• ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • From the Wilson Center

    Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor: “Climate Change Is Already Impacting Us”

    May 29, 2018 By Wilson Center Staff

    “Alaska is a place in which climate change is already impacting us in very observable ways,” says Byron Mallott, the  Lieutenant Governor of Alaska, in a video interview with Wilson Center NOW.  “We have erosion from sea ice leaving the coast. We have patterns of weather change. We have, in the North Pacific Ocean, ocean water change [and] temperature changes taking place. We have ocean acidification moving further north. We have had impact on fisheries already—economic impact.”

    According to Mallott, 30 Alaskan communities are at significant risk due to the effects of global warming, and several of these have already begun relocating. “Such a move—of even a very small village—costs hundreds of millions of dollars and takes a lot of planning,” he says.

    Mallott was elected in 2014, along with Governor Bill Walker, as part of the first nonpartisan administration in the history of Alaska. He is an Alaska native who served as clan leader of the Tlingit Raven Kwaash Kee Kwan Clan. He takes a lead role in the administration’s climate change policy and visited the Wilson Center to discuss the steps Alaska is taking to address its changing environment

    “The purpose of what we call the CALT, or the Climate Action Leadership Team, is to engage as many Alaskans as possible across our vast state—the institutions, tribal groups—so that every voice that chooses to be involved in climate change can be involved,” he says. “The whole purpose is to have Alaska meet its obligations to both its own citizens and, of course, to the world.”

    “In acting to deal with the consequences of a changing climate in our own state,” he says, Alaska has found “that what we do can help others, and we are actively reaching out to other parts of the globe in order to both learn and contribute.”

    Topics: adaptation, climate change, economics, environment, featured, From the Wilson Center, media, polar, U.S., video

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • Closing the Women’s Health Gap Report: Much Needed Recognition for Endometriosis and Menopause
    Aditya Belose: This blog effectively highlights the importance of recognizing conditions like endometriosis &...
  • International Women’s Day 2024: Investment Can Promote Equality
    Aditya Belose: This is a powerful and informative blog on the importance of investing in women for gender equality!...
  • A Warmer Arctic Presents Challenges and Opportunities
    Dan Strombom: The link to the Georgetown report did not work

What We’re Reading

  • U.S. Security Assistance Helped Produce Burkina Faso's Coup
  • https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/02/02/equal-rights-amendment-debate/
  • India's Economy and Unemployment Loom Over State Elections
  • How Big Business Is Taking the Lead on Climate Change
  • Iraqi olive farmers look to the sun to power their production
More »

Related Stories

  • Tanker Water Markets: A Path to Achieving SDG 6
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2025. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

T 202-691-4000