The first section of our ride across Alaska (Seward to Anchorage) ended in the same way it started--a ride from Patrick. Our generous host in Anchorage drove us to our starting line in Seward and then picked us up on the southern end of Alaska's largest city (to avoid confusing, busy highways) when we returned a few days and 127 miles later. If you haven't read our previous blogs and are confused why we were returning to Anchorage, I'll quickly clarify that we flew into Anchorage, got a ride to Seward where our 1,000-mile route began, and returned to Anchorage for a few days to interview folks and prepare for the biking ahead.
After picking us up, Patrick did what he and his wife Tina did a lot during our first stay in Anchorage--took us out to eat. We were again well-fed. It was so comforting to return to a home and a family who welcomed us warmly, made us laugh, allowed us to relax, and helped us prepare for the 870 miles ahead.
Keeping the Ground Frozen
Our second time in Anchorage was a bit different, as we spent most of our time going from interview to interview. Our first meeting was with Ed Yarmak, the chief engineer at Arctic Foundations Inc. I have to admit I wasn't super excited for this meeting. Kailey found out about Ed through an NPR article that discussed how the oil industry requires thermosyphons--that Ed engineers--to keep permafrost frozen below their operations. The whole situation seemed absurd to me. The Daily Climate Newsletter I follow summarized my conclusions well, "And Finally... Get Ready for the Facepalm on This One: From NPR: Alaska oil drillers are increasingly investing in technology to keep permafrost frozen to make oil drilling and transport easier. So we can get more oil. To melt the permafrost." In the NPR article, Ed is quoted saying, "Climate change is good for my business." When we met with him and asked about the quote, he responded, "Yeah... I should have added 'unfortunately' to the end of that sentence."
I learned that the article made Ed out to be a bad guy he really wasn't. The oil industry is just one of many of his clients, others include schools and hospitals. Permafrost covers portions of land all over Alaska, but particularly areas further north. Increasingly, as we'll discuss more in the next blog, permafrost is thawing due to increased temperatures. But in some parts of Alaska, top layers of permafrost have seasonally thawed long before climate weirding began to occur, making thermosyphons a necessary part of supporting large buildings that emit lots of heat.
My one sticking point with Ed was over the cause of the rise in thawing permafrost. I learned of a key difference between engineers and natural scientists. Even though Ed sees firsthand that permafrost is thawing at increased rates, he wouldn't attribute the thawing to human causes. He said we couldn't be sure that current climatic changes are caused by us, not buying the long-term scientific models. He said engineers think in different time scales. However, even though climate modeling takes into consideration long-term projections and data from millennia prior, this talk about short-term versus long-term science seemed a poor excuse to not believe in human-caused climate change. Rapid warming is happening here and now, and in time scales we can understand, because we're the ones causing it.
Three Things
In the following days, we met with people a bit more in line with our thinking. In the morning of July 13, we biked along the convenient and scenic coastal trail that we accessed just a couple blocks from Patrick and Tina's house. The trail took us into downtown Anchorage where we had our first meeting of the day with folks at the Alaska Conservation Foundation and Pacific Environment. Lots of people warmly greeted us, seeming as interested in our journey as we were in their work. One person at Pacific Environment who couldn't join us for the full discussion quickly popped his head in and announced, "Three Things: receding glaciers, beavers moving north, and melting permafrost.”
After talking a bit about our project, we asked folks to share their story and what brought them to their current positions. Ruan du Plessis, ACF's Finance and Operation Director, summarized a consistent theme across the stories shared when he said, "Alaska's a place that sticks with you. Consider it a fare warning."
Ruan grew up in South Africa and is married to a conservation biologist, two parts of his identity that have placed conservation at the front of his mind. In the spring of 2018, he decided to make the switch from corporate accounting to the conservation world. He said, "It turns out no matter where you go, whether it's the southern tip of Africa or Alaska or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, everybody needs somebody to help them with their finance and administration." Kailey and I both laughed as he went on to joke with the rest of the staff about his poor bird catching and ringing skills. Jokes aside, Ruan also emphasized an important point as he concluded,
"Everyone has a place. The climate issues we're facing are no longer just the realm of scientists or community organizers. Everyone has a role to play."
Camille Davis, ACF's Development Associate, also came to ACF through a non-traditional route. She moved to Anchorage originally as a fellow with the Covenant House, a non-profit serving homeless youth. She grew up in New York City, but her parents are from Jamaica, so every summer she spent exploring the Caribbean island. "I grew up with a love for the outdoors," she said. What brought her to ACF was a curiosity in thinking about the overlap between environmental issues and human rights. She told us about an episode on the podcast Code Switch called "This Land is Made for You and Me" that discusses the lack of representation of people of color in our national parks and public lands.
She reflected, "As a black, young woman, I think about how we make this work tangible. How do we create an inclusive space? As climate change affects our earth, what happens to marginalized folks?
It seems that questions over resonance weighed on everyone's mind. DJ Tyson, Pacific Environment's Arctic Program Assistant, grew up in Alaska and has been consistently drawn back after moving away four times. When we asked him what weighs heavy on his mind, he talked about Alaska's dependence on fossil fuels. Around 90 percent of the state's revenue comes from oil and gas.
He explained, "Our economy is so focused on development and fossil fuels and oil and mining that it becomes very difficult to talk about climate change in this context that we're causing it. Lisa Murkowski will admit that climate change is happening, but then, you know, we're still going to open up the Arctic Refuge for drilling and we're still going to push for all this other drilling. It's a very difficult mix of people recognizing that this is happening but not doing anything about it, trying to find how we address this but not destroy our economy."
DJ seeks to show how serious the problem is. "I want to be the person that figures out how to get Alaska off of fossil fuels and into renewable energy, but I have a degree in Psychology," he said with a slight laugh. "I'm not going to be the one to figure that out." However, DJ is putting his psychology degree to use by thinking about how we shift collective consciousness. He concluded, "My personal goal is to make Alaskans aware of what's happening and that it's human caused and that we can do something about it."
For ACF's director, Michael Barber, conversations about climate change and industry hit close to home. Michael grew up in Alaska, with family roots going back four generations. He explained with a slight laugh, "Alaskans that are not Alaskan Native seem to talk about how many generations they're here." I thought of how often people do the same thing back home in Utah. Michael's brother and brother-in-law both work for the oil sector.
"All my nieces and nephews are dependent on the pay checks that come from that industry," he reflected. "When I say it's a family conversation in Alaska, that's what I mean."
Beyond just conversations around the dinner table, ACF's work also seeks to spark important conversations at the community and regional level. For example, Aaron Poe, ACF's Network Officer, has been working in Alaska for twenty years, most notably in recent years as a coordinator of the Aleutian and Bering Sea Islands Landscape Conservation Cooperatives. He's noticed various changes in Alaska's climate, mentioning the presence of "ice rain" rather than snow in the winter.
"I guess I have to buy ice skates instead of going skiing now," he joked, but then added with seriousness, "There's kind of this weird guilt I feel in talking about it because the changes that are affecting other people are much more profound."
Aaron's work focuses on building partnerships between agencies, tribes, researchers, industry and communities to address large-scale issues like climate change. Previously, the LCCs were under the Fish and Wildlife Service, but after the Trump administration cut the program's funding, ACF and other groups joined forces to keep the partnerships alive. Such partnerships provide opportunities to create locally-driven solutions.
Michael concluded our conversation by highlighting the importance of partnerships. When we asked what brings him hope, Michael responded,
"Climate change is a global and systems problem, and there's not one actor, whether a governor or a person, that can fix it. It paralyzes us because we can't fix it unilaterally. Then it forces us to say, well, OK, then it's a partnership. We're bad at that work—as a globe. Partnership work is difficult and time consuming, and there's real urgency with the climate window. But we don't have a choice when the problem can't be solved by me or ACF being right. There's probably seven or eight different pathways to solve climate. We don't have to be smarter than climate change. That's not the point. Nobody is. Even if I was, it wouldn't matter. The only thing that matters is what people are going to work on together. I get hope from that because I'm like, fuck, man, I spent fifteen years trying to be smarter than climate change. What a dummy, you know, like, good luck with that."
Hope: Youth
After meeting with folks at ACF, Kailey and I biked to the Alaska Center to meet with Allison Barnwell, the coordinator of Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (AYEA). AYEA empowers 35 young people across Alaska each year—and an additional 50 to 75 at local chapters—to take environmental action. This fall, AYEA is celebrating its twentieth anniversary with pride knowing 5,000 young people have gone through their program. Young participants take their first step into advocacy, meeting with elected officials, grassroots organizing, and engaging in education and awareness campaigns.
Allison first participated in AYEA as a middle schooler. From a young age, Allison had an appreciation for the landscape—not only its beauty but also its health. She grew up in Seward and Dutch Harbor, and her family spent most summers commercially fishing in Dutch Harbor and Bristol Bay. They still fish to nourish themselves. She reflected, "We also shop at the grocery store, but having that lifestyle of being outside all the time and being able to have some of our health come from that was a really powerful thing that motivated me to join this group."
As a teenager, she learned how to lobby during visits to Juneau, Alaska's capital, and she also researched renewable energy and the impacts of climate change on coastal communities. It was clear that the experience she had as a young person inspired her to take on her current position with AYEA, as she said,
"That was a pretty eye-opening experience to be able to do that as a young person. It’s an incredibly empowering position for a young person to be in. That’s what’s driven me since, is being able to give other young people in Alaska that opportunity to see how they can make an impact on what is happening in their communities and this whole state."
When Allison talked about her upbringing in Alaska, her eyes lit up as a smile of gratitude filled her face.
"Growing up in Alaska was just this incredible time," she reflected. "I remember playing up in the hills above our house in Dutch Harbor and Seward. There are just trails everywhere. Picking berries to fill our freezer, fishing to fill our freezer—that’s what I thought was normal. You can drink out of streams around here."
When we asked her the biggest environmental changes she's noticed, she quickly replied, "Most visible changes I’ve seen are definitely to Exit Glacier in Seward and the Harding Ice Fields. It’s incredible how fast it’s receding. Growing up there you’d go out there pretty often and get to see the glacier and get to learn all about it and it’s so much smaller. Every year they have to move the trail closer and closer to the glacier because it’s receding so quickly." You can learn more about Exit Glacier and our experience there in our previous blog.
She also highlighted impacts to the fishing industry, and explained,
"Southeast [Alaska] was really the first to feel the impact of warmer water. There were reports of streams drying up because they were hot, and that’s weird because southeast is also a rainforest. And we’re starting to feel that now in Seward. A lot of my friends go fish in Prince William Sound, commercial fish, and that’s their livelihood. The fish are not coming back the way they used to, especially this summer, there's fishing closures all around the state. It’s really frightening. Some friends subsistence fish too, and there’s even subsistence fish closures, like people might not be getting enough food from that, which is really frightening."
When Allison talks about fish, she clarified that she's usually referring to salmon—a critical fish for the entire state. Most researchers think a warm blob of water in the Pacific Ocean, as well as warming rivers and creeks, has impacted salmon.
It's clear that Allison believes in the power of young people to create a just, sustainable future. When we asked her what brings her hope, she responded, "Well, young people definitely." She reflected on the state's heavy dependence on oil revenue and elected officials inabilities to see alternatives for the economy. The youth, however, can envision a different future. She said for youth, getting off of fossil fuels isn't a compromise, "It’s just this is what we need to do, let’s do it. It's doing what's right."
The most recent AYEA groups spent two years pushing the governor to create a climate change task force to address mitigation and adaptation. Last year, he finally established a climate change leadership team with a dedicated youth seat. "They would just non stop ask him, 'When are you going to do it?' Seeing what they're trying to accomplish and what they fight for—that's pretty incredible."
Allison believes in Alaskans. She emphasized,
"I always try to tell people, especially if you’re not from the state, we’re victims of climate change but we’re doing a lot to try to solve it too. And we’re really adaptive people, particularly Alaskan Native people. The changes that people have seen in Alaskan Native villages in the past hundred years, even just the past 30 years—they’ve dealt with so much, and they’re still here and still thriving. So I do think we’re going to figure out ways to solve this and to stay strong and healthy here in Alaska."
Our last meeting in Anchorage was with Shannon Donovan, a professor of geography and environmental studies at University of Alaska-Anchorage. She echoed the sentiments of Allison when we asked her what weighs heaviest on her mind and what brings her hope. To both questions, she responded, "Kids." As a mother, she's concerned what future her children will inherit, but she also sees the same sort of determined spirt in young people that Allison described.
Early in our conversation, Shannon reflected on climate change by talking about shorts. She explained,
"This is my ninth year here and I read some quote somewhere that 'weather is what you're wearing today, climate is what's in your closet.' When I first moved here, I didn't wear shorts at all. Then maybe three years ago, it was warm for the first time since I lived here. So I got a pair of shorts, and then last year I got another pair."
Shannon is developing a climate action planning collaboration in Anchorage with her students, other faculty at UAA, and the city of Anchorage. Their goal is to bring community members together to talk about and create plans for climate adaptation and mitigation. She emphasized transportation as a top mitigation priority, suggesting the city create more public transportation, bike infrastructure, and mixed-use neighborhoods. Because Anchorage is such a hub for commerce and shipping, Shannon believes action in Anchorage can have a huge impact on the state as a whole and the entire nation.
The population of Anchorage is expected to increase by 35 percent by 2040, and Shannon sees climate change as a driver of this increase. Not only will many Alaskan coastal communities be forced to relocate, people from the lower 48 may increasingly move north as drought and forest fires make their homes increasingly unlivable. "I don't think it's that outrageous to think Alaska is going to be looking like Portland or Seattle pretty soon," she said.
Shannon echoed sentiments of others when she reflected, "A lot of people here are super tied to the land, whether it be for recreation or subsistence. Whether or not they see climate change as a threat, I think they know they will be affected by a changing climate. They might just not believe that it's happening at a super fast pace. Or they may buy into, 'oh this has happened before, this is normal,' that type of thing." She emphasized people connect to the land through fishing, berry picking, and hunting—subsistence activities all threatened by climate change—and said,
"Sense of place is tied to the freezer here."
When we weren't interviewing folks or eating tasty meals with Patrick and Tina, we were preparing for the miles ahead. The list of to-dos included figuring out a better way to pack and load our bags, mail resupply boxes, and finish setting up interviews and other logistics for the rest of our journey.
As Kailey discussed in the previous post, there was a lot of strap managing during the first 127 miles of our journey. Mostly, our handlebar bags weren't cooperating too well and kept slouching down to our front tire. Both Kailey and I are fairly short, especially Kailey, so there was not a lot of wiggle room between our bags and bikes. Luckily, Holly at Revelate Designs and Christina Grande at the Bicycle Shop helped us figure out the ideal set up so we only heard that awful sound of bag rubbing against tire a couple super bumpy times in the weeks ahead. Kailey and I especially appreciated that we received help from two rad women, as too often when we go into a bike shop for advice, we're greeted with mansplaining. Unfortunately, cycling is still a male-dominated sport. But that's what makes the Lael Rides Alaska Scholarship we received so special--it's meant to empower women. Bikes have long been vehicles for women's empowerment, and if you're interested in learning how women are still using bikes as tools for revolution, I highly recommend a new film, Afghan Cycles.
The eventual departure from Anchorage was made easier by the continued support of Patrick. He and Tina have a cabin in Talkeetna, a gateway town to Denali, particularly a take-off point for those aspiring to climb the famed mountain. We couldn't resist the opportunity to stay at their lake-side mountain home. Patrick drove us north of Anchorage to avoid the stretch of highway we weren't legally allowed to bike. He dropped us where a bike lane started on the side of the highway, a nice, safe perk to most of the highways we'd bike. The ride was mostly flat with some light rolling hills, bright magenta Fireweed plants lighting our path.
When we reached the turn-off for Talkeetna, Patrick met us and we got an ice cream cone from the drive-up (or bike-up) coffee stand. A thunder storm just passed through and the sun left the air with a pleasant warmth, just warm enough for us to jump in the lake.
Patrick took us out for one last dinner and a stroll around Talkeetna before we were "on our own" as he liked to put it. We would miss our generous hosts.
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