Global Warming Descends On Alaska

I've posted many times about the dangers Florida, New Orleans, and Houston have to look forward to because of climate change.  Despite being in conservative states they have been forced to confront the issue, Florida especially as I've posted.  Another Republican State is being forced to confront climate change, Alaska.  They are between a rock and a hard place.  While the impact of climate change in Alaska is making itself felt,

Alaska is already seeing the dramatic effects of global warming firsthand, making the issue difficult for local politicians to avoid. The solid permafrost that sits beneath many roads, buildings and pipelines is starting to thaw, destabilizing the infrastructure above. At least 31 coastal towns and cities may need to relocate, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, as protective sea ice vanishes and fierce waves erode Alaska’s shores.

“The change has been so real and so widespread that it’s become impossible to ignore,” Byron Mallott, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, said Tuesday while visiting Washington to discuss climate policy. “Folks are realizing that it’s something we have to deal with.”

The rock is global warming, and the hard place is that Alaska's economy is nearly completely dependent on their extensive oil deposits.  In spite of that they intend to change their energy profile:

[T]he state’s climate task force released a draft in April that included a proposal for Alaska to get 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources like solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal by 2025, up from 33 percent in 2016. The draft also proposed cutting statewide greenhouse gas emissions one-third below 2005 levels by 2025, tackling sectors like transportation and “natural resource development,” which includes oil drilling operations.

That's all well and good, but in the meantime they'll be shipping huge amounts of oil to refineries and thereupon to be turned into carbon dioxide by cars and trucks and ships and airplanes completely nullifying their efforts. 

Nevertheless they will have to contend with what climate change is doing to their state.

There is broader consensus that the state will need to take more immediate action to prepare for the impacts of higher temperatures. The Arctic is already warming faster than the rest of the planet. Wildfires are growing larger during the Alaskan summer, menacing homes and roads. Native communities that rely on walrus hunting are seeing catches decline as sea ice disappears. And, in May, the rural village of Newtok received a $22 million federal grant to help relocate residents threatened by erosion and flooding. 

The state’s draft proposal urges more scientific research on threats like ocean acidification, which could threaten state fisheries, as well as new strategies to ensure food security in indigenous communities. By taking the lead on such efforts, the draft notes, Alaska could potentially export its adaptation know-how to the rest of the world.

The irony abounds, just while playing their part in aggravating global warming, they are forced to have to deal with it's effects.