Humans won’t go extinct if the planet warms up a few degrees, surmised Richard, who sat next to me on my flight from Anchorage to Chicago.  Probably true, but a lot could change that would influence the way we live our lives. And in Alaska, climate change is not a computer modeled prediction. It is happening now.

So off to Alaska I went to talk to scientists studying marine mammals struggling with a changing environment, legislators proposing policies aimed at curtailing Alaska’s green house gas emissions and the people who live in what is called, “the melting tip of the iceberg.”

Alaska’s economy is largely dependent on developing natural resources. Currently, oil reigns supreme. The average payout for nearly every Alaskan from a state fund sharing oil profits amounted to $1,654 in 2007.

So Alaska pinpoints some tough issues right now. How do you balance oil revenues with a desire to curtail gasoline use and climate change that is already affecting the lives and villages of native Alaskans on the North Slope?  Should ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, be opened for oil exploration and would it provide relief to American’s facing rising gas prices?   Even what to call the refuge is open to question. Some people corrected me when I called it “ANWR,” because the acronym makes it sound like a desolate, characterless area.  Others corrected me when I called it the “wildlife refuge,” saying the preferred name is “ANWR”.

The polar bears live in the middle of the crossfire, depending on Arctic sea ice to hunt for seals and on snow cover on ANWR’s coastal plain for their dens during the winter.  Diminishing sea ice due to global warming and several lawsuits prompted the U.S. Department of the Interior to list the polar bear as a threatened species, the first time a species has been added to the list based on projected threats to a population. Now the State of Alaska has filed a lawsuit to overturn listing the polar bears as threatened because the decision may threaten offshore energy development. 

With diminishing sea ice, polar bears lose more and more of their hunting platforms. Swimming seals must surface to breathe through openings in the ice cover.  When seals come up for that breath, the polar bear pounces.  The greater expanse of open water makes seals more difficult prey because they are not limited to a small breathing hole where a polar bear lies in wait.  If the ice melts too soon, polar bears may be forced to return to land before they have caught enough prey to last them through the summer.

Polar bears face the problem now. But diminishing sea ice is a threat with global implications. Diminishing sea ice speeds up the global warming process and that will affect ocean circulation and weather.

Green house gas emissions from human activities are contributing to warming conditions already evident in the Arctic. Natural climatic variations also play a role, of course, a point raised by Ron Billingsly, who I met in a dimly lit bar in Seward, Alaska. “Glaciers went all the way to the Midwest.  We didn’t melt all those,” said Billingsly. He also tried to convince me at first that his leg, missing below the knee, was bitten off by a great white shark. 

But scientific studies show that the extent of Arctic sea ice in the summer fell to near-record lows for the past four summers.  There is no exact answer for when summer sea ice in the Arctic will disappear entirely, though 2050 is a reasonable estimate that several researchers give. That’s bad news for polar bears and for humans as well.

Ice isn’t the only meltdown in Alaska.

The recent indictment of Alaska’s GOP Senator Ted Stevens on seven counts of making false statements related to his Senate financial disclosure reports could shake things up in both Alaska and the Senate.  Stevens has served for 40 years in the Senate and faces a serious challenge by Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a young Democrat who spoke to me about his plans for investing in alternative energies.  He, like Senator Stevens, advocates drilling in ANWR, although at this time neither presumed presidential candidate is in favor of opening up the wildlife reserve for drilling.

A lot is happening in Alaska, and the way it plays out will reach far beyond the state.