08:00

Much of the response to the polar bear listing -- from many sides -- seems to involve a viewpoint justifying incomplete information and exaggerations. Here's a column that's at least cool-headed and seemingly well-researched about the potential impact of the listing. It's by Chanda Meek, who's working on her PdD at UAF.

gov to sue over bears

2008-05-21T13:21:00.002-08:00

A week ago, I wrote that Gov. Palin was being rather conciliatory about the polar bear listing. The statement from her office said the state would work with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat and develop necessary conservation measures. "While the state is disappointed with this decision, Governor Palin said, the state stands ready to assist the USFWS to ensure that polar bear populations remain viable for decades to come."
Today Palin announced the state would sue over the listing.

. . . [T]he state maintains that there is insufficient evidence to support a listing of the polar bear as threatened for any reason at this time. Polar bears are currently well-managed and have dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation measures enacted through international agreements and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. A listing of the polar bear under the ESA will not provide additional conservation measures. . . . The Secretary’s decision to list a currently healthy species is based on not only the uncertain modeling of future climate change, but also the unproven long-term impact of any future climate change on the species. . . .

Palin said the state would also monitor -- and potentially intervene in -- litigation filed by conservation groups aimed at using the listing as a way to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. “Inappropriate implementation of this listing decision could result in widespread social and economic impacts, including increased power costs and further increases in fuel prices, without providing any more protection for the species,” natural resources commissioner Tom Irwin said in a statement.
As far as I can tell, this is the first time Palin's administration has explicitly expressed concerns about the impact of the listing on development (if that's indeed what Irwin was talking about). Before, the focus was exclusively on the merits of the science.
On that issue, Palin is reportedly relying on information she won't disclose from scientists who, as I understand it, aren't really experts in the field. Tom Kizzia over at the Anchorage Daily News looked into where the state was getting its info and wrote this, which largely profiles the Department of Fish and Game's Ken Taylor.

. . . With limited peer-reviewed science available that concludes the bears are doing fine, however, the state devotes most of its space to challenging everyone else's work.
That pits Taylor and his staff -- and several national consultants from the warming-is-overblown camp -- against polar bear biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and leading international authorities in the World Conservation Union's Polar Bear Specialist Group, not to mention the climatologists of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. . . .

Click here for the whole story.

polar bear suits

2008-05-21T10:10:00.011-08:00

Lawsuits, not fur suits.
Conservation groups are suing the Interior Dept over the refusal to use the new polar bear listing to address greenhouse gases, according to this AP story by Dan Joling.
Also of note is Gov Palin's statement on potential litigation, which came out a few days before.

. . . By exempting oil and gas development and subsistence use from his decision, the Secretary sought to minimize negative consequences for Alaska. He also found no linkage between economic development in the lower 48 states and the loss of critical polar bear habitat in Alaska. Certain groups have already indicated their intention to litigate the Secretary's findings.

I want to assure Alaskans that my administration, through the Department of Law, will join with those parties seeking to challenge significant elements of the Secretary's listing decision.
The goal here is not necessarily to be the first to litigate but to bring all of the state's legal and analytic resources to bear in order to ensure ultimate victory on the issues of importance to the people of Alaska. So, once litigation has begun, I will direct that the Department of Law and all other state agencies with relevant expertise contribute their resources to the effort. . . .

It's not exactly clear what she means, but from past statements I'm assuming she wants to support Dirk Kempthorne's limitations on the impacts of the listing rather than the conservation groups' initiatives.

polar bear seas

2008-05-15T10:00:00.002-08:00

If you type "polar bear" into Google News, you'll get a few links and an offer to see "all 1,671 news articles" about the listing.
Um, no thanks.
Today I got another statement from some environmental groups and Congressional folks that starts like this.

Washington, DC - In response to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s decision to gut the polar bear’s threatened status, Reps. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y. introduced legislation yesterday that will address impacts to the species from global warming and oil and gas activity. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., introduced a similar bill in the Senate earlier this year.

The Polar Bear Seas Protection Act (H.R. 6057) directs DOI to designate critical habitat areas for the polar bear and requires vast improvements in oil spill technology before massive oil and gas activity would be allowed in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, also known as the Polar Bear Seas. The bill ensures that the polar bear is protected from oil and gas activity – which Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne explicitly said yesterday would not be affected by the polar bear’s ESA listing.

“While the listing was a long overdue recognition of scientific reality, the administration included a poison pill by ruling out the one thing that would make it meaningful: an effective policy on stopping global warming. It’ll be business as usual for oil and gas development, which will put polar bears at greater risk from potential spills, onshore infrastructure and disturbances, not to mention, will continue emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing the melting of sea ice in the first place,” said Inslee, prime sponsor of the Polar Bear Seas Protection Act. “This bill will help fill the vacuum of administration leadership by providing important protections for polar bears and their habitat.”

The bill seems to be about oil and gas activity, although Inslee's comment refers to global warming, too.
The CBC ran a story on why "Canada's North" is upset about the decision, which started by saying polar bear hunting would be banned and then that it would only been seen as uncooth now.

. . . By listing the polar bears as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, all U.S. federal agencies will have to ensure nothing they do would jeopardize the bears' survival or their sea ice habitat.
It would also ban American sport hunters from bringing home polar bear hides as trophies from hunts in the Canadian North. Americans spend about $30,000 to $35,000 to hunt a bear.

Irngaut and others, like Grise Fiord resident Larry Audlaluk, said a ban would spell bad news for some Nunavut communities that rely on the sport hunt for income.

"There are many polar bears, so I think the Americans have no right really to decide on an animal like that," said Audlaluk, a former hunting guide in the small Ellesmere Island community.

While the U.S. government says it does not oppose a subsistence hunt, Audlaluk said he's worried that listing polar bears as a threatened species across the Arctic will create a negative public perception of polar bear hunting in general. . . .

The AP in Washington wrote this.

. . . The restrictions, including one that would provide the bear no more protection from oil drilling in Arctic waters than it now has under another federal law, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, prompted environmentalists and some members of Congress to questions whether the bear will get any more protection at all.
"They're trying to make this a threatened listing in name only with no change in today's impacts and that's not going to fly," said Jamie Rappaport Clark of Defenders of Wildlife and a former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Clinton administration. . . .

And AP's Steve Quinn in Alaska covered the oil industry response.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The lawyers aren't clearing their calendars just yet, but the oil industry is bracing for some courtroom battles to maintain its stake in Alaska's oil-rich fields now that the Interior Department has listed polar bears as a threatened species.
About 15 percent of the nation's oil is being produced in Alaska, and soaring prices for the commodity are pushing companies to look farther and farther offshore to the floors of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, which are frozen much of the year. . . .

OK, enough about bears.

polar bear listed as threatened

2008-05-14T16:58:00.003-08:00

OK, so today the bears were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
I honestly haven't been tracking this that closely, but here's what I do know. The state -- including the AK Legislature, Gov. Palin, and the Congressional delegation -- was pushing hard against it. Palin stuck with the bad science argument, but others argued a listing could shut down oil and gas activity, threaten the gas pipeline, and get in the way of power plants as far away as Florida -- the idea being that a listing would essentially open the doors to regulating greenhouse gases. (The Fish and Wildlife Service denied this would be the case.) Enviro groups charged that the Interior Department's delay in making announcing a decision was linked to leasing for oil and gas development offshore in the Chukchi Sea -- bear habitat. (Today's announcement was court-ordered.)
The Interior Department listed the bears as threatened (not endangered) under the Act, but with a provision stipulating that if something (development-wise) is allowed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it will also be allowed under the ESA.
The result was that Alaska politicians and enviro groups both complained about the decision.
U.S. Sens. Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, both of whom have recently been fairly active in climate-related legislation, came out swinging.
Stevens said in a statement he was "disappointed and disturbed."

Scientists have observed that there are now three times as many polar bears in the Arctic than there were in the 1970s. (Not sure where he got that information or if it's accurate.)
Never before has a species been listed as endangered or threatened while occupying its entire geographic range.

This decision was made without any research demonstrating dangerously low population levels in polar bears, but rather on speculation regarding how ice levels will affect Arctic wildlife. Worse yet, today’s decision cannot and will not do anything to reverse sea ice decline.

Instead, this action by the Fish and Wildlife Service sets a dangerous precedent with far-reaching social and economic ramifications. It opens the door for many other Arctic species to be listed, which would severely hamper Alaska’s ability to tap its vast natural resources. Reinterpreting the Endangered Species Act in this way is an unequivocal victory for extreme environmentalists who want to block all development in our state.

Stevens then attacked Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity (one of the original petitioners), accusing her of using the listing to make the point that global warming is not a future threat.
Murkowski also argued the listing was unnecessary and could harm development.

I can’t express how extremely disappointed I am . . . . I believe it is grossly premature, even with qualifications, to recommend this action based on highly variable climate change models and projected impacts of loss of summer sea ice on a currently healthy population. . . .

I am concerned that a threatened listing could have serious ramifications for the State of Alaska and the development of all of our natural resources. I certainly don’t believe a threatened listing should affect the construction of an Alaskan natural gas pipeline, or of any other oil and gas projects, since there is zero evidence that any such project has harmed bear populations in the least. Clearly we want to promote the use of clean-burning natural gas to reduce carbon emissions.

So, I also agree with the agency that subsistence hunting and oil and gas development in Alaska are not a threat to the polar bear and welcome their qualified listing decision. Clearly the Marine Mammal Protection Act offers more protection for polar bears than the ESA does and current regulations should remain in place for these activities. But the qualified listing still doesn’t alleviate my deep concern that outside interests will now try to use the courts to expand the impact of this decision in ways never intended when the ESA became law.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne makes it clear in his statement that the goal is not to use the listing to regulate greenhouse gases or stop development. (Most of the ID's press release is about what the listing won't do.) But Murkowski and others are concerned that the full impact of the listing will be realized in court.
Here's a statement from the head of the Alaska Wilderness League suggesting Murkowski has cause for concern.

While we don’t yet know the implications of this decision, we are glad to see that Secretary Kempthorne is finally taking steps to protect this imperiled species. However, the most important steps are yet to come. We now ask that all oil and gas related activities in prime polar bear habitat – the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas – be suspended until the Department of Interior can guarantee vital protections for the polar bear.

The truth of the matter is that the polar bear won’t survive just because we are acknowledging that it is threatened. What matters for the bear is that quick, effective and significant steps are taken to protect its Arctic habitat. That means keeping oil and gas activities away from the imperiled bear.

And here's what the Center for Biological Diversity (and Siegel) had to say.

While the polar bear listing is one of the administration's clearest acknowledgments to date of the urgent threat posed by global warming, the administration is simultaneously attempting to reduce the protections the bear will receive under the Act. It claims in the listing decision that federal agencies need not consider the impact of global warming pollution on the polar bear; it has also proposed a separate regulation reducing the protections the polar bear would otherwise receive.

“This decision is a watershed event because it has forced the Bush administration to acknowledge global warming's brutal impacts,” said Kassie Siegel, climate program director at the Center for Biological Diversity and lead author of the 2005 petition. “It’s not too late to save the polar bear, and we'll keep fighting to ensure that the polar bear gets the help it needs through the full protections of the Endangered Species Act. The administration's attempts to reduce protection to the polar bear from greenhouse gas emissions are illegal and won't hold up in court.”

Palin was more conciliatory than Stevens and Murkowski but said the state's AG would be reviewing the decision to see if there were any "significant defects that merit judicial scrutiny."
"Alaskans take our public trust responsibilities for our resources very seriously, and we welcome the opportunity to work with the federal agencies to address the conservation needs of these magnificent animals," she said. "We will continue to take the steps necessary to ensure that polar bears continue to thrive for generations to come."
It's been somewhat ironic all along that Alaska -- the home to the bears and the state that has the most to lose by losing them -- has been fighting the efforts to protect them.
Edward Itta, the mayor of the North Slope Borough, offered his explanation in a statement today.

Itta said he knows that arctic sea ice retreat could jeopardize the future health of Alaska’s polar bear population, but he questioned whether an ESA listing will do anything to protect the bears or slow the disappearance of the ice pack.

“My fear is that this will lull many Americans into believing that now we’re protecting the bears. The problem is that polar bears are not endangered by human activity in the Arctic, and the ESA listing only restricts activities up here. So it quite possibly will interfere with our Inupiat subsistence hunting and fishing, which does not get at the problem but does impact us,” he said.

Mayor Itta said he will work with federal agencies to limit impacts on North Slope residents and their traditional subsistence activities, “but the Endangered Species Act is a very big hammer, and it could easily land on us even if the agencies don’t want it to,” he said.

The North Slope Borough relies heavily on oil and gas development, but also on bowhead whales, walrus, and so on.
So the big questions are still whether the listing will slow or stop oil and gas leasing or development in polar bear habitat, and to what extent, if any, the listing will have on carbon regulation.
Here's Deb Williams' take. Williams used to work for the Interior Department and is now head of an enviro group focused on climate change in Alaska.

1) A tremendously important decision for polar bears, people who care about polar bears, and the legal consequences of global warming.

2) Kempthorne correctly listed polar bears as threatened for clear, unassailable scientific and legal reasons. It is especially noteworthy that he accepted future projections about the impacts of global warming on Arctic sea ice as one of the three major rationales for his decision.

3) He explicitly rejected the arguments made by the State of Alaska.

4) This decision has many immediate positive benefits for polar bears: the creation of a recovery plan, immediate consultation requirements, and probably more funding. It also acknowledges the applicability of the Endangered Species Act to species whose habitat is being adversely affected by climate change.

5) While I disagree with several points presented by Secretary Kempthorne, especially his statement that the Marine Mammal Protection Act affords more protection than the ESA, and that current science does not permit a finding of harm associated with any sources of emissions, the courts will have the opportunity to correctly interpret the law going forward.

And here, finally, is the NY Times story.

juneau in the ny times

2008-05-14T16:13:00.003-08:00

Great story here by the NY Times' William Yardley on Juneau's predicament and impressive energy reductions.

JUNEAU, Alaska — Conservationists swoon at the possibility of it all. Here in Alaska, where melting arctic ice and eroding coastlines have made global warming an urgent threat, this little city has cut its electricity use by more than 30 percent in a matter of weeks, instantly establishing itself as a role model for how to go green, and fast. . . .

Click here for the whole story.

climate change and renewables - not what you think

2008-05-13T11:10:00.005-08:00

Most of the time when you hear about climate change and renewables, it's in the context of the latter being a solution for the former. Today, the head of the University of Alaska's new Alaska Center for Energy and Power, Gwen Holdmann, addressed another connection -- how climate change could mess with the renewable energy projects meant to slow down climate change.
I guess I should say "affect" rather than "mess with," because according Holdmann, the changes are likely to be a mix of positive and negative.
Biomass, which theoretically could meet about a third of the state's energy needs, could get a boost with the lengthening of the growing season already underway -- or it could take a hit as forest fires and insect outbreaks continue to increase.
Ocean energy and wind power could both be affected by changes in storm patterns, and solar power potential could drop if there's more precipitation and cloudy days. (Holdmann, a mechanical engineer, said her solar installation generally meets all her needs during the summer -- "unless I'm going to run some big power tools.")
Hydropower could be affected, too. Norway, which gets almost all of its power from hydro, built most of its dams between the late '70s and early '90s at a time when the North Atlantic Oscillation was abnormally positive and there was a lot of precipitation in Scandinavia, Holdmann said. Engineers planned for those wetter conditions, and now the country is running into shortages during a drier, cooler period.
Hydropower can be also be affected by erosion associated with severe weather or thawing permafrost (siltation can decrease reservoir size and damage turbines), and by changes in the rate of glacial melting, which could increase or decrease river flow.
"If the glaciers recede to the point that they disappear, of course that poses a problem," added a woman working on hydro projects. (Holdmann spoke during an ACCAP teleconference.)
Holdmann broke down AK's (the earth's?) potential renewable resources into six major categories: biomass, ocean, wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal.
Even geothermal could be affected, she said. Geothermal power relies on adequate water flow into (and back out of) the ground, as well as a source of cool water or air to create the temperature differential needed to make the power.
Holdmann finished with a slide showing the six categories. She said she had planned to tack some arrows on them showing which would likely do well and which would do less well, but canned that idea when she realized that almost all of them could be affected positively or negatively by climate change.
Ultimately, the lesson is probably that you shouldn't assume a stable climate when you plan a big project. Dan White, the head of the university's Institute of Northern Engineering, talked about this, too -- not only are some builders using outdated assumptions about number of heating degree days and so on, they're also assuming that the climate won't change over the course of the building's life, he said.
People in Juneau are talking about a dam on the Susitna River as a hundred-year solution for energy in Alaska. Holdmann said it would probably be good to consider how climate change could affect the multi-billion dollar project.
Holdmann used to work at the Chena Hot Springs Resort and helped get their geothermal plants running. Here's a story on Chena from the February issue of Popular Mechanics.
Go Gwen!

polar bear push

2008-05-05T09:51:00.002-08:00

The Interior Department has another week and a half to decide about the polar bear listing. Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News wrote a good story on the AK Legislature's request for a review/conference/PR effort on the issue. It's here.

cooling and conserving

2008-05-01T08:50:00.003-08:00

Here are two things definitely worth checking out.
The first is a story by NY Times' Andy Revkin on the new research saying the Northern Hemisphere will likely cool this decade (and that the PDO has gone back to its cool phase).
The second is a radio piece on the avalanche near Juneau and subsequent electricity rate hike and all-out conservation measures.
The pic is my dinner, a stuffed Copper River red. Yum.

the news is methane

2008-04-24T08:57:00.002-08:00

So the thing I forgot to mention yesterday was that methane levels were apparently flat for a decade or so. Here's how the NY Times put it.

Methane is produced naturally by swamps but also by activities including burning fossil fuels. The issue is important because climate experts have long worried that if Arctic permafrost thaws, the process would release potentially catastrophic amounts of methane into the atmosphere. . . .

Read the whole thing here. (It's short.)

CO2, methane up

2008-04-23T09:27:00.002-08:00

This is really big news. And makes it hard to believe Bush's comments last week in light of the implied urgency behind these findings. Anyway, NOAA just put out new numbers on greenhouse gases -- they're going up -- and speculated that methane released from arctic soils might finally be showing up as a major climate feedback (warmer air thaws the soil, releasing methane and leading to more warming). Here's the news release I just got. Look for news stories soon, I'm sure.

Carbon Dioxide, Methane Rise Sharply in 2007

Last year alone global levels of
atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of
global climate change, increased by 0.6 percent,
or 19 billion tons. Additionally methane rose by
27 million tons after nearly a decade with little
or no increase. NOAA scientists released these
and other preliminary findings today as part of
an annual update to the agency’s greenhouse gas
index, which tracks data from 60 sites around the world.

The burning of coal, oil, and gas, known
as fossil fuels, is the primary source of
increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Earth's
oceans, vegetation, and soils soak up half of
these emissions. The rest stays in the air for
centuries or longer. Twenty percent of the 2007
fossil fuel emissions of carbon dioxide are
expected to remain in the atmosphere for
thousands of years, according to the latest
scientific assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change.

Viewed another way, last year’s carbon
dioxide increase means 2.4 molecules of the gas
were added to every million molecules of air,
boosting the global concentration to nearly 385
parts per million (ppm). Pre-industrial carbon
dioxide levels hovered around 280 ppm until 1850.
Human activities pushed those levels up to 380 ppm by early 2006.
The rate of increase in carbon dioxide
concentrations accelerated over recent decades
along with fossil fuel emissions. Since 2000,
annual increases of two ppm or more have been
common, compared with 1.5 ppm per year in the
1980s and less than one ppm per year during the 1960s.

Methane levels rose last year for the
first time since 1998. Methane is 25 times more
potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide,
but there’s far less of it in the
atmosphere—about 1,800 parts per billion. When
related climate affects are taken into account,
methane’s overall climate impact is nearly half that of carbon dioxide.
Rapidly growing industrialization in Asia
and rising wetland emissions in the Arctic and
tropics are the most likely causes of the recent
methane increase, said scientist Ed Dlugokencky
from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory.

”We’re on the lookout for the first sign
of a methane release from thawing Arctic
permafrost,” said Dlugokencky. “It’s too soon to
tell whether last year’s spike in emissions
includes the start of such a trend.”
Permafrost, or permanently frozen ground,
contains vast stores of carbon. Scientists are
concerned that as the Arctic continues to warm
and permafrost thaws, carbon could seep into the
atmosphere in the form of methane, possibly
fueling a cycle of carbon release and temperature rise.

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic
security and national safety through the
prediction and research of weather and
climate-related events and information service
delivery for transportation, and by providing
environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal
and marine resources. Through the emerging Global
Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA
is working with its federal partners, more than
70 countries and the European Commission to
develop a global monitoring network that is as
integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.

On the Web:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi

juneau learns to conserve

2008-04-23T08:51:00.002-08:00

The halls of the Capitol are dark. Already cool homes are getting cooler. People are line-drying their clothes and using propane lamps. If you haven't heard, an avalanche took out the transmission line to Juneau's main source of power -- a hydroelectric project -- and electricity rates are expected to quintuple for the next few months as the utility shifts to diesel generators. There's talk of businesses not making it, non-profits closing their doors, etc. The city is considering using its entire emergency reserve to avoid laying off employees, among other things.
If your electric bill was 100 bucks a month, now it's 500. The question seems to be, How do I cut my consumption to one-fifth what it was, and people are thinking, suddenly, about the electricity that goes into a hot shower or hot tea.
I've got lots of outdoors pics to put up, and will soon.
There's also some climate news -- Gov. Palin's subcabinet has chosen a bunch of people to serve on advisory and technical workgroups, including many from Fairbanks and many from environmental groups. Read more about it at the state climate change site.

only in Alaska

2008-04-17T11:06:00.003-08:00

An early morning avalanche on Wednesday took out Juneau's main source of power, forcing a switch from hydropower to diesel and likely causing electricity rates to quadruple. Quadruple! The quotes in the paper today talked about how the capital would now be like the rural, roadless villages we hear about where electricity costs 50 cents a kwh and up. Apparently the transmission line goes over some rugged country. The avalanche was reported to be a mile and a half wide. Yikes.
And that was yesterday, before a giant snowstorm dumped about a foot of fresh pow on the city and even more at the ski area. When you factor in the slope of the hill and the knee bend of a tele turn, the snow was up to my waist, plowing into my goggles like in a ski mag cover shot. Amazing stuff, and probably the biggest single snowstorm of the year.

feds come to Fairbanks

2008-04-15T12:17:00.003-08:00

Folks from NASA, NOAA, and the DOE are in Fairbanks studying aerosols and other stuff related to climate change. Here's a story by a fellow News-Miner reporter. Pic by John Wagner.

new camera

2008-04-11T12:15:00.002-08:00

Finally. A new camera.

polar bears and power plants

2008-04-11T09:53:00.003-08:00

Here's the story I wrote for today about the Alaska Legislature asking for money to put on a big conference and PR campaign in opposition of the ESA listing of the polar bear. They're not the only ones worried about a listing leading to all kinds of carbon regulation -- US Sen. Ted Stevens has also been making the case, among others. It's unclear whether that would actually happen. The Fish and Wildlife guy I talked to said the listing itself would not. The Service is simply not set up to regulate carbon emissions. But he did say the EPA could consult with the FWS in shaping its regulation, and, more importantly, the reach of a listing will probably be determined by the courts (presumably after someone sues that a coal-fired power plant is harming an endangered species, sort of like Kivalina recently sued oil companies for causing coastal erosion).

JUNEAU — State lawmakers are planning to spend $2 million on a national conference and public relations campaign about the potential impacts of listing polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.

The money was requested by Senate President Lyda Green, R-Wasilla, and House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, and is included in the state’s capital budget.

Eddy Grasser, a legislative staffer working for Green and Harris, said one goal is to sort out fact from fiction in the science behind the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to list the animal as threatened under the act.

He said he’s done a lot of research on the issue and found there’s a “diversity of opinion” over the human role in climate change — the driving factor behind the agency’s proposal to list the bears.

Another goal is to educate people about the impacts a listing would have.

“The state’s got a huge vested interest in the outcome of that listing as far as the economics of development projects,” he said Thursday.

The listing is based on the idea that greenhouse gas emissions are threatening bears, he said, so anything that emits greenhouse gases could be affected.

Bruce Woods, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, questioned that claim in an interview Thursday.

He said the Endangered Species Act requires a direct link between cause and effect.

“There has to be a direct, scientific line between your gas pipe and this dead bear,” he said. “And frankly, climate science and pollution science aren’t developed to the point to make that kind of connection.”

A listing could lead to additional habitat protections, he added, but that wouldn’t stop development projects outright.

The point of the act isn’t to block projects but to allow them to proceed in a way that minimizes environmental impacts, he said.

Woods also cautioned that the ultimate impact of a listing would likely be decided in the courts.

The Fish and Wildlife Service first proposed listing the bears in early 2007. A subsequent scientific review by the U.S. Geological Survey found that future reductions in sea ice could lead to the loss of two-thirds of the world’s polar bears within 50 years.

A decision on the proposal has not yet been announced.

The legislative budget request calls for an “academic based effort” leading to a national conference and various communications work, including a “significant national education campaign,” according to a supporting document.

“The project will include research methodologies such as computer modeling and perceived consensus,” it reads. “Research shall be non-biased to specific groups’ opinion and shall present scientifically fact based outcomes.”

“It’s economic development, and true and accurate data,” said Ginger Blaisdell, a staff member to Green.

The money would go to the Legislative Council, a joint legislative committee, and the project would go to bid through a request for proposals, according to Grasser.

The request follows two legislative resolutions approved last year in the House and Senate. Those documents also pointed to potential impacts on development and claimed the Fish and Wildlife Service was ignoring scientific data questioning the listing.

Pamela A. Miller, arctic coordinator for the Fairbanks-based Northern Alaska Environmental Center, criticized lawmakers for requesting the funding.

“If education is really needed, why aren’t we supporting the university and the Department of Fish and Game?” she said.

outside

2008-04-10T09:17:00.003-08:00

It's snowing like mad. Again. Yesterday, when I didn't get to ski, there was a foot of fresh powder in the mountains. Today it's thick, wet flakes.
Here's a pic from last weekend, when a few of us skied from the ski area, up Mt. Troy, over the ridges above the Dan Moller cabin, and across to Mt. Jumbo, the biggest mountain on Douglas Island. Amazing stuff. Thanks to Toby for the pic.

the future of renewable energy

2008-04-04T10:41:00.003-08:00

I got an excited phone call yesterday from Deborah Williams, head of the climate group Alaska Conservation Solutions, about goings on in D.C. It had to do with a new attempt in the Senate to restore the renewable energy production tax credits, which give a tax break of a few pennies per kilowatt hour to producers of renewable energy. The way I understand it, the credits get extended every few years, factories crank out wind turbines, utilities put 'em up, and then the credits near their sunset date and everything shuts down until they're extended again. This time around, the House has already extended the credits and the Senate hasn't.
The new attempt in the Senate, according to Grist, is more palatable to some lawmakers because it doesn't fund the credits by taking away tax breaks to oil companies, as previous efforts would have.
So, while AK Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens have turned down two recent efforts to extend the credits, they've both signed on as co-sponsors of this new effort, according to Williams. And that's a big deal.
As for the credits themselves, Williams described them as "vitally important" to the future of renewable energy in Alaska. "The only way that we will get companies to invest in renewable energy in Alaska is if they have these renewable energy production tax credits," she said.
If that's true, the big push here in Juneau to create a state renewable energy fund is small potatoes compared to what's happening in D.C. Projects replacing high-cost diesel in rural areas might pencil out anyway -- especially with a state grant -- but my understanding is that these federal tax credits would sure help.
In other news, Gov. Palin signed the supplemental budget yesterday containing the $300 million for weatherization and energy efficiency programs in the state. That's big. And at least some money will be available for people of any income level.

calendar of events

2008-04-03T23:04:00.001-08:00

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 stefan@billburg.com.

Thursday, April 17
-Bjorn Lomborg, author of "Cool It", talk at Davis Concert Hall, UAF
7 p.m. Fairbanks

grayling

2008-04-01T08:42:00.002-08:00

Fish in the news! The NY Times has a story about grayling in Montana suffering from warming stream water. Up here, these are beautiful fish, and dumb enough, or naive enough to humans, that you can catch them with dental floss, a hook, and a bit of tin foil -- or so I hear. I've caught them with lures, but I won't tell you which ones.
Oh, and Deborah Williams, head of Alaska Conservation Solutions, had a column in the ADN calling for passage of the renewable energy bill, HB 152, and SB 289, which helps implement the weatherization and energy efficiency programs already funded in a budget bill.
On another note, it looks increasingly like the Legislature isn't going to do anything this year with the recommendations of the AK Climate Impact Assessment Commission. The session's only 90 days, and there are less than two weeks left.

The first step: Renewable energy

2008-03-28T11:56:00.003-08:00

Here's the story I wrote for today on HB 152, the renewable energy fund bill. It's funny to me (odd rather than ha-ha) that all the talk is about saving money and not about the environmental benefits. Where other than Alaska?
In the nitty gritty, it will be interesting to see how the Alaska Energy Authority and the advisory board handle this thing if it pans out. AEA in the process of awarding alternative energy grants now, and has imposed the criteria that the projects actually save money. That sounds obvious, but it's not really, at least when you consider green power for its environmental benefits. It's actually a notable hurdle. The bottom line is that Alaskans are only putting money into green power because they're convinced it's cheaper than power from fossil fuels and simply needs a kick start. (I finally got it yesterday how people talk about high up-front costs -- green power's economic benefit comes from the lack of fuel cost, not the cheapness of installation.)
Greenies that talk about HB 152 often describe it as a good first step. It's not a huge amount of money -- about $12 million to $20 million a year in grants -- and wouldn't make a dent in, say, the Susitna hydro project.
Sen. Lyman Hoffman of Bethel is also considering the bill as one step among many -- or should I say one leg of a four-leg chair? (Inside joke in Juneau.) Hoffman already pushed through a one-time, $300 million cash infusion for energy efficiency and low-income weatherization programs. His staff told me yesterday he actually wants four things:
-something for low-income people, like a state match to the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
-something for now (I'm not sure what, but various cash handouts and rebates are being considered in Juneau)
-something to promote conservation (and therefore long-term savings), like the $300 million already approved, and
-something for the long-term, like renewable energy.
Pretty ambitious stuff.

JUNEAU — A popular bill aimed at developing renewable energy in Alaska is getting attention again after going without a hearing since last year.

The bill, HB 152, would set up a state fund for renewable energy projects and a system for evaluating proposals and awarding grants and loans.

The idea is that some projects that make sense economically won’t get built without a little help simply because of the high up-front costs. The ultimate goal is to lower the overall cost of electricity in Alaska.

Rep. Bill Thomas, a Republican from Haines and co-sponsor of the bill, pitched the idea at a hearing on Wednesday.

He said the cost of energy is getting so high in Alaska that people are having a hard time making ends meet. They don’t have as much money to buy other things, and that has a negative impact on the whole economy.

Alaska is known for its non-renewable resources, he added. “However, it’s also an excellent source of renewable energy. We have wind — lots of wind — geothermal, solar and hydro.”

The Senate Finance Committee, which has had HB 152 since last May, heard the bill Wednesday and Thursday.

One of the people who testified Wednesday was Chris Rose, the executive director of the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, a coalition of utilities and other groups supporting renewable energy.

Rose said renewable energy has the benefit of stabilizing electricity prices (because there’s no fuel cost to go up or down), and said the bill would set up a system for picking the best projects and getting them going.

“We’re looking at viable projects,” he said. “This is not a research and development fund.”

He added that grants from the system would leverage federal and other funds.

The bill has broad support from Republicans and Democrats in both bodies of the Legislature, and it passed the House last year without opposition. More than half of all lawmakers have signed on as co- or cross-sponsors.

In December, Gov. Sarah Palin proposed putting $250 million into an alternative energy fund like the one envisioned in HB 152, and she defended the idea in her state of the state address in January.

“These projects cannot even flirt with snake-oil science — they will be real, doable and economic,” she said in a written version of her speech.

The lawmaker responsible for holding up the bill is Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, the co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, who deals with finance-related bills.

Stedman’s staffer Darwin Peterson said last week that Stedman generally didn’t like the idea of creating new funds for things because they limited the flexibility of lawmakers to appropriate the state’s money.

Peterson said Thursday that Stedman still has a “philosophical concern” about creating funds, but added, “Sometimes really good ideas come along.”

The other committee co-chair, Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, said during the hearing that he wholly supported the concept of the bill but wondered if there was a way to fund some projects right away.

“It seems to me that we need to take advantage of, or respond to, these oil prices by implementing these alternative energy projects now,” he said.

With its broad support, the bill seems likely to pass.

But some questions are still unanswered, including how much money lawmakers will put into the fund and what role they will play in awarding grants from it.

Thomas said Wednesday the original idea was to put $100 million into the fund. Palin then proposed $250 million, and the state ended up with a big budget surplus. So now sponsors are asking for $300 million.

Assuming a return of 5 to 7 percent, a $300 million fund would spin off $15 million to $21 million a year for grants.

John Bitney, a staff member to the bill’s sponsor, House Speaker John Harris, R-Valdez, testified that even $21 million probably wouldn’t meet the demand for grants.

When the Alaska Energy Authority teamed up with the Denali Commission this year to offer grants for “cost-effective” alternative energy projects (up to $5 million worth), it got 89 proposals asking for a total of $118 million. AEA is still reviewing the proposals, which include everything from biofuel made from fish oil to “run of the river” hydropower and energy harnessed from ocean waves.

With the renewable energy fund, lawmakers said they want some control in how the grants are awarded. HB 152 leaves it up to AEA to develop a system for allocating money from the fund, but Bitney said grants would be awarded as they are for things like village safe water projects — in a way that lawmakers would have a chance to approve or disapprove them.

Committee members are currently working with Harris on a substitute version of the bill.

The bill comes on top of another energy-related investment aimed at making homes more energy efficient. In a budget bill already approved, lawmakers put $300 million toward weatherization and energy efficiency programs.

Palin has expressed support for the idea.

free skiing

2008-03-27T09:59:00.002-08:00

Here's a pic of Darcy and me heading up the ski area, with Ian (who took the pic) and Toby. Some days it's clear blue sky and others it's like this. The area's still open, and has tons of snow, but it closes at 4 and on most weekdays, so people hike. It takes about an hour to get to the top.
Yesterday was one of the clear blue sky days, and Laura and I chose running on the beach over skiing. We ran on the North Douglas highway, then into the rain forest on a narrow trail and out to the water. Beautiful stuff.

yukon flats

2008-03-26T12:38:00.002-08:00

The proposed land exchange in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge isn't exactly climate-related, but I've written about the plan a few times and was surprised to see it turn up on Grist, the national enviro site.

conservation and renewables

2008-03-20T08:43:00.003-08:00

In their desire to save some cash, Alaskans are starting to talk and act like a bunch of greenies.
If you asked any environmental group where to start addressing climate change, I'm sure they'd say something like "conservation and renewables," and that's where the AK Legislature and Gov. Palin seem to be headed.
In terms of conservation, Sen. Lyman Hoffman's plan to dump $300 million into home weatherization and energy efficiency programs that normally get $5 million a year has passed the Legislature and probably will pass the gov's veto pen. Hoffman told me yesterday that was just the start. Next year, he hopes to tackle public facilities like schools.
As for renewables, the main push is for a renewable energy fund that would spin off about $15 million a year that could be used for loans or grants to get projects going. (Alaska hasn't really embraced the renewable portfolio standard idea, although a sizeable chunk of state generation is from hydro.)
Rep. Bill Thomas, a Republican, sponsored the first proposal for a fund, and a bunch of Democrats signed on. That didn't really move, but then the House Speaker, John Harris, another Republican, sponsored another version and the bill moved relatively quickly. More than half of the House has signed on as co-sponsors, and the bill, HB 152, passed the House without a no vote. When the bill went to the Senate, more than half of the Senators signed on as cross-sponsors, but the bill got stuck in the Senate Finance Committee, where it's been for 10 months without a hearing. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski chided the co-chair in her speech Tuesday, noting that the bill was officially supported by more than half of the Legislature.
A staffer to Sen. Bert Stedman, the co-chair sitting on the bill, told me Tuesday that HB 152 would finally get a hearing next week. Stedman was cool to the idea because he doesn't like creating special funds, which he says bump up against the constitutional restriction on appropriating money in future years, the staffer said. (The alternative is that each special interest group comes to Juneau each year to lobby for its cash -- a fund provides some security, even if lawmakers can get rid of it whenever they want.)
Stedman also wanted to figure out the mechanics of funding it, the staffer said. Gov. Palin is already on board, and proposed putting $250 million into such a fund in her budget plan, but there are different ways the funds could be provided.
Stedman's staffer said he expected something to pass this year because of the broad support for the bill.
That's Sen. Stedman, a former commercial fisherman and the only senator to consistently wear three-piece suits.

murkowski talks carbon

2008-03-18T22:15:00.004-08:00

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski gave her annual address to the Alaska Legislature today, and she sort of talked about climate change. She touted the benefits of renewable energy (and said Alaska should emulate Iceland), but not in the context of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Then she talked about climate change, but only in the context of supporting more research into it. It was all kind of vague, too.
This was a little puzzling because Murkowski has been a champion of federal regulation of carbon emissions, and the one of our three federal lawmakers that's been most receptive and active on the issue (with Sen. Ted Stevens coming in second). Maybe it had something to do with the audience.
After her speech, Murkowski had a little press conference, and I asked her whether she expected to see some kind of carbon regulation in the next few years and what it would mean for Alaska.
Here's what she said.
First, there's the Warner-Lieberman bill, which will generate a lot of talk in the next few months. It'll probably get debated for a week or two on the Senate floor, then pulled back by the Senate president until the next session. "There is some momentum for it, but it's also extremely controversial."
Second, there's the Bingaman-Specter bill, which Murkowski and Stevens have both signed on to. It's a little less strict than the Warner-Lieberman bill in that it has a "release valve" if the costs of regulating carbon get out of hand, and it has money for adapting to climate change (lots for Alaska).
Bingaman and Warner aren't exactly united on this whole thing, and there's tension there.
Among lawmakers, some want to keep the (relatively strict) Warner plan intact, while others argue it would be too onerous. Some say passing a bill while Bush is president would make it more acceptable to industry. But then again, Bush might just veto any of the bills.
To wrap up, Murkowski said she didn't think anything would pass this year.
She didn't talk about what either proposal would mean for Alaska, but I think she just forgot, and I didn't follow up.
Here she is with a 63-pound king.

climate commission report

2008-03-18T08:55:00.003-08:00

Here's the story I wrote for today about the climate commission report, and here's a link to the report itself. The best quote I didn't get in the story was from Rep. Samuels, who said something like, The more you looked at it, the more you realized there was to look at. Right. "It got far more complicated than I thought," he said. I think Samuels and Rep. Joule might be right, too, that it was wise just to look at impacts even if half (my guess) of those who testified called for some kind of mitigation measures, namely emissions reductions. The report is focused, and is an impressive assessment of a broad range of impacts, which it might not have been otherwise. George Bryson covered the report over at the ADN, but that's all the press it got as far as I can tell.
And here's a pic of some fall chums gathered by Victor Lord in Nenana, because pics are good.

JUNEAU — The Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission released its final report on the impacts of climate change in Alaska on Monday after holding hearings around the state and gathering testimony from hundreds of Alaska residents and experts.

The 124-page report describes existing and likely impacts, makes recommendations for dealing with changes and includes assessments of likely impacts by seven state agencies.

It mentions the potential benefits of a warming climate but suggests the bulk of changes will be negative.

“The Commission found that climate change presents unavoidable challenges to the citizens of Alaska,” it states. “There will be new responsibilities for the State of Alaska and public entities, and there will be responsibilities for private interests which individuals must accept.”

The report highlights the impact of climate change on tourism, economic development, wildlife and public infrastructure. It describes the relocation of eroding coastal villages as perhaps the most striking of all impacts, reporting the “convergence of immediate threats, substantial human need and prohibitive costs presents decision-makers at all levels of government with daunting challenges.”

The commission was formed by state lawmakers in 2006 and included 11 legislative and public members with wide-ranging expertise. It held hearings in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau, Kotzebue and Barrow over the course of almost a year and took testimony from more than 200 invited experts and Alaska residents.

It was the first significant state effort to address climate change.

The commission decided early on that it would only consider the impacts of climate change, and not the causes of it or ways to slow it down. And it stood by the decision despite the pleas of many of those who testified.

The final report says commissioners believed focusing on adaptation — rather than mitigation — “was more responsive to the immediate threats and concerns facing Alaska and the need to orient state government toward new responsibilities.”

Deborah Williams, the head of environmental group Alaska Conservation Solutions, which focuses on climate change, described the report Monday as “an excellent document — as far as it goes.”

She credited the commission with accurately presenting the negative impacts of climate change, but noted that it had ignored widespread calls from the public for the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency, weatherization and developing renewable energy sources.

Rep. Ralph Samuels, a Republican from Anchorage and chair of the commission, said considering the causes of climate change likely would have bogged down the group, which already had a lot to cover.

Commissioners made a number of recommendations in the report for helping Alaskans adapt to climate change, including identifying a lead entity for assisting communities threatened by coastal erosion, ensuring the public infrastructure is built with climate change in mind and setting up a permanent entity within the state to address the issue.

Samuels said he hoped the commission’s work would lead state agencies to consider climate change as they approach various projects, whether building roads or studying caribou migrations.

The report includes assessments from the departments of natural resources, environmental conservation, health and social services, fish and game, commerce, transportation and military and veterans affairs on how the agencies could be affected by climate change.

Rep. Reggie Joule, D-Kotzebue, who helped form the commission and served on it, said he hoped the report would provide a reference for groups studying the issue in the future.

“I think we broke some ground,” he said. “And for the administration to come forward, I thought was pretty good.”

Gov. Sarah Palin formed a sub-cabinet group last year to focus on climate change, and members of the commission have described that group as better suited to the task of dealing with the implications of the report.

Commissioners chose not to extend the duration of commission beyond the final report because of the sub-cabinet group and the availability of other sources of information.

“The goal was to get the discussion going, and I think we did that,” Samuels said.

The report and other information is available online at the House Majority’s Web site, www.housemajority.org.

physical geography

2008-03-17T11:29:00.002-08:00

If you wanted to capture the place you live through the things you find there, what would those things be? A new museum in Fairbanks is taking a stab at it for the Interior -- a Super Cub, a moose, a Coleman stove, a used pair of Carhartt's, and so on. I like the idea. We just wrote about it in the News-Miner.

vanishing salmon

2008-03-17T10:33:00.002-08:00

Wow. Interesting story in the NY Times about king salmon in the Sacramento River. Apparently the run crashed and scientists are trying to figure out why. One of the ideas is a climate-related, out of sync pattern of ocean currents.

After studying changes in the once-predictable pattern of the Northern Pacific climate, Mr. Petersen found that in 2005 the currents that rise from the deeper ocean, bringing with them nutrients like phytoplankton and krill, were out of sync. “Upwelling usually starts in April and goes until September,” he said. “In 2005, it didn’t start until July.”
Mr. Petersen’s hypothesis about the salmon is that “the fish that went to sea in 2005 died a few weeks after getting to the ocean” because there was nothing to eat. A couple of years earlier, when the oceans were in a cold-weather cycle, the opposite happened — the upwelling was very rich. The smolts of that year were later part of the largest run of fall Chinook ever recorded.

The story doesn't specify what's driving the climate variance, but changes in sea ice melt, upwelling, and plankton blooms are predicted with man-made warming. Also interesting is that they're talking about 2005, which means the fish that are missing are the three year olds. Up here, kings are more often 4 or 5, I think, and used to be older more often, when they return upriver to spawn. If that's true down there, than a bad smolt year in 2005 will mean bad runs for years to come. Click here for the whole story.

fame, almost

2008-03-17T09:16:00.003-08:00

So I decided to ride my bike to the ski area Saturday. A Juneau Empire photog decided to take my pic. It's in the Empire today.

climate commission files report

2008-03-17T08:26:00.002-08:00

After some delay, the Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission has finished its final report. It's available online at the commission's Web site. Just from a skim, it's well-written and got some interesting stuff I really hadn't known much about -- impacts on insurance coverage, international competition on shipping routes, etc. It uses strong language about many of the impacts happening, but doesn't blame them on human activities or recommend any kind of mitigation strategies -- it's all about adaptation, as the commission said all along. The group had the option of continuing its work, but chose to pass the ball to the gov's sub-cabinet. Also included in the report are written comments from individual departments, which should be interesting. In terms of legislative recommendations, there are a few specific ones, but no dollar figures. And, with less than 30 days left in a busy session, I can't imagine there will be much attention paid to them.

california, canada, and massachusetts!

2008-03-13T20:50:00.003-08:00

OK, so I promised I'd write something about what's going on in Massachusetts, which is funny because I don't really know squat about what's going on in Massachusetts, except that I sort of grew up there. What I do know is there's a group called Massachusetts Power Shift (MAPS) that's putting on a big event next month at BU, Boston Commons, and the State House with a bunch of big deal enviros (or so says their Web site). I'd sure go if I wasn't 2,876 miles away and busy.
One of the big climate things going on there is a bill moving through the General Court (the Legislature) that would limit emissions in the state to 90 percent of the 2002 level by 2020. It's called the Global Warming Solutions Act, and language in the bill claims it would be the only such effort aside from California's. It sets some tight deadlines, but would basically leave it up to the state's department of environmental protection to come up with ways to meet the reduction. Market-based system? Sure. Alternative compliance mechanisms? Why not. Look what California, Canada, and the E.U. are doing, says the bill.
That said, there does seem to be a lot of thought put into the bill. It has protections aimed at ensuring environmental justice, for instance, and making sure that emissions reductions made in Massachusetts don't just cause increases in some other state. It has a severability clause, and it gives the gov the authority to push back the compliance date in the event of "extraordinary circumstances."
According to MAPS, the bill passed the Senate last week. It's a Senate bill, so I'm assuming it still has to get through the House, which seems to have a gazillion people in it. One thing I noticed is different about MA and AK is the ratio of Democrats to Republicans. Our Senate is 9-11. Theirs is 35-5.

when you're too young to vote, lobby

2008-03-11T15:41:00.003-08:00

A group of teenagers is in the Capitol this week lobbying lawmakers on environmental issues. They're with the group Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (created by some teenagers in 1998), and they're from all over the state. This afternoon, they gathered around a long table in the governor's conference room and talked about plastics, renewable energy, and pollution with the governor's special assistant, Joe Balash.
They also talked politics.
A bill banning mixing zones ("dilution is the solution") in salmon streams has been stuck in House Resources, said Megan Waggoner, an 11th grader at Palmer High, and support is growing for a ballot initiative that would ban mixing zones in all streams. So would Gov. Palin support the bill -- as a lesser of two evils -- to get the initiative off the ballot?
"Um," Balash replied, thinking. "I think that one would come down to the role of the initiative process."
Balash said he'd encourage anyone looking at the initiative to consider the economic consequences it would have, and added that Palin probably wouldn't support something she opposed, even if it was the lesser of two evils. "She tends to stick by her guns on issues."
Megan, who's 17, asked another question. If you're not old enough to vote, what's a good way to leverage lawmakers and have a real impact on policy. "What would you suggest would be the best way for us?"
"Well, um, one of the easiest things for you to do is go find earned media," Balash said, adding that a member of the media was sitting right next to them (me). Fundraisers, rallies, and other events can all bring attention to an issue.
Balash smirked and looked my way. "Sometimes you have get creative to get the attention of cynical reporters."
Another student asked him what he did when he didn't agree with the governor on an issue.
Um.
A few minutes later, Balash went and got the governor, who came in beaming and walked around the table shaking hands and gathering names. One girl was from Wasilla, where Palin is from.
"What's your last name?" she asked. "Oh, I know you!"
"Nice to meet you," she said to Megan, "Love your glasses."
Palin said down and asked them about their visit. "It's great that you're down here. Y'know, most Alaskan students have not seen their capital."
She asked Balash what they'd talked about and Balash mentioned the last question.
"What did you tell them!?" said the governor.
That he doesn't often disagree with her positions, he said.
Palin offered that her staff's greatest challenge was probably dealing with her impatience.
"I'm much more impatient than they are when I see something that needs to be done for the good of the state," she said. "I'm like, 'Let's go do it.'"
Megan, in a white blouse and heels, went to present the governor with an award for stepping up on renewable energy. Palin wants to create a $250 million fund that would spin off money for renewable energy projects, and she asked the students to help win support for the idea
"Make sure to tell Senator Stedman to get with it," said Balash, referring to one of the Senate Finance co-chairs.
Other students gave the governor a reusable shopping bag. "Someone should start marketing -- right now -- some really cool grocery bags," Palin said. The one they gave her was highly compressible and bright red. "Very cool, you guys."
The students talked about various efforts around the state and world dealing with restrictions on plastic shopping bags -- in Southeast villages, San Francisco, China, and Australia.
Then Aviva Hirsch, 14, chimed in.
"It's not really paper or plastic," she said. "It's really disposable versus sustainable."
Students gave the governor some signed postcards dealing with the mixing zones. Then they all posed for a picture, and Palin helped hold up their banner.

spring comes to juneau

2008-03-08T21:12:00.003-09:00

Wish I had my camera.
I know it's technically a ways off, but it sure feels like spring here in Juneau. It was in the 40s today and the sun was hiding just behind the clouds, even poking through. I got up early and rode over the bridge to Douglas, north on the highway past a trio of bald eagles, and up the climb to our little ski area. There's still a good bit of snow in the woods and higher up, and there's plenty at the ski area. I reached the top faster than I thought, then flew down the hill with the sun to my back and thick mossy woods all around, with near-freezing water splashing up into my face. By the time I reached the bridge again two hours later, it was clear enough over the channel to see where it was raining and where the sun was winning out.

weatherization update

2008-03-05T13:32:00.002-09:00

Sen. Lyman's Hoffman's weatherization plan is moving ahead. The full Senate just passed the supplemental budget with the $300 million in it. The head of the House, Rep. John Harris, told me yesterday that House leadership doesn't have a problem with the idea. And Palin's and her new energy czar Haagenson both said today they thought it was a good idea. "I think it's great," said Haagenson.
The weatherization outfit in Fairbanks loves the idea of being able to help more people, and the state corporation that would handle the funds is on board, too.
So there you go. Hoffman's staffer yesterday noted that $200 million for weatherization, $100 million in energy efficiency incentives, and another $200 million chipped in by newly incentivised homeowners, comes to $500 million. Sometimes it's easy to have MEGO with budget numbers, but that's the whole sum of the state's promised contribution to a gas pipeline project, or half what the state spends on K-12 education across Alaska.

"if you want to dream . . ."

2008-03-05T13:09:00.002-09:00

Gov. Palin appointed Steve Haagenson today as the state's energy czar. When I asked him about climate change, he said he anticipated working "fairly closely" with Palin's sub-cabinet on climate change.
"One of the goals we'd like to have is reduction of CO2 as a gas from electric and any generation," he said, "and I think we have a path to achieve that -- actually, reduce it more than any other region in the world."
Haagenson mentioned the big hydro-power project on the Susitna River that people are talking about again, gasification technologies, and biomass.
There are problems making biomass work, including getting the costs down and dealing with delivery issues, he said. "[But] If you could get there, you could actually be CO2-neutral in the next, let's say, 20 years, which is more aggressive than anybody else in the nation I've heard talking."
"If you want to dream, you can dream," he added.
Big talk from a guy on the job for less than an hour? In any case, climate change seems to be on the radar, even if it's overshadowed in the energy debate by another reason to get off fossil fuels -- the high cost.
BTW, Haagenson is a Fairbanks guy, having worked at the member-owned Golden Valley Electric Association, including as president, for 32 years.

immediate action group takes action

2008-03-04T13:21:00.002-09:00

A work group of Gov. Sarah Palin's sub-cabinet on climate change is meeting today in Anchorage and hoping to flesh out its recommendations to the whole sub-cabinet. There's lots of info on the group's Web site. I haven't read enough to know what's planning and what's action, and where the $1.1 million budget request plays in and what other kind of money the state will ask for. Another work product is analyses of the needs of six communities identified as being in serious trouble.

$300 million for insulation

2008-03-04T10:24:00.004-09:00

Without any mention of climate change, Alaska could soon take a huge step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
State Senator Lyman Hoffman of Bethel is quietly pushing a huge, one-time boost in funding for home weatherization and energy efficiency programs. In recent years, the state has put $3 million into low-income weatherization. Hoffman wants $200 million. In recent years, the state has not put any money into an energy efficiency rebate program. Hoffman wants $100 million.
Both programs are overseen by the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., a public corporation. The weatherization program works by funneling money through regional non-profits that do the actual work. With the $3 million in state funds and $1.8 million in federal funds, the program reaches about 600 households a year.
That's way below the income limit, which is set by regulation at 60 percent of the Alaska poverty line. A 2005 Information Insights study estimated 45,000 homes were eligible out of the roughly 260,000 in the state.
Hoffman figured a 10-time increase in funding would still only cover a fraction of the homes that qualify -- about 4,200. The $200 million he wants would be about a 42-time increase and would cover about 17,400 homes, which works out to about $11,500 worth of work per home.
The other program would provide rebates of between $2,500 and $5,000 for improvements in home energy efficiency, based on how many steps homeowners increase in Energy Star Ratings. (One step gets you $2,500; five or more gets you $5,000.)
That program is not dependent on income.
(Info is mostly from Hoffman's office.)
I don't really have any figures on greenhouse gas reductions from something like this, but consider the following.
-Any reduction in the use of heating fuel or electricity (from fossil fuel-fire power plants anyway) also reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
-Energy conservation is widely considered the cheapest, most effective measure (compared to renewables, for example).
This might sound like a pipe dream -- another rural lawmaker is struggling to get a $10 million state match for LIHEAP -- except that Hoffman is co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and the money
is already in the supplemental budget the committee approved.
The Housing Finance Corp. is apparently on board, but I'm not sure about the gov.
A bill that may or may not be needed to make the plan work is up for its first hearing today.
Stay tuned.

where's the money?

2008-03-03T11:41:00.002-09:00

Sorry for the somewhat dull budget notes here. (The skiing this weekend was amazing...)
For anyone wondering, I just asked Sen. Lyman Hoffman about the CCS money. He’s a co-chair of the finance committee for the Alaska Senate and the one in charge of the supplemental budget. He said things that weren’t in the last version weren’t there because there wasn’t agreement from the four co-chairs of the House and Senate committees, and he added that most of the stuff that was cut would get put into the state’s operating budget instead. (Lawmakers this session have been critical of the gov’s budget process.)
I claimed earlier that this would be the first money the state appropriated to deal with climate change. That might not be quite right, depending on how you look at it. I think the state has already put money toward coastal erosion projects, but I guess without the explicit mention of climate change as the driver.

more on CCS

2008-03-03T08:38:00.002-09:00

When I first wrote about the Center for Climate Strategies last November, after they made a pitch to the state's climate change sub-cabinet, I got a lengthy response from someone at a conservative think tank called the John Locke Foundation challenging the group's claims of economic reductions in GHG emissions and its overall approach. When I mentioned it last week in a post, I got another response.
I'm not really in a position to judge, so here's a little more info on CCS, the charges against it, and maybe a few thoughts at the end.
CCS is a non-profit that helps states develop responses to climate change through a stakeholder process. It's currently working in 16 states, according to its Web site.
The John Locke Foundation is a conservative think tank that tackles all kinds of issues. It criticizes CCS for developing plans that raise taxes and dig into personal freedoms. Here's a Web site it developed specifically against CCS, and here's an example of a column written by an editor there, Paul Chesser, who contacted me last November.
As for comments made in the comment about the cost of the CCS process, I got my information from a public notice issued by the state, which said the $180,000 contributed by the state would amount to about 16 percent of the total cost of the project.
I certainly don't have enough information to judge the accuracy of CCS's claim that many of the recommendations typically made under its stakeholder processes actually save money, but the criticisms levied by Chesser and others don't really prove otherwise. They attack CCS is an activist group "Funded by wealthy liberals" and challenge that climate change is even an issue worth addressing. But I'll let you form your own opinion.
For now, the state money to get the project moving is gone from the budget anyway.

CCS nixed for now

2008-02-29T18:18:00.002-09:00

I haven't yet asked for the rationale, but the finance committee of the Alaska Senate nixed funding this morning that would have gone toward a contract with the Center for Climate Strategies to come up with ways to economically reduce emissions and deal with impacts of climate change. It was a $230,000 appropriation; most of it would go to CCS, but with a big bang for the buck, as CCS would be required to match the money many times over with private contributions.
The money was cut in a substitute version of the supplemental budget, but it could get put back in.
The other climate-related appropriation -- $1.1 million, mostly for planning grants for communities dealing with climate change -- is in the capital budget, which hasn't yet had a hearing.
Stay tuned.

oh, juneau!

2008-02-27T19:41:00.004-09:00

Thanks to Chris at AP, I've got my photos now if not my waterlogged camera. These are from the trip a few weeks ago up Mount Jumbo. Juneau is the little city down below and across the channel.
Oh, and that's Peter, Toby, and Laura.

kivalina makes the ny times

2008-02-27T08:06:00.002-09:00

You saw it here first! So yesterday I wondered whether the Kivalina suit would be ignored as a stunt or covered in the New York Times. It was the latter, and not just in the Times but in the Canadian Press, United Press International, AP, Guardian Unlimited, etc. Apparently some of the lawyers involved helped sue U.S. tobacco companies in the 1990s.
On another note, the picture used on the NY Times Web site was taken by Mary Sage, the very kind woman who showed me and John around when we went to Barrow in September. Her husband Joe has also had his pictures play well -- of polar bears specifically. His Web site is called Eskimo Joe's Photos.

kivalina v. exxon

2008-02-26T16:15:00.002-09:00

Here's an interesting one. The city and Native village of Kivalina are suing Exxon, Peabody, Chevron, Shell, Duke Energy Co. and whole list of other oil companies and power producers for causing the coastal erosion that is putting the village at risk.
"Kivalina faces imminent destruction from global warming due to the melting of sea ice that formerly protected the village from coastal storms during the fall and winter," reads a press release sent out today.
The village is represented by two non-profit legal organizations and six law firms, according to the release, and its suit seeks relocation of the village, which is estimated to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
One of the firms is the Center on Race, Poverty, & the Environment, which is already helping Kivalina residents sue the Red Dog Mine over pollution of drinking water.
The case is reminiscent of an effort in 2004 by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference to get a ruling from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the U.S. was threatening their existence by contributing to climate change. Not sure how that one panned out.
I can't imagine this new case will get far, but it's certainly an interesting legal argument. It invokes the federal common law of public nuisance, and the complaint includes information on the companies' emissions, global warming, and specific impacts in Kivalina. I suppose its not new that a scientific understanding gets picked apart by the legal process, but this seems big. Do IPCC's "very likely"s amount to a "preponderance of the evidence?"
The suit also seeks damages for "defendants' acts in furthering a conspiracy to suppress the awareness of the link between [their] emissions and global warming."

climate commission nears the end

2008-02-26T15:30:00.003-09:00

The Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission, which was created by the Legislature in 2006 and for a long time carried the torch on climate change for the whole state, will finish its final report some time next week and, for all intents and purposes, start closing up shop.
The group was supposed to have its report done by Friday, but early next week is more likely, in large part because of the scope of the work involved. Expect to see both a compilation of climate-related impacts already happening and some recommendations for how to proceed. Don't expect anything in the way of mitigating climate change -- reducing emissions, embracing alternative energy, or anything else. The commission made it clear from the start that it wasn't going to consider what was causing the changes, and it looks like it will stick to its promise despite the fact that much if not most of the public and expert testimony included calls for mitigation measures.
Whatever its final product -- and whatever the limits of its approach -- the commission has done an incredible thing. By providing the only statewide, public forum on the issue for the last year, the commission has allowed a compilation of public testimony on everything from permafrost depth to changing saltwater fish. Testimony has come from PhD. scientists and commercial fishermen, hunters and whalers, students and local officials. It's come with the backing of decades of formal research or as the observations of laypeople affected by the changes. And it's come from people in Fairbanks, Anchorage, Juneau, Kotzebue, Barrow, and places in between.
The legacy of the commission likely will not be the recommendations that come from it, but the body of evidence that it gathered, which is dutifully, wonderfully public. The commission's Web site has Powerpoint presentations given by experts, documents and reports, and audio files of public testimony given by hundreds of Alaskans (I'm guessing here, but it must be at least 200).
When the commission ends, its duties will de facto fall to the governor's sub-cabinet on climate change, which is already well underway and which even some commissioners argued was the better vehicle for action on the issue.
P.S. The forming resolution states that the commission will be available for legislative hearings on its report and recommendations, and that continuing the commission will be reevaluated during this legislative session, so it might not be closing up shop just yet...

not in the news: walter

2008-02-20T13:57:00.003-09:00

Despite Stevens' lauding, public introduction during his speech, and other promotion, Katey Walter didn't make it into the news stories today about Stevens' address to the Legislature. Or rather news story. As far as I can tell, my paper, the ADN, and the Juneau Empire all went with the AP story. Chalk it up to reporters steering clear of subjects we just don't understand, I guess. IMHO, the fact that he spent so much time talking about her and her work (on the release of methane in Alaska lakes) merited at least some mention, but then, I could have written a story myself.

stevens and walter

2008-02-19T14:54:00.004-09:00

Sen. Ted Stevens gave his annual address to the state legislature today, and he spent a good chunk of time talking about UAF's Katey Walter and her research on the release of methane from Alaska lakes and ponds. He called her "one of Alaska's brightest young scientists" and gave a synopsis of her research and his idea.
Methane is bubbling up out of lakes -- potentially faster now as permafrost thaws with warming temps -- and into the atmosphere, where it has a strong greenhouse gas effect, he said. If the state and the feds can assess the supply and figure out how to use it, they could address climate change and high rural energy costs at the same time.
After his address, Stevens took questions from the press in the House Speaker's office. He sat on the table like he always does, and he had Walter sit next to him.
Walter said there's a tremendous amount of methane already coming out of lakes, and gas hydrates and natural gas on top of that. She explained that farmers in the Netherlands were already using methane in groundwater by bringing it to the surface and separating out the water with a low-tech, sprinkler-type system. The sprinklers are topped with heavy caps that "naturally" pressurize the gas enough to pipe it into homes, where it can be used for heating and cooking.
"They don't pay heating bills," she said.
Stevens said he's already asked high-ups in the Bush administration about having NASA do spectral analysis of methane hotspots by satellite, or aerial surveys at least. The state could chip in to test the feasibility of the gas as an energy source, he added.
When someone asked why the state hadn't looked into this before, Stevens said no one even knew about leaking methane before Walter's research. "She discovered it."
(I wrote a bit about her research in November.)
He said Walter is working on a pilot project to heat homes in one place and possibly generate power in another.
She said the technological trick will be figuring out a way to harness the gas bubbling up from lakes rather than the gas contained in subsurface pools.
The whole thing amounted to an impressive endorsement of Walter's research -- Stevens had little flyers Walter wrote distributed to every legislator -- that pretty much came out of the blue.
It left me and the other reporters a little befuzzled. How big a deal is this? How new is it? And how does lake methane relate to coal-bed methane? (Or natural gas, I might add, which is mostly methane.)
Stevens presented Walter's idea as something of a panecea -- a solution to the rural energy crisis that's doubly good for climate change. Capturing and burning the gas would replace another (potentially carbon-heavy fuel source), and it would release carbon dioxide to the air rather than methane, which has the stronger greenhouse gas effect.
Walter made that last point about how burning the gas was actually better (in terms of climate change) than letting it escape, but I'm skeptical without knowing how much CO2 you'd get from a given amount of methane.
In any case, Go Katey!

who needs pictures, anyway?

2008-02-17T16:21:00.004-09:00

OK, so I sent my camera through the warm/gentle cycle. With a small miracle, the thing might work once its tiny electronics dry out, but here's an attempt to describe my weekend backcountry outing with words alone.
Imagine hiking up a mountain from 200 feet above the channel to 2,500 or 3,000 feet, to the shoulder of the highest mountain on the island across from Juneau. It's cloudy and windy just above treeline, but below you it's almost clear and across the water you can see the city below and the wall of mountains behind it. The sky is gray and white with clouds that look like smoke.
The snow on Mount Jumbo is crusty. There's snowmachine tracks most of the way up, icy and hard and fast for walking. In the woods, the crust is hard enough to keep the skiers on top and to keep me, on snowshoes, mostly on top. Once we bust out of the trees into the big open bowl below the summit, the snow changes again -- windblown and hard in places, soft and deep in others, so that each step for me involves sinking in, pushing off, sinking in again.
I went with friends who know a lot more than I about avalanche danger. We dug a deep pit in the snow a little ways down from the summit, checked the hard and soft layers, studied the snow crystals, measured the temperature change in the snowpack. I jumped on a carved-out block of snow harder and harder until I and my snowboard set off a foot-thick layer. The way I understand it, you're never completely safe in the mountains, but there's ways to reduce your danger by choosing the right path, staying off bad snow, and having the gear you need for a rescue as a last resort.
All went well Saturday -- in fact, glorious. We were out for about six hours and had probably 2 or 3 minutes total of real nice backcountry skiing (that's called earning your turns), plus a mostly scary slide down the narrow snowmachine trail to town. Wish I had some pictures to share . . .

state steps up

2008-02-13T09:14:00.003-09:00

To follow up again . . . I just talked with Mike Black from the department of commerce, who's one of the co-chairs of the immediate needs work group of Gov. Palin's sub-cabinet on climate change.
One of Palin's two climate-related budget requests is for $1.1 million in grant money to be distributed by the department. Black said the idea came from his work group and from Sen. Ted Stevens' comments at a round table last November. Stevens "basically challenged the state to be involved" if it wanted to get federal funds, Black said. Big picture, the grant request shows the administration believes it's time to get involved, and time to take a statewide approach, he said. "The state hasn't really been involved up till now other than just discussing it."
The $1.1 million would break down like this. Grants of $100,000 to $150,000 would go to communities identified as having critical needs to help them plan to mitigate impacts. Actually dealing with the impacts would take additional state or federal funds. Black said the communities that would qualify were already identified, and included Shishmaref, Kivalina, Unalakleet, Shaktoolik, Newtok, and Koyukuk. Smaller grants of $30,000 to $35,000 would go to other communities based on need (anyone could apply) to help those communities gather evidence of being impacted by climate change, whether by thawing permafrost, coastal erosion, or something else. That information could them be used to leverage state and federal funds.
The other request, for $230,000, would mostly be used to develop a statewide stakeholder approach to identify mitigation and adaptation measures. The question remains whether lawmakers will approve the two requests.

putting the dollars in

2008-02-12T09:06:00.000-09:00

First of all, I guess it's fair to say I won't be posting as often while I'm down here in Juneau covering the legislative session. And down here in Juneau while the state's biggest environmental conference is happening in Anchorage...
That said, there's fairly big news from the Gov's office these days. I've heard some grumblings from enviro folks that Palin's approach to dealing with climate change has been lots of talk and not so much action. Now that's a little harder to say. In a supplemental budget request for the current fiscal year, she's asking for $230,000 for her sub-cabinet on climate change and $1.1 million for planning grants for communities with immediate needs. It won't move villages, but it's a start.
Here's the story I wrote for today's News-Miner.
As a follow up, the state is formally proposing to go with the non-profit Center for Climate Strategies to develop a response plan. The state would chip in $180,000 (from the $230,000), and CCS would be responsible for raising the rest of the needed money (close to $1 million) from private charities.
CCS made its pitch to Palin's sub-cabinet last November. The group has done climate-related work in more than two dozen states, and has helped a number of them develop plans to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner (they argue many of the changes actually save money). Alaska would be somewhat different because it's already experiencing dramatic impacts from climate change. CCS is proposing one stakeholder process to work on mitigation measures -- emissions reductions -- and another to deal with adaptation. Here's what I wrote back then.

lawmakers and wolves

2008-01-17T17:35:00.000-09:00

Boy, that was an terrible delay. Sorry. My only excuse is that I've been preparing for the trip down to Juneau and then making that trip, which actually turned out to be pretty amazing.
I had a lot of time to think -- it's about 600 miles from Fairbanks to Haines -- so I thought about how damn big the state is, about how it can be 60 or even 70 degrees warmer in one part of the state compared to another (Juneau v. Prudhoe, for instance), and about the wonder of the Alaska Legislature -- that a bunch of businessmen, pilots, lawyers and construction workers gather in tiny Juneau every year to make some really important decisions.
And I saw two wolves!
Both were in the Yukon, and both looked me in the eye for a few seconds before running off. The second I saw actually stuck around a while, trotting past my parked truck and going to munch on some roadkill. He looked awkward at first in the deep snow, then started to just glide over it when he decided to run.
There's actually a lot going on in climate news, which I'll try to get to soon. The gov's sub-cabinet's work group dealing with imminent issues met earlier this month and is meeting again tomorrow. I got to talk with Don Young and Ted Stevens about climate change (Stevens' views still remind me of SNL's Pat). And the polar bear listing is big news even with the decision delayed.