Alaska Ground Zero Of Climate Breakdown - It's Delegation Doesn't Care

[hatrack]

"A distinguished group of scientists from Arctic nations, looking at the science on global warming, has issued a report that should give every Alaskan pause. Global warming is rapidly heating up the Arctic, says the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment. Human activities - mainly, ever increasing levels of greenhouse gases - are fueling the warming trend. Widespread signs of disruption are noticeable, especially in the Arctic. And across the globe, in the decades to come, it's only going to get worse. "Global temperature (is) now rising at a rate unprecedented in the experience of modern human society," the climate report says. And Alaska is at the front lines of drastic changes starting to unfold. "Arctic average temperature has risen at almost twice the rate as the rest of the world."

With this warming, the northern polar ice cap is melting. Arctic sea ice has shrunk by 8 percent and will melt even faster this century. The part of the Greenland ice cap that melts in summer has expanded by 16 percent. Disappearing sea ice may drive polar bears and ringed seals to extinction before the century is out. Fresh water from that melting ice runs into the oceans, driving up sea levels and disrupting currents that even out temperatures around the globe. In Alaska, Shishmaref is tumbling into the Bering Sea, Nome's downtown is inundated by a fall storm surge, and Bethel's seawall is crumbling. Many more Alaska and Arctic communities face similar trouble as the globe warms and storms grow more intense.

EDIT

Elsewhere in Alaska, the North Slope's winter oil drilling season, which requires firmly frozen tundra, has shrunk by half, from 200 days to 100. Frost heaves wreak havoc on roads in the Interior, as permafrost melts. Remember our record-breaking wildfires this summer? Expect more of that. The same goes for insect outbreaks, like the bark beetle epidemic that has ravaged millions of acres in Alaska. Populations of the western Steller sea lion, fur seals and several types of seabirds have plummeted. In all cases, a leading suspect is global warming.

Sen. Ted Stevens called for oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to help pay for dealing with global warming impacts in Alaska's northern coastal areas. There are better reasons to support ANWR exploration, but this one is filled with both significance and irony.

EDIT

Yes, things like oscillating ocean currents, volcanoes and variable solar output contribute to global warming. But "human influences, resulting primarily from increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, have now become the dominant factor," the Arctic scientists say. President Bush is gambling with the future of the planet. Alaskans need their Republican congressional delegation to talk sense to their colleague in the White House. The famously incurious president has no idea what global warming is doing to Alaska. The Arctic is a long way from Crawford, Texas."

EDIT

http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/112304/opi_20041123018.shtml

[Downtown Hound]

1. Yes, and correct me if I'm wrong but

didn't Alaska go red? Way to go geniuses!

Apologies to all Dems that live there.

[ladjf]

3. Not even purple.

[progressoid]

2. God help us

"Sen. Ted Stevens called for oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to help pay for dealing with global warming impacts in Alaska's northern coastal areas. There are better reasons to support ANWR exploration, but this one is filled with both significance and irony"

That says it all

[hatrack]

4. So if we find some humongo-giganto oil reserve, we'll burn ALL of it

'Cuz that way, we'll have EVEN MORE money to help build seawalls and repair roads and bridges . . . .

These people are out of their fucking minds. :crazy:

[Dogmudgeon]

5. When it sinks like Atlantis

When the permafrost layer starts to melt en masse, destroying hundreds of thousands of buildings, roads, and businesses, they'll be talking a different line -- and counting on Washington to give them billions of dollars.

That event could happen as soon as this coming Summer.

--p!

[IrateCitizen]

7. You mean billions of dollars MORE than they get now???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that Alaska is consistently one of the biggest pork-barrel recipients in the union. Of course, this is also attributable to the fact that Sen. Ted Stevens chairs the Senate appropriations committee.

[IrateCitizen]

6. Yeah, I heard Ted Stevens call for ANWR drilling...

... right in the middle of the Senate Commerce Committee's hearing on Arctic warming. He said that the costs of moving and providing transitional assistance to the native towns were so staggering -- I believe he said "hundreds of thousands of dollars per town, and there are hundreds of towns" -- that the best way to pay for it was to drill for oil in ANWR.

:wtf:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw this as the height of irony. Never mind the fact that Alaskan oil drilling depends on permafrost, and that the number of days per year in which they can actually get to the existing oil rigs (i.e. when the ground is sufficiently frozen) has been decreasing more and more with each passing year.