In Colorado, numerous spats have developed over the years involving sometimes competing proposals to name mountain peaks after mountaineers, historical figures and explorers. That is, until U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell restored the mountain to Denali, an Athabascan (Native Alaskan) name for “great one” on August 30.
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“Knowing the height of Denali is precisely 20,310 feet has important value to earth scientists, geographers, airplane pilots, mountaineers and the general public”, said Suzette Kimball, acting director of the USGS, in a statement.
The mountain was named in honor of former President William McKinley, who was born in Niles. “For many of those Alaskans it’s no longer a question of if they have to relocate – but when”.
Kerry did acknowledge that the pace of action on climate change has been too slow, but cited the fact that most of the progress during the Obama administration has come through executive order, rather than through Congress, where some members have been reluctant “to even believe it’s happening”.
There was also a session at the conference where participants discussed how climate change is threatening the existence of Arctic communities, contributing to a dramatic increase in coastal erosion and flooding in the American Arctic.
“It’s urgent for them today”, he continued.
And by the way, we can all take comfort in knowing that if Donald Trump wins the White House, he’d keep the name Denali.
The President also announced the Department of Agriculture (USDA) would introduce $15.9m in grants to support 17 projects, which will build better infrastructure to provide remote Alaskan villages with safe drinking water and waste-disposal systems for households and businesses.
One of the communities that he visited was the town of Kotzebue, a town of around 3,000 people located on Alaska’s west coast.
“I’ve been trying to make the rest of the country more aware of the changing climate but you’re already living it”, he told a crowd of more than 1000 representing about a third of Kotzebue’s population.
Closing out his three-day tour of Alaska, Mr Obama stopped at Dillingham Middle School and was treated to a cultural performance by the school children, featuring native dances and songs. Here, the president poses with a marker showing the location of the edge of the glacier in his birth year, 1961.
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Ben Shapiro asked, “Why did Obama choose to change the name now?” Obama instead visited one of the thousands of glaciers in Alaska which have been shrinking in recent decades as a result of global warming, for which there is overwhelming scientific evidence.
