What do Alaska Native elders, priests, secular humanists and scientists have in common? Apparently, climate change.
A diverse panel of eight convened at the University of Alaska Southeast on Saturday afternoon to spread their message to college students and others in the audience: it is a moral imperative to take action on human-accelerated climate change.
Mary Walker, the executive director of the religious group Alaska Interfaith Power & Light, which hosted the panel discussion, stressed that human-accelerated climate change doesn’t just affect the environment.
“Climate change places human lives and livelihoods at risk, especially the world’s most vulnerable and poor peoples,” said Walker. “It is a threat to human life that should raise our collective consciousness, that action through reductions in carbon air pollution is not merely about caring for our environment. More importantly, it is about caring for one another.”
Walker said the panel was intended to showcase perspectives on climate change from the faith, science and Native communities in order to demonstrate a moral obligation in taking action.
Alaska Interfaith Power & Light has hosted panels in Fairbanks and Anchorage, and Saturday’s panel in Juneau marked the third and final event in the series.
The group asked audience-members to take part in their “One People, One Earth” climate initiative, which is meant to teach greater respect for the earth and for each other by acting on climate change, according to the group’s website. Audience members also signed a petition calling upon President Barack Obama to regulate greenhouse gases and carbon air pollution.
During the discussion, panelists discussed the importance of taking action and why they themselves have.
Dr. F. Stuart “Terry” Chapin III, an ecologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told the crowd that he has studied Alaska’s climate for the past 40 years, and that the state of Alaska is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
“I’ve been studying the changes in Alaska since I came here 40 years ago, and it’s really clear the climate is changing. I learned that even more clearly by talking to people who live on the land and work on the sea. It’s really clear that Alaska’s changing, and that’s just what we see. Alaska happens to be warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet, but things are changing everywhere, and it’s really clear that climate is changing. It’s clear that human impacts on the climate system are the biggest driver of these changes, and there’s something we can do about that.”
Elder Ilarion “Larry” Merculieff, who was born and raised on Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea, told the crowd his people, the Aleuts of the Pribilof Islands, want to find solutions in solving climate change, which is affecting their land and way of life, he says.
“In my language, we greet each other every day saying ‘Aang waan,’ ‘Hello my other self.’ The indigenous people are saying in their message that unless we do this, unless we unify, unless we dissolve our separations, then we’re not going to find the answers and that’s guaranteed. And so this group actually represents exactly what the elders are saying to do, and that’s why I’m here,” he said.
The Rev. Curtis Karns of Fairbanks, with the Presbytery of Yukon which oversees 23 churches in Alaska, told the crowd that when he was boy, his family used to visit a lake near Delta Junction where a glacier once was. Islands dotted the lake, and old ice lenses held up the soil.
“When I was a boy I could see all these islands and the trees growing up out of the islands, and you didn’t see any of what you see now,” he said. “Now what you see is skeletons of branches sticking up out of the water and no islands because all of the ice lenses have melted and the islands sank, and of course that kills the trees, and you see these dead trees sticking up,”
The islands held for thousands of years and were inhabited by Natives for at least 8,000 years, he said. The ice lenses were always melting, but at a slower rate, he said.
Physics professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Imam Dr. Ataur Chowdhury said he worries climate change will have a “devastating effect” on Bangladesh, where he was born, as well Mumbai.
“It is time for all of us to wake up,” he said.
Dr. Franz Mueter, an assistant professor at the Juneau Center of the School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, has studied the effects of environmental variability and climate change on fish populations in larger commercial fisheries of Alaska.
“We certainly have observed changes there as well, but there are enormous uncertainties about what might happen under continued climate warming, and those uncertainties alone certainly are calls for taking a pro-active approach in terms of the management or the stewardship of those resources,” Mueter said.
He added that he was hesitant at first to join the religious group, describing himself a secular humanist.
“As far as questions about the metaphysical world, that may be at odds with some or many of you here,” he said, but adding, “We all live in the real world, and we share the belief that caring for and preserving or defending the living, natural world is a universal value that we can all work towards and rally around.”
Mary Walker said she hoped the discussion would inspire Alaskans to stand in solidarity in taking action on climate change.
“As a person of faith, I take this responsibility very seriously, as should anyone with a moral conscience,” she said. “And it’s this moral obligation that should compel every nation, particularly those with the financial means to do so, to take action.”
• Contact reporter Emily Russo Miller at 523-2263 or at emily.miller@juneauempire.com.
Comments (21)
Add commentNot optimistic
The big emitters of carbon are not going to change. There's too much profit at stake. China, India, and the U.S. pump out huge quantities of carbon through coal-fired power generation. Cheap natural gas is crowding out renewable energy projects in this country.
Islands like St. Paul, or little towns like Juneau can all make symbolic attempts, but that's all they are - tiny symbols lost in the flood of carbon.
Moral imperative? Sure. But that can't compete with self interest. History is full of examples of that. Better to focus on adaptation - I fear that's all we have.
Adaptation?
That is natures way, always has been, always will be. Survival of the fittest, we seem to have lost that somewhere along the way, now it's "make everthing survive regardless of if it should." Oregon and Washington, along with Federal agencys want to shotgun the barred owl because it is moving into the habitat of the spotted owl? How crazy is that? Have we outlawed evolution?
Washington State's coal-fired
Washington State's coal-fired power plant TransAlta's is closing because the Pacific NW is phasing out dirty energy and replacing dirty energy with clean energy.
This closing is the result of a huge group effort that included TransAlta executives, union reps, workers, state political leaders, public health advocates, and environmental groups that all came together in agreement to close the plant down because of coal pollution. This diverse group of people felt a "moral imperative" to address climate change and phase out dirty energy.
Our state should do the same and we must stop selling coal to other countries, we have a moral obligation here to do the right thing.
Ice and snow
Ice and snow are a new thing on this planet on the planetary time line..
Hogwash.
This is all hogwash. Man cannot "save the planet". The planet is evolving like it has done since creation.
A few points..
The earth is roughly 5 billion years old. The first glaciation period was in the early Proterozoic, around 2400 - 2100 million years ago. As a first glaciation, it means that snow and ice were around and accruing prior to that, which means that snow and ice are not exactly "new things". Although glacial periods are definitely a feature of the second half of the planet's life span, life itself with early prokaryotes began around 4 billion years ago, which places the role of ice and snow as functional in over 60% of the time line of life on earth.
Planets do not technically "evolve", by the definition of the word, but they do definitely change and are in continual flux, although the temporal scales on which these changes occur can be fairly large relative to human life-spans. One might say that the influence of human beings on climate is simply a natural progression, as human beings are a product of the planetary system and therefore everything we do is "natural". By that argument, however, me putting a bullet through someone and taking everything he owns is simply "natural selection" and we should never do anything to prevent it.
As for saving things, if we are trying to save human beings from the impacts of climate change and that is "hogwash", does that also imply we should not aid those affected by landslides or flood or any other disaster?
Were they able to decide if
Were they able to decide if we're going to burn up or freeze? What a crock. They just need to fix the thermostat on the sun.
Solar forcing
Solar activity has been shown to be distinct from observed changes in planetary climate over the last few decades.
Krivova, N., S.K. Solanki, 2004: Solar Variability and Global Warming: A Statistical Comparison Since 1850. Advances in Space Research, Vol. 34, Issue 2, p 361
Solanki, Sami K.; Usoskin, Ilya G.; Kromer, Bernd; Schussler, Manfred; Beer, Jurg (2004), "Unusual activity of the Sun during recent decades compared to the previous 11,000 years" Nature 431: 1084-1087
Solanki, Sami K.; Krivova, Natalia A. (2003), "Can solar variability explain global warming since 1970?" Journal of Geophysical Research 108 (A5)
A summary of a Harold Jeffery's lecture presented by Solanki in 2002.
http://noorderlicht.vpro.nl/attachment.db/18258097/Solanki.pdf
Bard, Eduard, and Frank, Martin. 2006. Climate change and solar variability: what's new under the sun?Earth and Planetary Science Letters Volume 248, Issues 1-2
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/BardPapers/Bard06EPSL.pdf
Lockwood, Mike, and Frohlich, Klaus. 2007. Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface air temperature. Proceedings of the Royal Society A
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2009Q1/111/ReadingsLockwood2007_Recent_o...
Scafetta, N., and West, B.J. 2006 Phenomenological solar signature in 400 years of reconstructed
Northern Hemisphere temperature record. Geophysical Research Letters
http://www.acrim.com/Reference%20Files/Sun%20&%20Global%20Warming_GRL_20...
Could just as well be a
Could just as well be a bigfoot conference or a Lock Ness explorers group.would draw the same caliber of people!
Well...
clearly, you don't know Franz Mueter. Highly qualified researcher and fisheries/ecosystem modeler. I've never met any of the other folks, though.
"Phony theology" - Rick
"Phony theology" - Rick Santorum is exactly right.
Interfaith Power and Light - leftist environmental propagandists who have infiltrated America's churches to promote their kook agenda.
"The mantle of religiosity assumed by environmentalists
is proving to be more like the emperor’s new clothes—not hiding much."
"But religious environmentalism is really an insincere strategy. The approach distorts the concept of Christian stewardship and turns it into an anti-consumption and anti-market
ideology."
And just for you, dust, they have ties to Soros.
Even tiny, little Juneau can't escape the corruption and lies this group is spreading. Frightening...
Calypso
Really? Franz Mueter has ties to George Soros? You'll have to prove that one to me. Legitimately. Not just "Oh, because I say so".
And then you'll have to justify why being "tied" to Soros is a bad thing (and define "tied"). And then justify why such a connection is bad while a connection to the Koch brothers or FOX news isn't.
Then you'll have to come up with original posts, not cut-and-paste.
Then, when you can read Hebrew and Greek, you can talk about ideals of "Christian stewardship", and when you've learned the political history of the Church, you can address the evolution of various incarnations of its theology.
And then you'll need to prove that Jesus was pro-market and pro-consumption.
Finally, when you can come out of the box you have constructed for yourself that allows you to feel safe and generate a framework that lets you comfortably pigeon-hole the world, you'll have become brave and honest enough to deal with reality.
dust, does it take work to be
dust, does it take work to be so condescending or does it come naturally?
Maybe it's that superior scientific elitism that you just can't get past - atleast in your own mind.
Are you just in a bad mood because your little global warming "box" of lies is being blown to smithereens?
Bug off...unless you want to engage in some worthwhile discussion.
Hi Calypso. It's funny you'd
Hi Calypso. It's funny you'd mention the climate science "box of lies." Have you heard of the whole Heartland debacle?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/21/heartland-institute-le...
Looks like conservative "think"-tanks have been using the same tactics as tobacco companies did to discredit established science.
It would seem you, yourself, are inside this "box of lies." Perhaps you're just pretending it's a spaceship or a racecar?
And FYI, it's not "scientific elitism," it's called having a [filtered word] clue.
Well, p, if I were Gleick,
Well, p, if I were Gleick, I'd be lawyering up about now.
It's not nice to steal documents from your enemies.
http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2012/02/21/what-are-the-depths-of-peter...
But of course
...it's completely and utterly fine to steal, post, and discuss if the stealing is from climate scientists. Odd how when the emails were stolen from the university, Heartland didn't scream about sending people to jail for stealing and how disagreement shouldn't result in slander. They also ignored it completely when review of those emails showed no manipulation of data or scientific misconduct.
The depth of hypocrisy is either obscene or absurd, depending on your perspective, especially since Heartland is playing the poor victim in this instance, but the prophet of truth when emails were taken from climate researchers. It shows the degree to which people who support them are willing to ignore all sense of logic or reason or even the "truth" they so vehemently defend.
Yeah, but when the emails
Yeah, but when the emails from East Anglia showed fraud and manipulation, would anyone in their right mind file lawsuits against the whistleblower? I think they're protected under FOIA anyway.
Those "researchers" are still hiding under their desks waiting for the other shoe to fall. How much taxpayer money did that university take to produce a bucket of lies and deceitful garbage.
Mann and some of the other scientists may still be prosecuted. As they should be.
climate change
obviously human cause, like shooting a gun,once you pull the trigger,can one really stop its path before its too late??
Jesus H. Christ, Calypso
You are insane. Completely. Utterly. Literally. Or else a really good troll who knows how to walk a very fine line, in which case my hat is off to you.
But I think you're just insane.
By your argument, it is completely fine if the police break into your house and conduct an unreasonable search and seizure of everything you own, provided they find something illegal.
Not to mention, a review of all those emails showed no scientific misconduct or manipulation of data, which of course you ignore. I'll say it again - you ignore. You yourself have admitted that you have no scientific training, education or ability, and yet you trumpet scientific fraud from the tops of your lungs.
You told PP not to call you stupid. Fine. Don't behave that way, then.
Hey dust, I'm not insane!!
Hey dust, I'm not insane!! You just can't handle the truth!
I said I think the email whistleblower is protected by FOIA laws. I'm sure if anything was illegal, he'd be in court as we speak. Kinda like Julian Assange.
Ken Cuccinelli (who by the way, is a great AG) is still investigating Mann in Virginia, as he was previously employed at the university there. Something about taxpayer fraud. So just because in-house investigations cleared all these "scientists" doesn't mean they're home free yet.