[Vision2020] Alaska Villages are in trouble...even Ted Stevens believes there is a problem.....

[Ted Moffett]

 *Anchorage Daily News:* *Arctic Alaska villages caught in slow-motion
disaster onslaught *

GLOBAL WARMING: Spiraling costs to move imperiled coastal communities pit
needs against limited resources.

By BETH BRAGG <http://www.adn.com/contact/bbragg/index.html>
bbragg at adn.com

Published: October 22, 2007
Last Modified: October 22, 2007 at 02:37 AM

The cost of relocating villages that face extinction in the next decade or
so -- sooner if the wrong storm hits the wrong place at the wrong time -- is
staggering. Even by Alaska standards.

[image: Click to
enlarge]<http://www.adn.com/ips_rich_content/657-22VillageErosion.gif>

*Click to enlarge*

• Moving Newtok, a Bering Sea coast town of 315 being squished and swamped
by two rivers, could cost as much as $130 million. Or $412,000 per person.

• Moving Shishmaref, a strip of sand in the Chukchi Sea that's home to about
600 people, could cost as much as $200 million. Or $330,000 per person.

• Moving Kivalina, a shrinking barrier island in the Chukchi that last month
saw most of its 380 residents run for safety from the season's first storm,
could cost as much as $125 million. Or $330,000 per person.

Meanwhile, millions more are needed to protect people and facilities
threatened by catastrophic erosion until they move.

Where will all the money come from?

"That's the million-dollar question," said Sally Russell Cox, a state
planner who is involved in the Newtok relocation.

It's closer to a billion-dollar question, and it's getting a lot of
attention at the federal, state and local levels.

The usual sources are being tapped, among them the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, the state Department of Transportation, the Village Safe Water
Program and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Even the idea of using some of the
Permanent Fund has been floated.

Cox hopes dollars alone don't drive the discussions.

"I hate to put things in economic terms, because these are human beings
we're talking about," she said. "These are lifestyles they've led for
thousands of years that have been passed on to them by their forefathers.
How can you minimize all that (by putting it) in economic terms?"

In years past, Natives would have moved to safer places if nature's wrath
threatened their homes. Today, things like school buildings, airstrips,
roads and washeterias keep once-nomadic people anchored in place.

SO MANY VILLAGES

The Denali Commission, a state-federal agency created by Sen. Ted Stevens to
improve Alaska's infrastructure, has $100 million to offer. Given the many
needs of the many villages being eaten away by erosion, that's a drop in the
roiling Chukchi Sea.

Not everyone will get what they need when they need it, Stevens warned
village leaders at a U.S. Senate field hearing earlier this month in
Anchorage.

Tony Weyiouanna of Shishmaref told Stevens and Sen. Mary Landrieu, a
Democrat from Louisiana -- both members of the U.S. Senate's Disaster
Recovery subcommittee -- that his town, located on a quarter-mile-wide strip
of sand, loses ground to the sea every year. The village needs $61 million
for protection and relocation, and that's just for one year.

"Your one village's needs is almost more than the entire funding we have
available" from the Denali Commission, Stevens noted. "Each village is
proceeding on the basis that they're going to come first. That's not
possible."

Yet Stevens acknowledged that action is needed immediately in some places.

Like Newtok. Between seasonal rains and flooding rivers, residents there
have to be careful where they step.

"We have to use the boardwalks all the time. We can't use tennis shoes on
the tundra. You just get wet and it's really deep," tribal administrator
Stanley Tom said. "Some of the boardwalks now are sinking too. We try to
keep them floating. We put blocks underneath the boardwalks."

The Corps of Engineers says Newtok has about 10 years left before erosion
claims it.

Tom shakes his head at that estimate. He figures the village has two or
three years left.

A NEW KIND OF EMERGENCY

Newtok, Shishmaref, and Kivalina are the canaries in the mine that is global
warming, which is eating river banks, thawing permafrost and delaying the
annual formation of shore-fast ice that protects coastal towns from fall sea
storms.

Even Stevens, once a skeptic of global warming and man's role in hastening
it, talks about the effects of "global climate change." Long a champion of
the oil industry that supports Alaska's economy, he has in recent months
pushed for fuel-efficient American-made cars and a reduction in greenhouse
gas emissions.

"I think there is a contribution of mankind to the warming cycle," he told
Channel 2 news this summer, although he also said he believes the warming
trend is part of a natural cycle hundreds of years in the making.

Stevens harbors no doubt, though, that many Alaska villages face impending
disaster.

"This is a new type of emergency," he said at the Senate hearing. "We get it
first, but it's coming everywhere."

The question for everyone is how to deal with it financially.

Even unpopular alternatives -- such as relocating Shishmaref residents to
Nome -- are expensive. That would cost $93 million, a quarter of which would
pay for new homes, plus another $35 million for new roads in Nome to handle
the population boom.

The price of relocation is so steep, it would be cheaper to buy everyone in
Shishmaref, Newtok and Kivalina a condo in Fairbanks or Anchorage. But if
any government officials are thinking that, or questioning the idea of
rescuing villages, they're not willing to say it.

Landrieu said such thinking is untenable. Natives have made their homes on
the western edge of Alaska for thousands of years, and their traditional way
of life "shouldn't come to an abrupt end," she said.

Stevens said no one has the right to tell people who live in endangered
villages they should pack up and move to a larger town and forfeit their
communities, cultures and lifestyles.

"It's not up to us," he said. "If you're God, yes. But I'm not ready to play
God and tell them what to do."

Landrieu, who saw New Orleans neighborhoods destroyed and Gulf Coast towns
all but wiped out by Hurricane Katrina, said it's cheaper to spend money on
protection and relocation than it is to rebuild. So far the bill for
rebuilding the Gulf Coast is $150 billion, she said.

But there are limits to what taxpayers are willing to take on, she said.

THE FRONT LINES

"It's doubtful the relocation of one of these Native villages would come out
on the positive side of a cost-benefit analysis," said Steve Ellis, vice
president of Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington, D.C. "But you have to
look at it overall. Is it the right thing to do? Is it what we should do?

"These communities are at the front line of global warming and we have to be
cognizant of two factors. One is, they were here before the bulk of the rest
of us were. And also, what we decide to do there is going to set precedents
and trends for how we're going to react to the same issues on thousands of
miles of coastline in the rest of the country."

In Newtok, state and federal grants are being piecemealed together to
gradually move the town to a safer location. The village is pitching in,
too, with labor and money.

It negotiated a land trade to acquire a new town site on Nelson Island, and
in 2000 the Newtok Traditional Council hired a contractor to help plan the
move. Residents are currently building a couple of homes at the new site,
but they don't have all the heavy equipment they need.

Tom said one of the biggest obstacles is the lack of a single agency or
group to be in charge of planning. Stevens said it's imperative to choose a
single agency for that job -- and to give it authority over others when it
comes to making and carrying out plans.

Meanwhile, Cox said, three groups -- the Corps of Engineers, Village Safe
Water and DOT -- are working together in Newtok.

USE THE PERMANENT FUND?

Steve Ivanoff, a transportation planner from Unalakleet who testified for
western Norton Sound villages at the Senate hearing, said the State of
Alaska could easily come to the rescue by tapping some of the $40 billion in
the Permanent Fund.

Meant to be a rainy-day savings account, Ivanoff figures the need to
relocate villages away from life-threatening storms, floods and erosion
meets the definition of a rainy day.

It may be the federal government's job to come to the aid of Americans under
assault -- and most everyone agrees nature is mounting a serious attack
against the Alaska coast -- but the state has the money right now to
relocate and protect the most imperiled towns, Ivanoff said.

He points to Shaktoolik, a village of 214 that sits on the Norton Sound
coast. It used to be in a safer place, Ivanoff said, but it moved closer to
the shore in the 1930s when the Bureau of Indian Affairs put a school near
the beach because it was cheaper to build there than inland.

In recent years, three major floods have eroded natural barriers that once
protected the town. There is no evacuation road.

"Shaktoolik could be wiped out by the right storm," he said. "We have $40
billion in the bank and we have people living in harm's way that might not
be here in two weeks.

"If something happens to these people, someone will have to look in the
mirror and say, 'You had the opportunity to help these people. Had.' "
 ------------------------------

Find Beth Bragg online at
*adn.com/contact/bbragg*<http://adn.com/contact/bbragg>or call
257-4309.
 ------------------------------

*High cost of erosion*

*Relocation costs*

(For villages not expected to survive 10 years)

Kivalina $95-125 million

Newtok $80-130 million

Shishmaref $100-200 million

*Protection costs*

(For villages with serious annual erosion damage)

Bethel $5 million

Dillingham $10 million

Kaktovik $40 million

Kivalina $15 million

Newtok $90 million

Shishmaref $16 million

Unalakleet $30 million

*Source: 2006 U.S. Army Corps of Engineer study*




 ------------------------------

*From:* vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
*On Behalf Of *Ted Moffett
*Sent:* Monday, October 22, 2007 1:37 AM
*To:* Joe Campbell; Paul Rumelhart; J Ford; g. crabtree; lfalen; Pat Kraut
*Cc:* vision2020 at moscow.com
*Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] Scientific Consensus: Global Warming: Skepticism
&Replicatability





Joe et. al.



I think you are misstating the current status of global warming, and the
impacts coming in the next few decades.  The real problems have started.
And children born today (not grandchildren or beyond) should expect to
witness dramatic effects from global warming.  Actually, right now, in the
Arctic, they are.  And relocation of the current generation on some low
lying islands due to climate change impacts is already upon us:



http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1206-unep.html



Details of the scheme were unveiled at a meeting organized by the United
Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) polar centre, GRID Arendal in Norway.


The meeting called 'Many Small Voices is building bridges between vulnerable
Arctic communities and those of small island developing states.

The meeting takes place today (6 December) during the 11th Conference of the
Parties to the United Nations climate convention in Montreal, Canada.

Klaus Toepfer, UNEP's Executive Director, said: "The peoples of the Arctic
and the small islands of this world face many of the same threats as a
result of climbing global temperatures the most acute of which is the
devastation of their entire ways of life".
---------------------
Drowning or dying of heat prostration, as Paul wrote, due to human induced
global warming, might already be happening for a few people (in 2003 a
record heat wave killed many in Europe, and some think the full intensity of
Hurricane Katrina, which drowned hundreds, was linked to global warming).
But this hyperbolic language does not help the discussion.  Most people on
Earth are not at risk of this extreme consequence from global warming.
Starvation (it's hard to avoid hyperbolic language) from climate related
disruptions in food production would be a more likely consequence, in poor
nations.



Shifting agriculture to northern latitudes that have warmed may offset some
agricultural loses from climate change.  But simple physics indicates that
though they may be warmer, the solar energy in northern latitudes is less
than closer to the equator, setting limits on total food production in these
areas compared to their current locations for certain traditional staple
crops.  This might be addressed by genetic engineering of crops, suggested
by the Stern Report as a measure to create drought or flood resistant
plants, or engineering or substituting crops with a shorter growing season
for northern latitudes.



One of the most certain effects of global warming will be ocean rise, which
will remake the world's coastlines.  Oceans will rise not only from melting
ice but expansion from rising water temperature.  But most everyone will
relocate, not drown, we can assume?  Certain low lying populated islands are
already planning to relocate their populations.  The economic costs of this
world wide, though, are staggering, one variable that weakens the long term
economic argument that the costs of lowering emissions are not worth the
economic benefits.



As global warming's impacts are already dramatically impacting humans in the
Arctic, with the lifestyle of the native peoples, their children's way of
life, being disrupted tragically, the effects of global warming are
accelerating, and within 50-70 years, much more severe effects will be much
more widespread.  The current climate trends in the Arctic are thus a
warning to the whole planet, that should be heeded.



Children born today, even if we dramatically reduce emissions, will live to
witness extreme effects from global warming (unless we extreme engineer our
way out of the problem very quickly), just from the current carbon loading
of the atmosphere, now at about 430 ppm CO2 (I have found conflicting
figures, but all significantly above the 380 ppm figure from about a decade
ago)



As has been pointed out over and over, poor nations, with limited resources
to cope, will be hit the hardest.  As the richest nation on Earth, most in
the US may be able to maintain a "reasonable" standard of living, as global
warming changes the planet, though I do not state this as a reason to
continue our status as far and away the world's leader in per capita CO2
emissions.  This is irresponsible in the extreme, as we indulge our wealthy
lifestyle, jeopardizing the welfare of humans globally.



I think there is an understandable disbelief among many that the
predictions regarding global warming are based on the sober estimates of a
consensus of the world's climate scientists, who if anything are
conservative in their work.  The predictions are so incredible, it is
reasonable to assume they must be from "alarmists" or "extremists" or those
seeking financial or political gain from scare tactics.



However, though no doubt there are many interests, both financial and
political, who will exploit global warming for their own ulterior purposes,
an objective dispassionate assessment of the work of the world's climate
scientists indicates we are facing a very serious crisis, with every decade
of emissions based on business as usual increasing the severity of the
problem.



Consider that every car on the Palouse emits 11450 lbs, and every light
truck, 16035 lbs, of CO2, on average, annually.  It disappears into
"oblivion" yet it is changing the world's climate:



http://www.epa.gov/otaq/consumer/f00013.htm



----------



I would be pleased to discover the scientific consensus on the dangers of
climate change to be mostly false, though It would be one of the greatest
failures of the scientific community in history.



>From the Stern Report:



http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/Independent_Reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm




Stabilising gases at 450 ppm, seen likely as avoiding the most dangerous
effects, was "already almost out of reach".



The costs of extreme weather alone could be 0.5 to 1 percent of global Gross
Domestic Product by 2050.



Warming of 3 or 4C will result in many millions more people being flooded.
By the middle of the century 200 million may be permanently displaced due to
rising sea levels, heavier floods and drought.

----------

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071009/ap_on_sc/climate_change


Tim Flannery told Australian Broadcasting Corp. that an upcoming report by
the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will contain new data
showing that the level of climate-changing gases in the atmosphere has
already reached critical levels.

Flannery is not a member of the IPCC, but said he based his comments on a
thorough review of the technical data included in the panel's three working
group reports published earlier this year.

Carola Traverso Saibante, spokeswoman for IPCC headquarters is in Geneva,
said she was unable to disclose what would be in the final report
synthesizing the data before it is released in November.

"What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the
atmosphere is already above the threshold that can potentially cause
dangerous climate change," Flannery told the broadcaster late Monday. "We
are already at great risk of dangerous climate change, that's what these
figures say. It's not next year or next decade, it's now."



In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel called Tuesday for an international
system of global emissions trading to be adopted as part of an agreement to
flight climate change from 2012 onward.

Speaking at a symposium of Nobel laureates and other leading scientists,
Merkel insisted that only by establishing limits on carbon dioxide output
per individual around the world--suggesting about 2 tons per head — could
the fight to stop global warming be effective.

"Our long-term goal can only be the assimilation of worldwide per capita
emissions," Merkel told the conference.



Flannery said that the recent economic boom in China and India has helped to
accelerate the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, but strong growth in the developed world has also exacerbated
the problem.

"It's a worldwide issue. We've had growing economies everywhere, we're still
basing that economic activity on fossil fuels," he said. "The metabolism of
that economy is now on a collision course clearly with the metabolism of our
planet."
------------

Ted Moffett


On 10/21/07, *Joe Campbell* <joekc at adelphia.net > wrote:

Paul,

A few things.

First, the folks who see the problem -- primarily scientists -- are not the
folks
who make the laws.

Second, I don't think folks are suggesting that we'll see the kinds of
effects
you suggest in our lifetime. The climatologists I've talked to say it likely
won't
happen until our grandchildren, or their children, reach our age. It is
hard to predict but what seems certain is that once the real problems start
it will proceed at an exponential rate and we won't be able to do anything.

This reminds me of the Crabtree debate about when we'll run out of water.
Suppose it is 200 years, as Krauss suggests. How is that NOT a problem NOW?
Do we have to wait until we are close to running out to do something about
it?
Likewise, you would be hard pressed to find a climatologist who does not
believe that global warming is due, in part, to human behavior -- despite
what
Pat says. Why not do whatever we can NOW before it becomes a problem?

Joe

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