The Alaska Republican grassroots base is activated this election cycle.
Two years ago, they were told to rank the red, but this time, they’ve seen the problem with that and they’re sending the message to those running for office in the primary: “Drop if you’re not on top” after the primary. The drop deadline is Sept. 2 for the general election.
District 34, the Eielson area of Fairbanks, met and passed the latest resolution that states that Republican candidates who are not the highest vote getters among the GOP candidates should leave the race and support the leading candidate for the November ballot, thus creating a stronger united force.
Only congressional candidate Nick Begich has already made that commitment among the four Republicans running for Congress. Nancy Dahlstrom has refused to commit, as has Gerald Heikes and Matthew Salisbury.
Four other districts have issues similar resolutions, knowing that they are speaking to Dahlstrom, Heikes, and Salisbury. The districts issuing challenges are 6, 13, 26, 29, and 34.
“In an effort to support the will of the voting populace in the State of Alaska, the Republican District Committee members of House District 34-Q of the Alaskan Republican Party (ARP) wish to address all registered Republican candidates for U.S. Congress and/or State offices, as well as our fellow District Committees within the Alaskan Republican Party.
“We urge all Republican candidates who are opposed by at least one other Republican candidate for the same U.S. Congress and/or State office to publicly declare their willingness to withdraw from the General Election if the results of the primary election favor another Republican candidate. Let it be recognized that failing to withdraw despite unfavorable primary election results risks diluting the collective focus and resources of Republican District Committees,” the district resolution reads. The committee asked all other district committees to issue similar calls for action.
Alaska’s primary election ends at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is taking fire for her new “price-gouging” ban that critics say is little more than communism-style “price controls” where government heavily regulates industries.
Harris’ effort to address elevated consumer prices hits at a key pain point for Americans, but the details of how Harris plans to go about fixing that problem will be the subject of close scrutiny after she laid out the plan at a North Carolina rally Friday. Harris unveiled a broader economic plan at the same rally, but so far there are few details on specifically how she will address inflation. Prices have risen more than 20% overall since she and President Joe Biden took office.
Harris’ campaign this week touted the “federal ban on corporate price-gouging” to help Americans with high grocery prices and prevent “excessive” profits. Harris’ campaign said she would also order the Department of Justice to take a look at mergers between grocers and food producers.
Critics of the plan immediately blasted it as “price controls,” anti-capitalism and noted similar ideas failed in other countries. They also argue Harris is blaming corporations for high prices when inflation fueled by government spending is really to blame.
“Price controls might sound good to some, but they do not work,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “They lead to supply shortages and in the end, higher prices. Looks like Kamala Harris is a communist at heart.”
Price gouging is currently already illegal, but the Biden-Harris administration has argued that corporations have taken advantage of elevated inflation to raise prices even higher.
“Tomorrow, Vice President Harris, a person who has never built a business, doesn’t understand profit and loss, has never met payrolls, and who has never competed in a consumer market, is going to propose federal price controls,” U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in a statement. “That should terrify every American. She claims that Congress needs to ban ‘price gouging,’ which is already widely illegal and not the cause of high prices. The skyrocketing prices created by the Biden-Harris administration aren’t price-gouging, it’s inflation.”
Price controls are a feature of communistic “command and control” economies, the reason Harris will likely seek to avoid the term, if her plan will truly include price controls at all, and why such a strong reaction broke out against the plan this week.
[Harris’] solution to the Harris Price Hikes she caused is big government on steroids – where Washington bureaucrats stick their hands into American businesses and say what they can and can’t sell a product for,” Scott said. “It never works because it causes companies to make much less of something – destroying supply and causing a mass shortage of goods.”
Billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran in the Republican presidential primary and is considered a potential cabinet appointee if former President Donald Trump is elected, called out Republicans on the issue, asking whether they would have “the spine” to critique Harris’ plan.
“The GOP has a wide-open opportunity to embrace capitalism again,” Ramaswamy wrote on X. “No, that doesn’t mean blindly reciting neoliberal shibboleths about spreading ‘democracy through capitalism’ abroad (that doesn’t work: see China). But it *does* mean embracing exceptionalism & merit over protectionism & patronage here at home. That’s the fork in the road ahead for our own movement.”
Polling shows that inflation remains a top concern for voters and small business owners. Inflation has slowed from its breakneck pace earlier in the Biden-Harris term, but some goods and services have continued to rise.
As The Center Square previously reported, roasted coffee prices rose 9.1% and dairy product prices increased 9.4% in the past two months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pork and “processed young chickens” prices saw slightly higher increases.
So far, Harris’ policy agenda has been sparse, and what record she does have on the border and her time as a prosecutor she has tried to distance herself from, making this new policy agenda crucial for her campaign.
As a state senator, I have been working on election reform legislation for many years.
While I have never taken the position that election fraud was so prevalent that a single election result in Alaska was changed, a few things solidified my strong belief we must pursue election reform.
First, it’s clear the Americans across the political spectrum no longer have faith our elections are fair or secure. If their side didn’t win it wasn’t because the other candidate was better, but because there was cheating, fraud or other malicious actions that “stole” the election. The distrust of our election system is at the highest point in history.
Second, through a great deal of research and painstaking work, we discovered a number of vulnerabilities in our Alaska election system that we need to address.
Some examples:
A few years ago, we had at least two cyber-attacks, which stole the data of 113,000 Alaskans. We Alaskans were told about this after the election was over.
Personal information was stolen and is still on the dark web, which could be used for any manner of nefarious activity, including registering someone to vote without his or her knowledge.
The state would not be able to understand the extent of the problem without a true forensic audit. Alaska has the most over-inflated voter rolls in the nation. This is a nationally acknowledged fact by our own state and organizations in the Lower 48 that track such data.
Part of that problem is automatic voter registration when filing for a Permanent Fund dividend. I’ll get to that in a moment.
The entire division of elections website was partially hacked in 2016 and was under the control of a “hacker” who was simply waiting for someone to pay him for the access. Watch the HBO documentary “Kill Chain,” to hear from the hacker who did it.
We have no ballot chain-of-custody protocols or tracking system to ensure we know where ballots go, who gets them, and then ensure every one of them comes back to a central location for counting and storage. We allow unused ballots to be destroyed in districts vs. accounting for them in a central location. The Division of Elections doesn’t check for U.S. citizenship. From what I know of the infamous “Tshibaka” report, we haven’t always checked the Dominion machines, as we are supposed to, for security and functionality.
Speaking of that report. I have asked for it since it was briefed to higher-up elected officials in July of 2020. In the over 30-page report, then Administration Commissioner Kelly Tshibaka highlighted three and a half pages of items we need to fix or do better. I was given a “redacted” copy of the report to read. All three and a half pages of those recommendations were blacked out.
I was stunned. A state senator was asking for a publicly funded report so I could do my job better and provide appropriate legislative solutions, but was being denied access to it.
I was offered a chance to read it but had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. This means if I talk about anything in the report the state could sue me for violating the agreement.
That was an impossible position, since the entire goal of reading it was to use the data to draft legislation to address the findings.
There is more, but I think you get the point. Our election system isn’t perfect and there are vulnerabilities we need to address.
Yesterday I had a constituent reach out to me about a recent social media post of mine regarding the “loophole” first reported on by Must Read Alaska. This loophole is what happens when people are automatically registered to vote when filing for a Permanent Fund dividend. The constituent is part of an organization that is helping Ukrainian refugees trying to settle in the United States with the goal of eventually applying for citizenship.
These immigrants understand quite well that a non-citizen cannot register to vote, as it’s illegal. If any of these Ukrainians were registered to vote and then apply for U.S. citizenship, the immigration officials will easily discover their voter registration, and their request will most likely be denied.
This group is helping advise and help these Ukrainian people with all of their paperwork, applications, etc. Even though the immigrants were all advised to check “no” on the dividend application question about whether they wanted to be automatically registered to vote, virtually all of them received voter registration cards.
Houston, we have a problem.
Remember the automatic voter registration ballot initiative that was installed by Democrats and left wing outside dark money in Alaska in 2016? That’s one of the election vulnerabilities in Alaska. There is real, concrete evidence that people are being hurt by this automatic voter registration.
I don’t believe the state has any idea how many people have been automatically registered since 2016. Some forget, don’t care, move to another state, etc. We don’t require people to unregister with the state and Alaska has a large transient population.
Then we send thousands of ballot applications to these people, without knowing if they are alive, registered in another state, or anything else. Who gets those applications? What about ballot harvesting? We allow that, too — another vulnerability.
Ironically, I had a bill that included this fix. It was stopped by Democrats a few years ago in the House. A clean, simple voter roll cleanup bill, filed by Rep Sarah Vance (R) of Homer this last session, was another chance to fix part of the problem. Unfortunately, it was effectively killed by Sen. Scott Kawasaki (D) in the Senate when he hijacked it and turned it into an omnibus bill with a plethora of Democrat wishes.
Alaska, we need to fix this, not in a few years, but right now. It is unconscionable for us to allow people like these immigrants who are doing the right thing to be harmed because of an ill-conceived law on the books.
Let’s repeal this automatic voter registration, fix the loopholes, and close up such vulnerabilities so we can all rest assured we have a world-class, trusted election system.
Sen. Mike Shower represents Wasilla Senate District O, formerly known as District E.
As of Wednesday, 39% of Alaska Republican district committees have pledged their endorsements to Nick Begich for Congress.
No Republican district has endorsed Nancy Dahlstrom, showing Alaska’s Republican grassroots volunteers are saying they are not going to be told what to do by the governor.
The latest to endorse Nick Begich is District 14, a midtown Anchorage district. Nick was at the meeting on Wednesday evening and spoke and took questions for an hour. The district had attempted at least five times to get Dahlstrom to meet with members, participants said, but she ignored their requests.
Also going against the wishes of Gov. Mike Dunleavy are six of the seven Republican women’s clubs and both of the Alaska Young Republicans clubs. Nevertheless, Dahlstrom has D.C. money and is conducting an air bombing ad campaign for her candidacy, with ads running nonstop this week.
Nick Begich will be at the Alaska State Fair this weekend, spending much of his time at the booth of the MatSu Republican Women, who support him, as he reaches out to more Alaskans in his bid to unseat Rep. Mary Peltola, the Democrat.
The primary election ends Tuesday at 8 p.m.
After polls close, the Division of Elections will then count all ballots voted that day, along with all ballots that had been voted early and received and processed by the Division by close of business on Aug. 15.
The early ballots that are voted and submitted over this weekend will not be included in the first count but will be counted and included in subsequent counts. The second release of vote totals won’t come out until seven days after the election, according to the Division of Elections, which means a long wait for all candidates in competitive races.
Dahlstrom is in charge of the elections and also appears on the ballot. She has not committed to dropping from the race after the primary if she comes in second to Begich but says she will meet with the governor after the primary to discuss her future.
All is not well in Camp Kamala. The Democrats’ nominee, Kamala Harris, is at war with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Vice Presidential candidate Kennedy is fighting the Democratic Party, which is trying to stop him from getting on the ballots of several states. Kennedy, from a legacy Democrat family, has filed as an independent.
Democrats would not allow him to compete for the nomination and instead conducted a political coup against President Joe Biden and installed Kamala Harris as their nominee — without asking the Democrat voters or holding an open-nomination convention.
Kennedy will appear on Alaska’s general election ballot in November. In addition, he made the ballots of Delaware, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. In California, he made the ballot as a nominee of the American Independent Party. In Hawaii, he’s the nominee for the We the People party. All of this adds up up to just over 200 electoral votes, but he needs 270.
But the Democratic National Committee and Democrat political action committees are throwing roadblocks up to prevent Kennedy’s ballot access, to block the other 70 electoral votes. New York is denying Kennedy access to the ballot, and the Democrats are challenging his ability to be on the ballots in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Delaware, and Georgia.
Now, the Harris campaign is getting nasty with Kennedy, alleging, through leaks to pro-Harris media like the New York Times and the Washington Post, that RFK Jr. has attempted — unsuccessfully — to meet with Harris to discuss endorsing her in exchange for a cabinet position, and all the major media outlets are reporting the rumor.
Kennedy has a 34.4% favorability rating based on 122 polls, according to The Hill. That’s enough to erode some of Harris’ support between now and November, so he is seen as a threat. The same poll aggregate gives Harris a 49.5% favorability rating, based on 164 polls, while Trump has a 44.0% favorability rating based on 470 polls.
While Harris is trying to discredit Kennedy, on X/Twitter, RFK Jr. doesn’t sound like someone who wants to be part of the Harris cabinet. He says he will not endorse her. Kennedy went to battle with Harris, writing:
“VP Harris’s Democratic Party would be unrecognizable to my father and uncle and I cannot reconcile it with my values.
“The Democratic Party of RFK and JFK was the party of civil liberties and free speech.
“VP Harris‘s is the party of censorship, lockdowns, and medical coercion.
“Kennedy Democrats were anti-war. Kamala‘s is riddled with neocon warmongers.
“The RFK/JFK dems were allies of Main Street, cops, firefighters, and working people.
“VP Harris’s is the Party of Big Tech, Big Pharma and Wall Street.
“My dad and uncle’s party was the champion of voting rights and fair elections. VP Harris’s is the party of lawfare, disenfranchisement, and the coronation of its candidates by corporate donors and party elites.
“I’ve used our nation’s courts to prosecute corporations who hurt Black Americans. VP Harris used our nation’s courts to mercilessly prosecute Black Americans and exploit them for their labor.
“My father and uncle prided themselves on their skills at debate and their ability to articulate a coherent vision for our country. VP Harris is scared to debate and can’t survive an unscripted interview.
“Instead of outlining a vision, she relies on middleschool tactics – memes, forged headlines, infantile slogans (Joy!) and name calling (“Republicans are weird.“)
“I’ve spent years battling government corruption and lies. VP Harris spent years gaslighting Americans about the health of our Commander in Chief. I have no plans to endorse Kamala Harris for President. I do have a plan to defeat her.“
Kennedy is an environmental lawyer, author, and activist against Big Pharma and mass vaccination for Covid. He is an iconoclast and renegade from the Democratic establishment, including his own family. It appears that the Harris campaign is expecting him to endorse Donald Trump and is trying to damage him in advance.
The son of the U.S. attorney general, U.S. senator, and 1968 Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while campaigning in Los Angeles, Kennedy is also a nephew of Democrat President John F. Kennedy, who was also assassinated, and he’s a member of a blue-blood Kennedy family, which is known to be staunchly Democrat.
During his campaign, President Joe Biden refused to assign Secret Service protection to RFK Jr. until after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.
Did Big Tech try to bury or misrepresent information about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump? The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has initiated an investigation into reports concerning the accuracy and relevance of information generated by Meta’s AI assistant and Google’s “Autocomplete” function.
The inquiry stems from growing concerns over the role of the leading technology companies in influencing public opinion, particularly in the context of an alleged assassination attempt on Trump, which occurred July 13 in Pennsylvania.
In letters addressed to the CEOs of Meta and Google, Committee chairman Rep. James Comer of Kentucky expressed the committee’s worries about potential speech suppression and censorship by technology and social media companies. Concerns have intensified following reports that both platforms provided misleading or unrelated information when queried about the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.
“Americans rely upon prominent internet search engines such as Google to gather news and information critical to their understanding of national politics and events—and never more so than during a Presidential election season,” wrote Comer to Google CEO Pichai. “On behalf of the American people, the Committee is dedicated to fully understanding when and how information is being suppressed or modified, whether it be due to technical error, a policy intended to ensure safety, or a specific intent to mislead.
“Google users report that autocompleted search prompts related to the assassination attempt of President Trump produced results for failed assassination attempts of former Presidents, including Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan—or even assassinations of historical figures such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand—but omitted from the list of automatically generated search suggestions the recent attempt on President Trump’s life,” Comer wrote.
“The Committee has long been concerned with how large technology companies leverage their businesses to influence public opinion—especially the design and use of content moderation policies within private sector social media companies—and how company policies are shaped and influenced by Executive Branch officials,” Comer wrote to Meta CEO Zuckerberg. “When asked if the assassination on President Trump was fictional, Meta’s bot responded that there ‘was no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes can occur.’ The Committee requests that Meta produce all internal policies or any other documents related to how the Meta AI chatbot is designed, reviewed, managed, and updated.”
Facebook has already admitted that it censored the photo of Trump after the bullet struck his ear and drew blood.
“This was an error,” wrote Facebook Communications Director Dani Levi wrote on X/Twitter in July. “This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the secret service agents smiling, and in some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake.”
The committee wants to look at certain documents and information to assist its investigation and better understand how Google designs its Search product and Autocomplete feature.
The Committee is tying to understand the underlying design and operation of Big Tech’s search product and autocomplete features, with a focus on whether the exclusion of the Trump incident was due to technical error, safety policies, or intentional manipulation.
This investigation comes on the heels of previous controversies involving Big Tech’s handling of politically sensitive information. In August 2022, Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook had suppressed a New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop following FBI warnings about potential misinformation. This led to the advancement and eventual passage of H.R. 140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, which prohibits federal employees from pressuring private entities to censor lawful speech. The Hunter Biden laptop story turned out to be true.
U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan today applauded the official announcement by the U.S. Coast Guard that a commercial icebreaker will be homeported in Juneau.
The Coast Guard is acquiring the Aiviq, a U.S.-registered ship originally built to serve as an Arctic oil-exploration support vessel, which has an icebreaking capability sufficient to serve as a Coast Guard medium polar icebreaker, after undergoing modification. The ship is being purchased from a subsidiary of Louisiana-based Edison Chouest, which built it in anticipation of oil project in the Chukchi Sea.
“The United States is an Arctic nation, and the Coast Guard is vital to providing presence in our sovereign waters and the polar regions,” said Adm. Kevin Lunday, Coast Guard vice commandant. “As we continue to build the Polar Security Cutters, acquiring a commercially available polar icebreaker will enable the Coast Guard to increase our national presence in the Arctic, and homeporting this cutter in Alaska demonstrates the Service’s steadfast commitment to the region.”
The Coast Guard was appropriated $125 million in fiscal year 2024 to buy an available icebreaker. Currently, the Aiviq is the only U.S. built commercial vessel meeting necessary icebreaking standards. The Coast Guard anticipates the vessel will reach initial operational capability in two years.
The Coast Guard has been the sole provider of America’s polar icebreaking capability since 1965 and is seeking to increase its icebreaking fleet with new Polar Security Cutters. The Coast Guard currently operates two polar icebreakers, the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, a medium polar icebreaker, and the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, the only U.S. heavy polar icebreaker.
Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Linda L. Fagan, who is traveling with the senators in Alaska, had previously committed to the senators that the icebreaker would be homeported in Juneau. However, until now, the decision had not been made final.
In March, Sullivan and Murkowski successfully secured $125 million to purchase the icebreaker in the FY 2024 Homeland Security Appropriations Act after years of advocacy. The United States currently has only one operational heavy icebreaker, the Polar Star, which is on its second life extension. The one medium icebreaker, the Healy, recently had an onboard fire and was forced to cancel an Arctic mission.
Russia has 55 icebreakers and they are building more.
“This is an exciting day for Juneau, for Alaska, and for America. I want to commend Admiral Fagan for making this important announcement in our state, among Alaskans, and for keeping her commitment to homeport an icebreaker in Juneau,” said Senator Sullivan. “The need to build up our icebreaking capacity could not be more urgent: Just days ago, the Healy had to abort its summer Arctic patrol due to a fire, and the 50-year-old Polar Star remains out of commission undergoing its own repairs. Our national security interests in the Arctic have also never been more critical, demonstrated by the joint Russian and Chinese naval and air task forces that have operated off Alaska’s coastline these past two years. Since coming to the Senate, I’ve been working relentlessly to wake up our federal government to the strategic importance of this region. The sea change we’ve achieved since 2015 is unprecedented: serious Arctic security strategies from the Department of Defense (DOD) and each of the military services, a new DOD Arctic Security Studies Center at JBER, a new Department of Homeland Security Arctic Domain Awareness Center at UAA, America’s first deep-water Arctic port in Nome, a massive increase in Coast Guard vessels and infrastructure throughout Alaska that I secured working with the previous commandant, and now, an icebreaker will officially be coming to Juneau. We have a lot more work to do, but this is an important milestone and I know that the entire community of Juneau is working hard to prepare for it.”
Last week’s sudden catastrophic flooding of the Mendenhall River is one of the worst disasters in Juneau’s history. The 1917 Treadwell Mine cave-in and the 1936 landslide that killed 15 people may rank higher in terms of loss of life or economic damage. But this flood damaged nearly 300 homes and hundreds of vehicles. The economic losses will top tens of millions of dollars.
Fortunately, there were no serious injuries or loss of life. The clean-up and re-building will take many months and stretch the financial resources of the city and all those impacted by the flood. The personal emotional toll on affected families is incalculable.
Individuals can help in many ways. Volunteer opportunities are available and donations to help flood victims can be made to a variety of organizations from churches and the Salvation Army to the United Way.
Disaster relief aid from all levels of government will be forthcoming and welcome. But the crucial challenge facing Juneau is how to prevent this from happening again. The answer to that is complicated and undoubtedly very expensive.
Retreating glaciers can create unstable lakes filled by meltwater and rain that are dammed by ice or sediment. When those dams eventually break, they can send huge walls of water crashing down populated valleys and rivers. Called a glacial outburst flood or jökulhlaup, it is a phenomenon also seen in other parts of the world. The Mendenhall Glacier has created such a lake, now named Suicide Basin, and hydrologists estimated it contained around 14 billion gallons of water before it burst.
Jökulhlaups have occurred in Juneau since 2011 but none as severe as this year. Eventually, the glacier will recede, and Suicide Basin will no longer fill with water. However, other potential basins behind it could create a similar hazard.
The consequences of this catastrophe are far-reaching, well beyond immediate clean-up and reconstruction efforts.
This is where government must step in. Federal, state, and local.
One of government’s core responsibilities is to ensure that basic infrastructure and public safety are maintained so that individuals can earn a living and provide shelter and economic security for themselves and their families.
Juneau cannot survive, let alone prosper, with the threat of annual floods on the scale experienced last week. While it is impossible for experts to predict the magnitude of the next such natural disaster, it could be even more devastating.
The solution points towards a flood mitigation project that would divert or contain potential flood water, preventing it from overflowing into residential areas. Senator Dan Sullivan, who visited Juneau last Thursday to survey the flood damage, has already made initial contact with the Corps of Engineers seeking their help.
Something of this scope requires complex engineering and several years to design, permit and construct. Therefore, short-term/intermediate steps must also be considered to limit potential future flooding.
Assisting individual property owners navigate the bureaucracy and financial burden of rehabilitating properties will fall to various levels of government, including the City and Borough of Juneau. Unfortunately, many of the homes were not located in a designated floodplain and were largely uninsured for flood damage.
The value and marketability of hundreds of homes and some businesses in the Mendenhall Valley, even those that may have escaped damage, is now questionable. After city property tax assessments are adjusted for that, it will put a dent in municipal revenues.
The possible loss of housing stock will put more pressure on housing availability and cost. Will the city respond by cutting red tape and expediting the necessary permits for contractors and builders?
It is imperative that elected leaders conserve revenues and minimize discretionary and unnecessary expenditures. That is the only way that taxes will remain manageable, particularly for impacted homeowners, and allow city financial resources to be devoted to core services and projects that matter.
This disaster should not be an excuse to raise taxes. Projects that the voters have rejected should be put on hold. Significant funds amassed for them could be used to mitigate budget issues until the full extent of the city’s financial obligations are known.
The future may appear daunting, but with financially responsible leadership focusing on protecting lives, property, and the welfare of its citizens, the Juneau community can endure.
After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular opinion page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations.
On Aug. 6, the highest ever temperature was recorded for Deadhorse, Alaska.
The event was described to bake Deadhorse. A story in the Alaska Beacon stated the “average annual temperatures on the North Slope rose by 5.8 degrees Fahrenheit from 1969 to 2018”.
In my article published in Must Read Alaska on July 17, I explained that this average annual increase does not represent high summer temperature, but does represent a lack of extreme cold temperatures. This is a manipulation of facts by math.
I have also been stating that warm days are caused by the presence of high pressure areas in the summer, which are determined by the location and configuration of the jet stream. And I have been stating that the warming we have experienced is just the recovery from the Little Ice Age.
In the interior and northern Alaska the average annual temperature is still below freezing and recent winters have brought back extreme low temperatures.
I have been checking online for the position of the jet stream frequently and have noticed that when heat domes are forecast that the jet stream is positioned properly to cause high pressure areas where the heat domes are projected to occur. I have also been following the jet stream position with respect to Alaska and around Aug. 1, the jet stream looped around Alaska with the eastward flow to be just above the northern shore of Alaska, which would result in a high pressure to the south of that flow.
The data shows that a high pressure began building on Aug. 1, and built to its highest pressure of about 1018 millibar on Aug. 3, then declined until late Aug. 6. The sky was partly cloudy much of the time which would allow the 19 hr. 58 min of sunlight to shine through. The dew point was 41 degrees which is fairly dry (not humid). All the conditions were in line to allow warming, and for each day between Aug. 1-6 the high temperature would rise 8 to 10 degrees warmer than the previous day.
Just a few hours before the high temperature, the wind dropped to around 4 mph, which helps achieve a higher temperature. Each day the high temperature did not last for long before the temperature would cool to about 55F.
But was it baking? I don’t think so. I’ve been in Deadhorse in the 1980s and 1990s when the sun shined and the wind stopped blowing and when it was over 70F. It was uncomfortable, but the worst part was the mosquitos.
The temperature at the Seawater Treatment Plant at Westdock in Prudhoe Bay reached 75, Barrow got to 74 and Kaktovik also reached 74 degrees. While these may represent record values, they do not represent a heat wave, they just made a warm day amongst a bunch of normal temperature days.
This has been a normal year; even the rain is within a normal range. In Chinitna Bay in lower Cook Inlet it rained 96 inches in 90 days in 1958.
I believe it is time to no longer say we have human caused heating of the planet. It is time to no longer say Alaska is warming two to four times faster than the rest of the planet. It is time to stop referring to the average annual temperature comparisons, as they are very misleading. It is time to accept that we are just about through the recovery from the Little Ice Age that is manifested in our extended growing season. It is time for Alaskans to reject Al Gore and Greta Thunberg pleas to abandon fossil fuel and the fear of greenhouse gases. It is time we reject anthropogenic warming as a cause of our weather.
It is time for Alaska leaders in business and government to get behind efforts to terminate the strangle hold the federal government has over Alaska’s resources. It is a time to fight in court for our ability to produce oil and gas and minerals, against all the non-governmental organization’s that have interfered with our ability to maintain a viable economy.
It is time for the leaders to use all their political capital, all their gravitas, and all of their experience and determination to find the solutions necessary to get more Cook Inlet Gas into production. It is time to not let ESG, or DEI, or any other environmental or social scare tactics that interfere with getting that Cook Inlet gas into increased production.
It is time to not cower or capitulate to minor forces.
The sky is not falling and CO2 is a benefit to humans, as well as the rest of the planet. Whatever problems we have with weather, we need to work on adapting to whatever changes are necessary while our weather adjusts to recovery from Little Ice Age. Increase oil and gas production is great for the Alaska economy, but it does not mean the end of development of renewable and alternate energy in Alaska.
Our remote communities still need to have good sources of energy that they can depend on without having to barge in millions of gallons of diesel fuel each year. We have progressed in many of those communities and can provide for more progress in the others who still need to achieve more energy independence. If each remote community has sufficient energy and power they can create industry and business to provide more purpose and benefit to their community with more comforts and more reason to grow their community.
Oil and gas have been good to Alaska and Alaskans. This time around let’s have plans for what we do before we do it so that we don’t waste everything that oil and gas and mining have brought to us. We know that we may have to plan for some alternate to Cook Inlet gas. If we get busy with increasing the Cook Inlet gas production we should have a good long time to work out what comes next. In the meantime enjoy the weather and don’t worry about the climate change. And one thing to keep in mind: If Alaska is not suffering from greenhouse gas warming, neither is the rest of the planet. Other areas are affected by the jet stream and high and low pressure areas just like we are.
Robert Seitz, is a professional electrical engineer and lifelong Alaskan.
