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Alaska

What You Don’t Know About The Willow Project

April 6, 2023 Bella Piacente, The New School Free Press. , , , ,
On March 13, 2023, President Biden approved the Willow project, an oil drilling venture by the large crude oil producer, ConocoPhillips, occurring on Alaska’s North Slope. The proposed drilling area is believed to hold 600 million barrels of oil, which will be extracted from three different drill pads. While there is no exact date for the project to begin, construction is set to commence at any time and will continue for decades. The detrimental climate impact is by far the project’s most severe effect. However, the media is ignoring a crucial factor: the drill site sits next to the Nuiqsut tribe, an Inupiaq community that strongly opposes the Willow project.

Environmentalists, Indigenous Groups Blast Approval Of Willow Oil Project

March 16, 2023 Lindsey Botts, Sierra Club. , , ,
Indigenous people and environmental groups on Monday swiftly slammed the Biden administration's approval of the controversial Willow oil drilling project along Alaska's North Slope. They say the ConocoPhillips plan—which would be the largest oil development on federal land in US history—conflicts with the president's promise that no new oil and gas drilling would happen on public lands under his leadership and that the move keeps the country tethered to toxic fossil fuels at a time when scientists say the nation needs to be moving away from carbon pollution.

Tiktok Campaign Targets Controversial Alaska Willow Oil Project

March 11, 2023 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, Ecowatch. , , , , , ,
With 161.5 million views and counting on TikTok alone, the #StopWillow social media campaign has left no question of the groundswell of opposition to the proposed oil development project Willow on Alaska’s remote North Slope. Social media users have been using the hashtag to voice their resistance to President Joe Biden’s failure to keep his campaign pledges to reduce oil drilling. “With all of the progress that the U.S. government has made on climate change, it now feels like they’re turning their backs by allowing Willow to go through,” said climate activist Hazel Thayer, who posted TikTok videos using the #StopWillow hashtag, as The Associated Press reported.

How Tribes Of The North Are Taking Climate Matters Into Their Own Hands

February 19, 2023 Stephanie Masterman, Last Real Indians. , , ,
It can be difficult to understand the true impacts of climate change when you are not directly facing its harsh effects. We see that communities in different regions and terrains around the world are experiencing different rates of global warming with different consequences. We also know that the Arctic, in particular, is experiencing climate change more rapidly and more severely than other parts of the world. In order to understand the diverse impact climate change has on different communities, it is also important to understand what community-based solutions are in place for adaptation and mitigation of climate change.

Oil Companies Pull Out Of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

June 6, 2022 Olivia Rosane, EcoWatch. , ,
Drilling in the refuge has long been a controversial issue, as the 19.5-million-acre wilderness area is home to 45 species of mammals including polar bears, bowhead whales and caribou and considered sacred by the Indigenous Gwich’in people, according to the Gwich’in Steering Committee. “These exits clearly demonstrate that international companies recognize what we have known all along: drilling in the Arctic Refuge is not worth the economic risk and liability that results from development on sacred lands without the consent of Indigenous Peoples,” the Gwich’in Steering Committee said in a statement. The Anchorage Daily News first reported Thursday that the oil company Regenerate Alaska, a subsidiary of 88 Energy, had canceled its lease on the refuge’s coastal plain, as confirmed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Indigenous Organizers In Alaska Lead The Way Toward Livable Climate Future

June 1, 2022 C. J. Polychroniou, Truthout. , , ,
In the United States, the public and politicians are moving in opposite directions on climate change. Grassroots environmental activism is spreading on the local state, regional and national levels, while Congress generally continues with a “business-as-usual” approach, rejecting the foremost way to avoid the worst consequences of global warming: the Green New Deal. While the Green New Deal remains aspirational in the U.S., it has been adopted by the European Union, and scores of countries around the world have committed to pursuing its goals. Among the many organizations in the U.S. fighting for environmental sustainability and a just transition toward clean, renewable energy is Native Movement, an organization dedicated to building people power for transformative change and imagining a world without fossil fuels.

Land Exchange For Alaska Native Veterans

May 15, 2021 Becky Bohrer, Associated Press. , , ,
Juneau, AL - Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Wednesday proposed letting Alaska Native Vietnam War veterans exchange promised federal land allotments that many say are not available in their cultural regions for state lands. Details would need to be worked out through the legislative process, with lawmakers eyeing adjournment in about two weeks. Several legislators attended Wednesday’s announcement, along with Alaska Native veterans. Dunleavy said he sees this as an opportunity to “right a wrong” the federal government should have addressed long ago. “We’re going to help them get land as close as possible to where they grew up or where they hunted or where they berry picked, especially where they want their families to take part,” the Republican governor said.

Community-Focused Gardening Takes Root In Alaska

June 18, 2020 Meghan Sullivan, Indian Country Today. , , ,
Alaska is cold. With temperatures below freezing from October to April, it has some of the longest winters in the country. And the terrain can be challenging: rocky islands with scant soil. Tundra — soggy on top and frozen a foot down. On the other hand, summer days are long. In the land of the midnight sun, the sun doesn’t set for weeks, making gardening in Alaska a unique experience. With greenhouses to get an early start and raised beds to warm the soil, Alaskans are able to plant flourishing gardens and raise record-breaking vegetables despite the obstacles. At the start of the growing season in May, the Alaska Native Media Group launched the Garden and Gather initiative, to encourage Alaska Natives to practice local gardening, and to empower them to share their planting stories.

Alaska Legislation Would Finally Recognize The Existence Of Tribes

February 17, 2020 Joaqlin Estus, Newsmaven.io , ,
‘This bill is simply honoring and recognizing our Alaska people that have been here since time immemorial, an ancient people with an ancient past, a proud people’ A bill before the Alaska House Tribal Affairs Committee is simple: "The state recognizes all tribes in the state that are federally recognized ..." The legislation gets more complicated after that line.

Alaska Becomes First State To Allow Public Use Establishments

February 1, 2020 Staff, Norml.org ,
Juneau, AK: Officials with the Alaska's Marijuana Control Board have issued their first-ever permits to retailers who wish to allow customers to consume cannabis on the premises. While a handful of cities in other states — such as West Hollywood, California and Springfield, Illinois — have similarly issued municipal licenses to allow for on-site cannabis consumption, Alaska is the first jurisdiction to provide state approval for such facilities.

Young Indigenous Activists Lead Climate Justice Action In Alaska

December 27, 2019 Tripp J Crouse, Hcn.org , ,
“We do not want to stop our ways of life. That’s why we’re here.” Seventeen-year-old Quannah Chasing Horse’s voice broke as she stood on stage in front of a sea of delegates at the Alaska Federation of Natives 2019 Convention in Fairbanks, Alaska. “We shouldn’t have to tell people in charge that we want to survive. It should be our number-one right. We should not have to fight for this.” In October, at one of the largest gatherings of Indigenous people in the U.S., the Hans Gwich’in and Lakota Sioux teenager stood with 15-year-old Nanieezh Peter (Neetsaii Gwich’in and Diné)...

Tlingit Carvers Create ‘Shaming Totem’ Of Trump And Alaska Governor Dunleavy

September 2, 2019 By Frank Hopper, Newsmaven.io , ,
The pole supports the effort to recall Dunleavy, who would rather balance the state budget by cutting benefits to the poor than reduce a tax credit to big oil companies. Did the Tlingit “shaming” totem pole featuring images of President Trump and Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy cause the governor to restore most of the nearly half a billion dollars he cut from the state budget? Well, it didn’t hurt. The 11-and-a-half foot red cedar pole arrived in the state capital of Juneau from where it was carved in Sitka just in time for the kickoff of the Recall Dunleavy signature drive on August 1.

Congress Opens Alaska Wildlife Refuge To Drilling, But Roadblocks Remain

December 22, 2017 Sabrina Shankman, insideclimatenews.org , ,
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could soon be open to drilling, thanks to the tax bill passed by Congress this week, but one key question remains: Once oil companies can drill in the refuge, will they jump at the chance? A provision tucked into the Republican tax overhaul calls for opening the refuge's coastal plain, a 1.5 million acre stretch of land that did not share the refuge's protected status. Republicans have fought for decades to allow drilling there. But those hoping that oil companies will flock to the refuge—and that revenues raised can help offset some of the deficit created by the tax bill—might be sorely disappointed, said Bud Coote, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center.

Alaska Climate Impact: Collapsing Mountains, Shattered Lives

August 6, 2016 Dahr Jamail, www.truth-out.org ,
By Dahr Jamail for Truthout - The impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) across Alaska are devastating to witness. In late June, due to glaciers melting at unprecedented rates, the side of a mountain nearly a mile high in Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park, which had formerly been supported by glacial ice, collapsed completely. The landslide released over 100 million tons of rock, sending debris miles across a glacier beneath what was left of the mountain.

Dahr Jamail | Alaskans Witness Collapsing Mountains, Shattered Lives

August 3, 2016 Dahr Jamail, www.truth-out.org ,
By Dahr Jamail for Truthout - The impacts of anthropogenic climate disruption (ACD) across Alaska are devastating to witness. In late June, due to glaciers melting at unprecedented rates, the side of a mountain nearly a mile high in Alaska's Glacier Bay National Park, which had formerly been supported by glacial ice, collapsed completely. The landslide released over 100 million tons of rock, sending debris miles across a glacier beneath what was left of the mountain.
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