While President Obama was en route to Alaska yesterday, an upstart group called
Alaska Climate Action Network (Alaska CAN) had its coming out party in the form of a rally on the downtown Anchorage Park Strip, nearly in the shadows of the oil company office buildings. The President has reportedly come here to highlight the impacts of climate change on the front lines here in Alaska, and spoke at
The Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic: Cooperation, Innovation, Engagement and Resilience, or GLACIER.
President Obama is scheduled to take a hike at Exit Glacier near Seward, and to visit the village of Kotzebue in northwestern Alaska. While I do appreciate what the President is doing to highlight this excruciatingly important issue, I also question the wisdom of approving permits for Shell to drill in the Arctic. I also note the dissonance, cognitive or other, evident in this situation. See this diary for a thoughtful discussion of the demonstrated dissonance. But I digress.
The point of this diary is to let you know that I found the rally encouraging. There was a time in my life when I was a full time activist, I've been around some well organized and effective events and groups of people, and also others that were not. This event and the people there impressed me and gave me a little hope.
Well, maybe not too too much hope about avoiding the catastrophic impacts of global warming/climate change. It might be too late. But it might not, so we may as well make an effort. The people that put this thing together in Anchorage are making an effort.
There were a solid 200 people, at least. Probably more, but we can safely say a couple hundred at a time during the 2 hour rally. That is not a huge turnout in a city of 300,000 (you shoulda seen Pridefest in the same park!), but the significance comes into focus when the context is understood.
The context is that Alaska is a petro-State. Pretty much all of the state budget comes from oil revenue (though the low oil prices have put a multi-billion dollar hole in that budget). There is an investment fund worth about $53 Billion whose seeds and many other deposits came from oil money. Pretty much all politicians have to, or at least sincerely believe they have to, bow down to the oil gods to get elected and stay in office. This includes Mark Begich, a good man (I think) who I voted and advocated for despite his flaws in this area. So many people in Alaska are on the oil teat that it is hard to guess their view on the issue even if you meet them on a trail deep in the wilderness.
So in this context an apparently organic coalition threw a rally on a Monday afternoon on a work day in the summer and at least (probably more) a couple of hundred people were there at once. They did this a few blocks from where President would make his remarks at the conference on the Arctic in a building which happens to be located directly next to a shiny glass oil company office building. Poetic.
The most heart warming aspect of this event was how many Alaska Natives (term for Native Americans in Alaska) were in attendance and part of the program. There was a very encouraging diversity of attendees, but the programming was also very diverse, and not just ethnically. The were local labor organizers, as well as others from Seattle, which also happened to be the ethnically diverse, and young. The faith community was represented and spoke. And the Alaska Native, and other Native American, presence was weaved deep into the fabric of the program, and was very visible among the attendees.
Some photos of photos depicting the type of climate/warming related coastal erosion that is causing Alaska Native villages to relocate:
And some other random, less ominous photos from the rally: