When thousands of Alaskans gathered at the Iditarod ceremonial start in Anchorage on Saturday and the race restart in Fairbanks on Monday, there were familiar banners hung prominently along the sidelines. With sponsorship of events like the Iditarod, big companies like Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips and BP, have poured countless dollars of corporate philanthropy into Alaska in the pursuit of goodwill from Alaskans. In return, they demand silent cooperation in shaping Alaska’s political interests to their own. Nowhere is the coercive nature of this relationship more apparent than in the Iditarod’s Rule 53, the so-called “gag clause,” by which mushers are muzzled from making public statements “injurious to” the race and its sponsors.
I grew up in Alaska, surrounded by these corporate logos, watching feel-good commercials on TV projecting images of rugged landscapes, narrated with calm voices assuring us that we could entrust the fossil fuel industry with stewardship of these landscapes. I wore the BP logo on free ballcaps handed out on the Anchorage Park Strip, ski raced at Birch Hill with Conoco Phillips displayed prominently on my race bib, and even now my work in rural villages is made possible by contributions from resource extraction companies, a reality announced by the logo patches on my jacket. And yet I will not stay quiet.
Alaskans will be neither bought nor silenced. We can no longer deny climate change when two out of the last three Iditarods, as well as three of the last four Tour of Anchorage ski races (an event sponsored by Conoco Phillips), have been altered or canceled due to erratic snow conditions. Maybe at one point we needed scientific consensus to tell us that the climate is changing, and that human activity is the primary driver, but in recent years these realities are playing out in front of Alaskans’ own eyes. Climate change cuts much deeper than winter sports. The stories coming out of Shishmaref, Kivalina and Newtok provide an urgency to the call of “People over Profit.” I have been to Shishmaref each of the past four years, and have seen firsthand the damage wrought by intense winter storms colliding with thawing permafrost. One local, frustrated by the lack of attention his village’s plight is receiving, has taken to filming the shoreline caving in amidst battering waves, and has begun collecting drone footage of the eroding coastline to record the yearly changes.
Alaskans demand that our leaders not only acknowledge the realities of climate change, but aggressively move to enact policies aimed at reducing emissions. A first step could be to reinstitute state-level climate change policy action. We also urge the press to continue to report on stories of people affected by climate change, as well as to critically examine conflicts of interest between politicians and the fossil fuel industry. And collectively we resolve to speak out despite the formal intimidation of policies like Rule 53 and the underhanded constraints spun by corporate philanthropy.
The Iditarod “gag” rule is only a local example of how Exxon Mobil and other massive resource extraction corporations exert their influence in our politics and life. Statewide, we have seen how Senate Bill 21, an oil and gas tax credit system written by the industry and passed by Conoco Phillips employees like Senators Kevin Meyer and Peter Micchiche, has worsened Alaska’s budget deficit. Legislators’ reluctance to modify SB 21 has proven to be a political impediment to addressing Alaska’s financial future, let alone its ecological future. On a national level, the same insidious system of corporate political domination is manifest in newly confirmed Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, formerly the CEO of Exxon Mobil.
The Iditarod provides an opportunity to reflect on the intersection of Alaska’s history, our cultural connection to our often harsh environment, our changing climate, and the price we pay under the corporate State. As the mushers gear up for their big run, I think about the altered and tough terrain they’ll travel through, made worse with climate change. The dogs have the full confidence of their mushers, though. I think about the challenges we face here in Alaska and nationwide, and I’m struck with a tinge of jealousy. I, too, would rather be led by dogs.
