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Posted on Twitter by Kate Zuray
President Obama spends a happy moment on the beach at Dillingham. |
Read this, then pause and reflect on it for a moment.
For the first time in history, a sitting United States
president is visiting Arctic Alaska.
Now, to top that off, he is here at least in part to examine
first hand and also to highlight the effects of climate change in Alaska which
is the front line where changes due to global warming are most obvious.
Yesterday he visited a glacier.
Then he was criticized by a supposedly intelligent Alaska writer who said melting glaciers aren't necessarily
indicative of changes in global climate. That may or may not be. However it
is not the only indication and in part is why President Obama is visiting the Arctic. Incidentally that writer who has been a controversial outdoors reporter over the years, with this visit sounds like he is auditioning for Fox News, as he nit picks anything he can find to criticize about the president's trip.
Here are just a few climate changes recalled off hand without looking
anything up:
Thinning and retreating levels of polar ice to perhaps
unrecoverable levels.
Melting of permafrost which has the added result of
releasing methane into the air to add to the greenhouse gases that lead to
warming.
Shoreline erosion along the western and northern coasts of
Alaska caused in part by a lack of ice which in the past dampened the intensity
of waves attacking the shore.
Northern advance of species never before seen in Alaska
including one of those huge sunfish picked up in the Gulf of Alaska this
summer.
Northward advance of the tree line.
Record or near record temperatures across most of Alaska
over the past several years.
Invasive plant species spreading farther and farther north,
both aquatic and on land.
These few are just the surface I can recall reading about. A
serious look into the science being done these days would probably yield a
hundred more.
But this it not about warming it is about a president making
a historic trip, the purpose of which at least partly is to highlight the
dangers.
Today somebody complained on Twitter about how much all the
presidential airplanes and other vehicles contributed to pollution during the
trip. Well if a US president making a trip to the Arctic highlights the
problem worldwide and more people become aware of it and more people realize the
seriousness of the issue and then more people act on it, and it brings about
serious engagement, the tradeoff is well worth it.
The same poster earlier had spoken with envy that a coworker
had been joined by the president during her morning workout.
It has been typical of Barack Obama's presidency that no
matter what he does, he receives massive criticism, even vitriolic. It's a
wonder he can show up for work every day smiling and moving forward, a testament to the
man. It's been a kick looking at other pictures of his trip. We have a US
senator whose name escapes me, elected on the promise to "stand up to Obama"
and end Obamacare, who, once elected, disappeared from sight. He's been observed in a
couple of pictures near the president grinning like a kid who just received the
exact birthday present he wanted.
The point is, at least for Alaskans, lay off. No matter what
your issue, he is an intelligent man, he can tell his feet are getting wet
while he stands on the outskirts of Shishmaref. (I know he's not supposed to go
there – it's an analogy silly). He will hear from folks who live where Shell is
drilling. He will hear about the
lack of ice and the stronger storms and the plight of walrus and polar bears
who can't find haulouts except on land where they are more vulnerable.
Think of it, this single man like none other, has the weight
of the world on his shoulders, but he is taking the time to come to Alaska to
see first hand what the shouting is all about and he is also intelligent enough
to process what he sees and hears and one hopes lead the way toward finding an
acceptable solution. And like it or not, the world is watching. Nothing he does this publicly goes unnoticed. And, the world also watches how we as a people treat our own president. It's not pretty.
In the meantime, nothing said here is going to stop the
sniping. That's one failure of the Internet, it has given the critics, haters
and snipers (yes, even me) a broader audience.
It's kind of interesting there doesn't seem to be a lot of criticism
coming from his usual political opponents. It is perhaps the continuation of his rope-a-dope method
where he takes an action, then ducks and dodges and while the opposition is all fired up yelling about
that, he swings again. And BTW today while he was in Alaska, he got the deciding vote in Congress to save his deal with Iran. They are going to be reeling off the ropes for weeks.
This time the day before he arrived the administration announced
the official name of North America's tallest mountain would be changed from
McKinley to Denali, the traditionally accepted Native name for it, and one a
majority of Alaskans have favored since Statehood. While all the Republicans
started yelling about it, (after they had checked Google and found out McKinley
was a Republican) the president moves on to an Arctic conference and a tour of Alaska
to see it all for himself still carrying the weight of the world, smiling with
couple of women fishing for salmon in Dillingham dancing with some kids in the Dillingham school and letting the criticism roll
off his back, something he apparently does so well.
Perhaps we should all take a lesson from the gracious way the president has been greeted by Alaskans in Dillingham and Kotzebue. And too, from the comment a friend of mine made on another post, "I've never seen pictures of the president smiling so much."
Perhaps we should all take a lesson from the gracious way the president has been greeted by Alaskans in Dillingham and Kotzebue. And too, from the comment a friend of mine made on another post, "I've never seen pictures of the president smiling so much."
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