Good interactions with local experts on climate change

Lunch yesterday with senior players from the Insititute of the North and the Denali Commission. Fascinating problems (the relocation of tens of thousands of indigenous people who live on the coast up north) and fascinating possibilities (the opening up of the artic circle will make Anchorage an amazingly well-placed hub in the global economy [like that mythical town where the guys got stuck in "O Brother Where Are Thou?" Anchorage is a geographical oddity that seems to be 9 hours by air from every major city in the world]). To that end, done right, Alaska can become a model for adjustment to climate change. People up here sense that possibility and want to make it happen.

Me? Definitely a column, maybe more.

Comments

[Jarrod Myrick]

Mr. Lincoln: Thanks again.

[Ted B. (Charging Rhino)]

I remember when there were great plans to enclose downtown Anchorage in a series a great domes and climate-controlled aerial corridors like downtown Minneapolis has to open-up much of the city to shirt-sleeve conditions year-round. Anchorage was to be America's Vancouver, and commercial and economic gateway to Asia....fueled by the oil and mineral wealth in the Alaska Trust Fund. But the politicial-class decided to distribute the Fund's principal directly; rather than re-invest in infastructure and pay-out the interest and value-added profits later.

[Mark in Texas]

If Iraq's political class would distribute Iraq's oil wealth directly to the individual citizens of Iraq in a program modeled on the Alaska Trust Fund, I bet that the program that currently issues food rations to Iraqis could probably be ended.