America’s first climate refugees: Can a baked Alaska deny climate change?

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http://grist.org/climate-energy/americas-first-climate-refugees-can-a-baked-alaska-deny-climate-change/

In September 2007, a rising star of Alaskan politics dared to take on one of the toughest, most challenging issues for any leader: climate change. That summer, seasonal ice cover had fallen to its lowest extent since satellite records began in 1979, leaving much of the Arctic as open water. A few months earlier, Al Gore had won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth.

It seemed as if the timing was right to deal with climate change, and so the politician approached a group of high-level officials to develop a climate change strategy for Alaska.

Their leader was Sarah Palin, the then-governor of Alaska before her entry into national Republican party politics. “Climate change is not just an environmental issue. It is also a social, cultural, and economic issue important to all Alaskans,” said Palin, announcing two new working groups on climate change.

“As a result of this warming, coastal erosion, thawing permafrost, retreating sea ice, record forest fires, and other changes are affecting, and will continue to affect, the lifestyles and livelihoods of Alaskans,” she went on.