Juneau mayor to join in climate change petition today

JUNEAU - Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho will join leaders from Shishmaref and San Francisco today in asking the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases.

The Native village of Shishmaref, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the mayors of Pacific Grove, Calif., Homer and Juneau, and the nonprofit environmental groups Oceana, Ocean Conservancy and Alaska Conservation Solutions will submit a petition today to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The petition contains science on climate change in the Arctic, such as a loss in Arctic sea ice and how what’s happening there affects the rest of the planet. It asks the EPA to protect the Arctic by establishing comprehensive regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

Shishmaref is an Inupiaq Eskimo village on Sarichef Island in the Chukchi Sea, north of the Bering Strait, that is facing immediate effects from climate change. The permafrost under the village is beginning to melt, the shore is rapidly eroding, and the village plans to relocate several miles south.

• Editor’s note: This brief originally ran Sunday, Nov. 23, with the incorrect date of the petition ceremony.