This Is Political
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1146859,00.htmlAlaska is a huge oil producer and has become rich on the proceeds. But it has suffered the consequences: global warming, faster and more terrifyingly than anyone could have predicted. Mark Lynas reports
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However, Alaska's current prosperity has come at a high price. Although few in the state care to recognise it, Alaskan oil - of which more than one million barrels a day are exported to the mainland US - has rebounded heavily on the state through global climate change. And, whatever their views on global warming, almost every resident will admit one thing: Alaska's weather has gone crazy.
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Or at least they used to. In recent winters, temperatures have reached -30C for only a couple of days, Curtis told me, while in previous decades they had remained at -40C for months at a time. And similar stories come from all over the state.The reason is simple: Alaska is baking. Temperatures in the state - as in much of the Arctic - are rising 10 times faster than in the rest of the world. And the effects are so dramatic that entire ecosystems are beginning to unravel, as are the lifestyles of the people who depend on them. In many ways, Alaska is the canary in the coal mine, showing the rest of the world what lies ahead as global warming accelerates.
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Permafrost degradation is one of the clearest signals that something unprecedented is happening in the far north. In Siberian cities, hundreds of tall buildings have begun to subside and crack. In Alaska, whole sections of coastline are breaking off and falling into the sea, as the ice, which has kept cliffs solid for centuries, begins to melt. More than half a kilometre has eroded from some stretches of coastline over the past few decades. This may not matter too much when nobody lives there - but many of these coastal areas have been inhabited by indigenous peoples for centuries. And in Shishmaref, on the west coast of Alaska, the Native Americans who have made their home there now live in daily terror of the sea.
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You'd be hard pressed, however, to find anyone in Alaska prepared to admit this. With 80% of state revenues coming from royalties paid by drilling companies, and many of the highest-paying and most reliable jobs based on extraction and oilfield services, no one wants to rock the boat. Oil money has poured into the coffers of state politicians, with both Democrats and Republicans competing to offer the industry tax breaks and incentives. And ordinary Alaskans benefit, too - every year, every state citizen, from the oldest grandad to the youngest baby, gets a payout from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which now totals more than $20bn, collected from decades of oil company royalties. In 2002, the dividend cheque came to $1,500, free money for everyone, and a convincing reminder of the rewards paid by Big Oil.
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Time is running out, too, for the land areas of the Arctic. With 21st-century warming predicted as high as a staggering 10 C, much of the remaining permafrost is likely to thaw - further damaging forests, houses, roads and other infrastructure, and raising the spectre of massive releases of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane from bogland hitherto inert and frozen. The bitterest irony is that an overwhelming majority of state residents still seem deadset on pumping out their fossil fuel reserves for as long as the oil keeps flowing - whatever the eventual cost to their climate.
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tick, tick, tick............
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