Alaska taking steps to deal with warming

Baltimore Sun, via McClatchy: In the Norton Sound village of Shaktoolik, berms of driftwood above the beach used to provide protection from the sea. But these days the storm waves travel farther, pounding into the village itself, and the "Yukon logs" are tossed around like battering rams. Shaktoolik is the latest of a half-dozen remote Alaska villages battling drastic erosion from a changing climate. All of them face expensive options - seawall? relocation? - with meager resources of their own.

Now the state is taking steps to fill a leadership vacuum and start making decisions about what to do. In meetings during the past few weeks, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's climate change subcabinet has laid out a plan for tackling problems caused by global warming - and also for investigating ways to reduce Alaska's own emissions of greenhouse gases.

A first step will be recommendations about which village erosion projects should get priority. That's due to reach the subcabinet by April 1, said Mike Black, deputy commissioner of the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. Funding agencies want someone to build consensus about what to do first, Black said. The federal government simply won't fund every idea that comes its way, he said.

The climate subcabinet's efforts are built around a pair of buzzwords, "adaptation" for defense and "mitigation" for offense. …

Money from the initial auctioning of carbon credits to industry might be made available to deal with impacts in Alaska or relocation of tribes, they said. Funding to carry on the state's work and to help with community planning is included in a $1.1 million appropriation now before the Legislature.

That's a mere drop in the ocean compared to the money that may eventually be needed - $355 million to move the three most endangered communities, according to a 2006 Army Corps of Engineers study. Federal officials say no such money is available yet. State contributions are going to be necessary to entice federal funds, they say.

"There is no pot of money at any level to do these relocations. It doesn't exist," George Cannelos told an Anchorage climate forum last week. He is co-chairman of the Denali Commission, a state-federal agency that funds economic development and other improvements in rural Alaska.

Cannelos added that Alaska was going to have to put in "treasure" as well as time and talent. When Alaska asks for money, the presence of $37 billion in the state's Permanent Fund "doesn't resonate well inside the Beltway in Washington," he said.

The first sign of the spring melt - a stream is seen flowing on the ice,North Slope, photo by Rear Admiral Harley D. Nygren, NOAA Corps (ret.),Wikimedia Commons