palin on bears

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.