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What President Obama Will And Won’t See On His Trip To The Arctic

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First published on ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, which was recently named one of Time magazine’s Top 25 blogs of 2010.

Last week, the president went to Las Vegas to talk renewable energy, and then New Orleans to talk climate disaster recovery. On Monday, President Obama flew to Alaska for the first day of a three-day, climate-focused visit, a trip that makes him the first sitting president to travel to the Arctic.

On Monday, he stayed in Anchorage for the tail end of a conference about global leadership in the Arctic. On Tuesday, he will see the impacts of climate change firsthand in the Seward area, and the following day will bring him to the northwest villages of Dillingham and Kotzebue.

Climate change is at the top of his agenda. But what else will the president see, and perhaps just as importantly for Alaska and the rest of the world, what won’t he see?

Here are some of the things President Obama will see: Attempts to make progress on international climate negotiations

This week, United Nations climate negotiators are meeting in Bonn, Germany to streamline the process the world will use to reach a final climate agreement this December in Paris. They could receive some help from Alaska. Along with Secretary of State John Kerry, President Obama will be in town for the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience (GLACIER). Separate from the Arctic Council — which has vowed to fight climate change — the conference will allow foreign ministers of many Arctic nations to seize momentum for a strong global climate agreement in the run-up to the Paris U.N. talks in December. It could also allow the region to confront two particularly pernicious greenhouse gases — black carbon and methane — according to Cathleen Kelly, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.

Mt. Denali

Before he arrived, the White House announced the renaming of Mt. McKinley to the original moniker given to it by Native Americans: Mt. Denali. The mountain is the centerpiece of Denali National Park. A gold prospector suggested that the tallest mountain in the United States should be renamed to honor the 25th president, and he got his wish in 1917. Critics ranging from Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) to former Donald Rumsfeld staffers to Karl Rove attacked the president for the move. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and many other Alaskans praised the decision. The president is not scheduled to visit the mountain, but he could see it on the horizon while flying north to Kotzebue.

Bear Grylls

While it is unclear exactly what the president will learn from Grylls, Obama will tape an episode of Running Wild with Bear Grylls starring the survival expert and reality television veteran. They will reportedly discuss climate change on the show; it is unclear if the president will eat any grubs. Grylls has never brought his current show to Alaska, but he did undertake a trek through the melting Northwest Passage in 2010 to raise awareness about climate change.

Wildfires

The red pegs are “very large fires.” (Click to see larger version.)

CREDIT: Alaska Interagency Coordination Center

Flying over Alaska this year, it is hard to miss the fact that much of it is on fire. 2015 has been a banner year for Alaskan wildfires, with over 5 million acres burned so far. As of Tuesday, there were 153 active fires, according to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center. Roughly half of those were categorized as “very large fires” — meaning they spanned an area of more than 2,500 acres. While 2004 may may end up a worse year in terms of acreage (6.5 million), 2015 could still have a shot at the record. The smoke generated from these fires does not stay in Alaska; it drifts south into Canada and the mainland United States, bringing increased risk of heart disease. When ground burns in Alaska, the climate impacts can be much worse than normal wildfires because much of Alaska is made up of permafrost. With the insulating top layer of earth burned away, that permafrost, and the greenhouse gases normally embedded within, can much more easily leak into the atmosphere.

A bustling, but still unsatisfied, oil and gas sector

When the White House announced the president’s trip back in February, Sen. Lisa Murkowski attacked the president for trying to shut down the trans-Alaska pipeline through environmental regulations, opposing Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling, and pushing his climate agenda. The president said in his last weekly address that as long as the economy used oil and gas, “we should rely more on domestic production than on foreign imports.” Many Alaskans are dependent upon a bustling fossil fuel-based energy sector, and the state has received billions from oil and gas taxes. So it’s unsurprising Alaskans, even those at “ground zero for climate change,” often support drilling activities. In fact, Kotzebue, the town Obama will visit on Wednesday, is where some of Shell’s offshore drilling equipment is stored.

Locals and Alaskan native communities facing climate impacts

President Obama will meet with Alaskan natives, primarily on Wednesday during his trips to the northwestern towns of Koztebue and Dillingham. There he will see the rich and diverse cultures of these communities and their determination to maintain their way of life. He will also witness firsthand the potential for climate change to severely threaten that way of life. “In fact, Alaska’s governor recently told me that four villages are in ‘imminent danger’ and have to be relocated,” Obama said. “Already, rising sea levels are beginning to swallow one island community. Think about that. If another country threatened to wipe out an American town, we’d do everything in our power to protect ourselves. Climate change poses the same threat, right now.” Sure to come up are the ways that federal government can help these communities adapt.

Here are some of the things President Obama will not see: Normal sea ice, coastlines, permafrost, and glaciers

All of Alaska is warming dramatically, and Mt. Denali is no different. Since around 1950, Denali glaciers have lost about 8 percent of their area. The National Park Service said in 2012 that “the evidence is clear that Denali’s glaciers are thinning and retreating.” President Obama will visit the Kenai fjords and will hike Exit Glacier near Seward, where he will witness retreating glaciers firsthand. He could see plenty of melting permafrost under the town of Kotzebue.

Whales

Whale strandings over the last six years. (Click for larger version.)

CREDIT: NOAA

President Obama will be seeing fewer whales in the Gulf of Alaska than he otherwise would after an “unusual mortality event” hit the region this year. Since May 14, 30 whale carcasses have been found stranded on Alaskan shorelines, which is three times the normal rate. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration release said the mortality event “demands immediate response.” Researchers say it will take some time to make conclusions about the causes, but several point to the “blob” of unusually warm water sitting off Alaska, which has helped the spread of a massive toxic algae bloom that stretches from Alaska down to the mainland United States.

Praise from environmental groups

It’s putting it mildly to say that the Obama administration did not improve his standing with climate and environmental groups in deciding to approve Royal Dutch Shell’s permit to drill in the deep Arctic waters offshore Alaska. Credo Action called the president’s trip to Alaska his “Mission Accomplished” moment, hearkening back to President Bush’s premature aircraft carrier announcement of the end of the Iraq War. “There, he will discuss his administration’s climate legacy against a backdrop of melting glaciers, in the very place where he just gave Shell approval to drill into the vast carbon bomb of oil that lies beneath the Arctic ocean floor,” Credo Action’s Elijah Zarlin wrote.

Many other groups also criticized the decision in advance of the trip, with the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune saying the timing of the trip “could not be more ironic.” The administration makes the case that domestic oil is preferable to foreign oil, and the Bush-era permit was curtailed to be safer than it previously was. But carbon emissions associated with the prospect of offshore Arctic drilling, and the potential for a catastrophic spill that would be extremely difficult to clean up makes it a risky venture that threatens the president’s climate message.

Walrus’ sea ice

Just like last year, the dramatic disappearance of Arctic sea ice has caused thousands of walrus to crowd onto a barrier island in the Chukchi Sea this year. They normally follow the sea ice as it recedes north, but recently the ice has just disappeared. This has happened every year since 2007, except 2008, and threatens the walrus with injuries and deaths from stampeding. Human activity, especially aircraft, spook the walrus, so it is unlikely that Air Force One will do a fly-by.

Mt. McKinley

Denali. The Mountain Formerly Known As McKinley.

CREDIT: National Park Service

See above.

Oil and gas drilling in Bristol Bay

Late last year, Obama announced he would be withdrawing Bristol Bay from any future oil and gas development. It was a relatively uncontroversial move given, as Sen. Lisa Murkowski noted, there was not significant industry interest in the ecologically rich waters. Attention quickly moved right back to the legal fight over Pebble Mine, which would be the largest copper and gold mine in North America if given final approval. Two-thirds of Alaskans voted to allow the state legislature to be an additional check on the proposed site by either halting or permitting the mine, which could seriously impact the salmon fishery. Yet the mine appears to have momentum in court, and could still eventually receive approval.

Alaska’s Clean Power Plan targets

The centerpiece of President Obama’s climate mitigation strategy, the Clean Power Plan, does not yet establish carbon emissions targets for Alaska or Hawaii. Both states have extremely isolated electric grids, and the concern was that they could not meet carbon pollution reduction targets without interconnected grids. Alaska Governor Bill Walker said he was “pleased that the EPA has recognized the unique circumstances Alaska is facing.” However, some local renewable energy advocates lament Alaska’s exclusion from the Clean Power Plan as a “missed opportunity.” Alaska, though remote, does have enormous renewable energy potential in geothermal, wind, biomass, and sustainable hydroelectric. Indeed, Hawaii’s grid is even more isolated than Alaska’s, and Gov. David Ige (D-HI) recently committed to achieving 100 percent renewable energy by 2045 without natural gas.

The post What President Obama Will And Won’t See On His Trip To The Arctic appeared first on ThinkProgress.


Source: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/09/01/3696930/obama-alaska-arctic-trip-list/


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