“This is as good of a signpost of what we’re dealing with when it comes to climate change as just about anything”, Obama said with the iconic glacier at his back.
Advertisement
Obama may have worked up an appetite on the hike because, a few hours later, his motorcade pulled up to Sweet Darlings, a candy and ice cream shop in Seward. In a speech to an Arctic local weather summit, Obama sought to set the tone for a three-day tour of Alaska that may put the state’s liquefying glaciers and sinking villages on graphic show.
“The devil, as always, will be in the funding and procurement details”, said Heather Conley of the Center for Strategic and global Studies in Washington, who has studied the need for more Arctic icebreakers.
Bear Glacier has receded more than two miles during the last 15 years, with large chunks dropping into a lake at its base. But Ohio’s lawmakers have stood in the way for 40 years.
US President Barack Obama on Tuesday viewed Alaska’s Exit Glacier, in a bid to drive home the impact climate change is already having on America.
Russia, which is expanding its military presence in the Arctic, is also far ahead of the U.S.in building icebreakers and Arctic ports.
Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc., which built the newest USA icebreaker and delivered it in 1999, said it was keen to bid on new, hardened ships for the Coast Guard.
Obama made it clear that he is listening and will take action to help native Alaskans, who belong to 11 distinct cultures, each with its own language. The Russians have rushed in, leaving the U.S.to play catchup. Each American emits more than twice as much carbon dioxide as a Chinese resident and ten times that of someone from India, Energy Department figures show. The world’s top six greenhouse gas emitters were all there: China, the US, Russia, India, Japan and Germany. In Kotzebue – inhabitants three, 153 – Obama deliberate to deal with the plight of Alaska Natives, who face dire financial circumstances amid a number of the worst results of worldwide warming.
“All right, let’s go to Alaska!”
President Obama is an Instagram machine, showing the world all the grace, grandeur and bountiful beauty of Alaska with myriad scintillating snapshots.
At the same time, environmental groups argued in the lead-up to Obama’s trip that he hadn’t done enough to protect Alaska and the climate. He served from March 4, 1897, until his assassination in September 1901, six months into his second term.
The deeper you wandered into the conservative blogosphere and twitterverse, the uglier the messages became – about Obama’s anti-American views, his Muslim practices and his urge to defecate on his predecessors.
Advertisement
The president has struggled to explain how his dire warnings square with steps he’s taken to expand energy production, even at the risk of higher emissions. This summer his administration permitted Royal Dutch Shell to restart drilling for oil and natural gas off Alaska’s shores.
