Environmental issues should be nonpartisan

Thunder rolled and lightning flashed across the Mat-Su over the past couple days, ushering in what appears to be a return to fall weather. The big storms brought with them torrential rain and chunks of hail as big around as quarters, leaving no doubt that Mother Nature was in a rather foul mood.

Although the storms were significant (the National Weather Service issued a rare severe thunderstorm warning on Tuesday), they weren’t anywhere close to what’s happened recently in Southeast Alaska, where heavy rains triggered several devastating mudslides in and around Sitka. Those slides took out entire city blocks and claimed three men – two of whom remain missing and another whose body has been recovered.

Some in the media were quick to blame the slides on climate change, but experts cautioned that such conclusions were premature. After all, Sitka is located in a rainforest and, as such, is frequently hit by heavy rains.

Similar climate-related conclusions were drawn by many earlier this summer after Southcentral Alaska experienced a heat wave that ranked among the hottest and most sustained in recorded history – conclusions that were also rebuffed as premature speculation by experts who know isolated weather events don’t necessarily indicate a long-term trend.

However, when taken together, these weather events do give one pause, and at the least deserve to be studied at length. One would have to be quite obtuse to not admit that climate change should be explored as a possible factor in what appears to be a trend toward more extreme weather we’ve seen over the past decade.

For example, two of the state’s hottest summers on record (admittedly a short data set that only stretches back a century or so) have occurred in the past three years, and our snowiest winter took place just three years ago. Sure, these anomalies could just be sheer coincidence. But even the most ardent climate change skeptics would be remiss not to acknowledge that it sure seems strange that all these extreme events seem to be clustering over ever-shortening time frames.

Debates about whether mankind is responsible for changing the climate are ongoing at the federal level, and Alaska’s two senators have spoken out – to varying degrees – against rushing to judgment. Both have said they believe climate change is real, although neither has gone so far as to say it’s a man-made phenomenon.

This debate is set against the backdrop of an upcoming visit by the president to Alaska, his first official trip to the state. Obama has indicated he’ll use the trip to highlight his stance on climate change – he’s firmly of the belief that humans are contributing to the issue – a stance for which he’s been widely criticized by the state’s congressional delegation.

Wherever their stance on the issue, the president’s visit will give Alaskans a chance to air their views on the subject, and we think that’s a good thing. Although many people here remain skeptical about the widely held view of scientists that greenhouse gas emissions are a major factor in changing the climate, few still cling to the idea that there’s nothing going on at all.

If nothing else comes of the current discussion, we hope it will spur a renewed interest in protecting our natural environment. Alaskans are fiercely independent people, many of whom spend vast amounts of time in the outdoors. We know how important it is for our natural spaces to remain unblemished for future generations, and thus how critical it will be to ensure our land, air and water stay clean.

While opinions on climate change vary greatly, one thing we should all be able to agree on is that protecting the wild Alaska we love should be a priority for all.