The Anti-Greta, Climate Change & the Alaska Senate Race
By Zachary Brown She stood in the roiling crowd, amid clean-cut college kids and potbellied dudes in cowboy hats and media men dashing this way and that. Her stringy blonde hair, her dark eyeliner, her sneakers and the flannel tied round her waist, all gave a picture of punk defiance. How ironic, I thought, given the suit-wearing merchants of the status quo she represents. They chose someone small and thin as a garter snake for their enormous, dreadful task. Meet Naomi Seibt: the anti-Greta. The GOP needed an answer to Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who has gained astonishing traction…
Climate Change Tweets Deleted from National Park Twitter Account
A couple hours ago the Badlands National Park Service twitter account began tweeting facts on climate change, something that has been officially banned the Trump administration. The tweets were trending on facebook and were retweeting tens of thousands of times. As of now no statement has come from the administration or the National Park Service. Here’s the now deleted tweets from the Badlands National park service twitter account.
Blackwater’s Erik Prince Has a Solution for the Refugee Crisis
The last thing the refugee crisis needs is Erik Prince. Last we heard from Erik Prince, he had set up sail for the new shores of Abu Dhabi, away from pesky congressional hearings about unlawful killings in Iraq, and close to the security-laden borderlands of the Horn of Africa. His new venture, Frontier Services Group, provides logistical and material support in conflict zones as well as aid delivery. We’d like to seize the opportunity of a new year to wish the former Blackwater CEO the best in his new endeavours. In an opinion-piece penned for the respectable Financial Times, the…
The Weekend Off: News You Missed
Alaska ADN.com – Anchorage’s deadly year: With 34 homicide victims, violence hits home In 2016, some 34 people were killed by homicide in Anchorage. For many, it was the year the city’s violence hit home, even if they didn’t personally know any of the victims. The killings happened in nearly every corner of Anchorage: from an Eagle River apartment complex to Kempton Hills, a south-side subdivision best known for its great trick or treating and community wide garage sale. KTUU – Latest chapter in the opioid epidemic hits Alaska For the first time a powerful synthetic opioid, disguised as oxycodone has…
The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska ADN.com – She died in an Anchorage jail while detoxing from heroin. Her family wants answers. Kellsie Green died in January, six days after she entered the Anchorage jail — 24 years old, weighing only about 80 pounds and about to embark on the brutal process of detoxing from a 4-gram-a-day heroin habit. KTVA.com – Analysis: 28 water systems in Alaska exceed EPA lead limit The only school in one of Alaska’s most eroded communities is among 28 public and private entities in the state whose water systems recently exceeded federal lead limits during the last three years. AK Public Radio…
The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska ADN – Journalist who broke Fairbanks Four case unsatisfied after their release The letters seemed outlandish. But Brian O’Donoghue went to the courthouse to check them out, part of his job in 2000 as the opinion page editor at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. What he found wouldn’t let him go: the story of four young men convicted of murder on flimsy evidence. On Thursday, their convictions were vacated and the Fairbanks Four were finally released after 18 years in prison. O’Donoghue joined the celebration but said the job’s not done. Juneau Empire – This is what it takes to get into…
The Weekend Off – News You Missed
Alaska KTVA – Anchorage mayoral candidate threatens to sue media Mayoral candidate Dan Coffey has stated he doesn’t want the public to hear a private conversation he had with current Anchorage Assembly member Bill Starr back in 2008. The conversation with Starr was recorded onto an answering machine. ADN – State sells $4 billion in stocks because it may need the cash before long The state is liquidating about $4 billion of long-term investments in stocks because it may need the money soon and can’t afford the risk of a market decline. The need to draw billions from the Constitutional Budget…
Open Thread – Climate Change March
I’m in NYC right now covering the Climate Change March. I’ve already met people from Texas, California and even Guatemala and they’re all here to tell the United Nations to take immediate action on climate change. You can find out more about tomorrows march at peoplesclimate.org/march/ Will you be participating in local marches? What’s going on in your area environmentally?
Zoomed-In Climate Models Help Alaska Communities Plan for Uncertain Future
Special thanks to InsideClimateNews.org for letting us post this excerpt by Amy Nordrum Hunters in the Alaskan village of Wainwright, a community of about 550 Inupiat Eskimos at the lip of the Chukchi Sea, have long harvested bowhead whales from the ocean. Each spring, crews of 15-25 hunters set out in umiaqs—boats made from seal skins and caribou sinew. The hunters usually launch from Point Belcher, where the ice cracks open to expose the water in slivers called “leads.” Then the whalers follow these narrow channels to the sea. They may land whales as long as 55 feet, but a young…
Alaskan Politicos Weigh In On Climate Change
In an article today in the Anchorage Daily News written by Lisa Demer our outstanding representatives were reached for comment on several different questions pertaining to climate change. While none of them out right denied what 95% of scientists now agree on – that climate change is caused by man… they’re answers danced around the truth. Mike Chenault’s was my favorite. When asked by the ADN. “Do you believe there is a human-caused element to climate change? House Speaker Mike Chenault slyly answered: “I think that there is. To what extent there is, is the argument, I believe.” Ok, Mike….