The Johnson Tract gold mine would devastate the only known winter feeding grounds for critically endangered Cook Inlet belugas, one of Alaska's great brown bear areas, the largest seabird nesting colony in Cook Inlet, and so much more. But they have to go through us. NO gold mines. bit.ly/3H7bQ9I

We filed a lawsuit against a major Alaskan gold mine exploration project to protect the critically endangered Cook Inlet belugas and defend against acid mine drainage into Lake Clark National Park, Alaska Maritime National Refuge, and critical habitat for the beluga whales. bit.ly/3FkkMIo

Mining is an environmental and human rights nightmare. Battery recycling can ease that. grist.org/energy/minin... #EV #Batteries #Solar #Energy #Mining #Climate

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s decision to kill almost 200 brown bears in order to boost a struggling caribou herd violated due process and was unconstitutional, an Anchorage Superior Court judge ruled Friday. (From @alaskabeacon.com)

Another desperate trip to Japan by AK state officials in search of the elusive investor for the $44 billion AK LNG pipeline that makes no financial or climate sense. A wise state would take this money and invest in renewable energy and public education, but that is not what we have. bit.ly/4hfkBLl

My current take on Alaska in the age of Trump II and our path towards "dewilding." bit.ly/3XSxHam

Had this enforcement-refusal been in place during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon, BP would not have been forced to pay the $100 million in fines that it did to clean up the Gulf of Mexico and save birds.

These kinds of local, artisanal businesses are the future of the Tongass, not going back to clearcutting old-growth trees for export. And they're mutually exclusive. The old-growth forests of the Tongass are the heart of the ecosystem and so important for mitigating climate change.

Let's be clear, the Forest Service's Tongass Assessment is neither complete nor deep, and they have "studied" very little. It appears hastily thrown together with lots of outdated and incorrect info. It's far from an adequate scientific foundation for one of the planet's most important forests.

Gov. Dunleavy thinks Alaska's gas is "low carbon" 🤦 "...that gas has been recycled for almost 50 years on the North Slope. We know the content, we know the amount it's recycled back into the basin when that gas is then piped down through the pipeline — that carbon could be extracted from that gas."

NOAA Fisheries observers in Alaska face regular harassment; women twice as often as men. This is unacceptable. Importantly, we rely on these observers to document bycatch of imperiled marine mammals and fish. Intimidation may not be unintentional. This system is broken. bit.ly/3CujVDL

NOAA doing a job here trying to make its bottom trawl fisheries research look innocuous. Rather, bottom trawl research, especially year after year in the same location, can cause real damage, downgrading ecosystems and reducing biodiversity. www.fisheries.noaa.gov/gallery/2024...

The dissonance between the reality of this headline and Trump's Alaska Executive Order aspiring to declare open season on oil and gas development in the state makes my head explode. www.adn.com/alaska-news/...

Not at all unexpected, but still surreal to see. It's an order to bring about an all out plunder upon Alaska. This is such a horrific vision for Alaska. It could spell the end for Alaska's caribou, salmon, polar bears, walrus, and so much more. We say NO. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

So long (again) Northern Bering Sea Climate Resilience Area (EO 13990), which among other important things, closed this critical marine region to the use of commercial trawl fishing gear that makes contact with the seafloor (i.e. "pelagic" pollock trawling and bottom trawling). bit.ly/4anXFrm

We're hiring for an experienced attorney fired up to hold the line against the oncoming Trump onslaught up here in Alaska. Come join our team or share with your friends! biologicaldiversity.bamboohr.com/careers/111

While Northern fur seals moms struggle to rear and nurse strong young pups on St. Paul island, their main food source, Alaskan pollock, is over-harvested and being bought up by taxpayer dollars to bail out the industry. Its annual catch was raised for 2025. alaskapublic.org/news/economy...

Updated 50-year change of annual temperature for the Alaska climate divisions, now for 1975-2024. Largest changes are in the North Slope and West Coast divisions and driven by, you guessed it, sea ice loss. Data from NOAA/NCEI. #akwx #Climate #ClimateChange @climatologist49.bsky.social

Yesterday was a good day for the Arctic Refuge.

BREAKING: The Liberty Unit - the only offshore oil and gas leases fully in federal waters in the Arctic Ocean - is DEAD! It'd be impossible to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean. The bowhead whales, polar bears, and ice seals can sleep a little easier tonight. bit.ly/402Gffn

"Astonishingly, the U.S. is the only Arctic coastal nation that still has no permanently protected Arctic Ocean waters. Russia, Canada, Norway and Greenland all have established permanent Arctic marine protected areas." Important op-ed from my friend Rick Steiner. thehill.com/opinion/5057...

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game wants to kill up to 80% of wolves, brown bears, and black bears from roaring helicopters right on the borders of Denali and Lake Clark national parks. We must urge Alaska to reject this proposal and take bears and wolves out of the crosshairs. Take action ⬇️

One of my favorite solar energy statistics is that during the ENTIRE month of December, Fairbanks receives the same solar energy as Tucson, AZ, does by 8:30 a.m. on Dec 1st. (Computed using USCRN solar data from NCEI.) @alaskawx.bsky.social

The desperation by the Dunleavy administration and his cronies to keep the impossible dream of an Alaska LNG pipeline alive is staggering. They're fossil fuel addicts, plain and simple, be damned the financial and ecological consequences to Alaska. bit.ly/4g08HW1

To cement her Alaska legacy, Sec. Haaland is ramming forward a proposed road through the world's largest eelgrass beds - critical to sequestering carbon, mitigating ocean acidification, and fueling up millions of migratory birds to and from the Arctic each year. Take action now to save Izembek.👇

“Everything’s changing...The solution can’t be to drill more oil and pump more oil through the pipeline. It’s suicide.” news.oilandgaswatch.org/post/the-hug... @oilandgaswatch.bsky.social

First ice-free day in the Arctic Ocean could occur before 2030. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I discuss this with my students as the difference between “outplanting” (adding individuals to an ecosystem where they have declined) and “restoration” (which absolutely requires addressing the underlying conditions that led to declines in the first place). One is much easier to do than the other.

"CLEANING" THE OCEAN USING NETS IS A DANGEROUS IDEA. The Ocean Cleanup is using boats & a net to collect ocean plastic (left). I've circles all the animals trapped in their early prototypes (right). There are better ways to solve the ocean plastic problem... 🧵 #INC5 #PlasticsTreaty #PlasticTreaty

Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, is one of the most ecologically important areas in the United States. It's facing a devastating threat from a proposed road that would cut through its heart. Take action to protect this refuge ⬇️⬇️

The billion-dollar Alaska trawl fishing industry is freaking out about last minute Biden protections for the Arctic that would prohibit their ability to pillage those pristine, untrawled waters. See the attached letter, and check out the signers. bit.ly/4g094iP

"CDQ is to Western Alaska communities, what oil is to Alaska." The CDQ (Community Development Quota) program gives a portion of the massive - and destructive - pollock trawl catch to non-profits in rural western Alaska communities. Just like oil, driving collapse for a quick buck. bit.ly/3CLAf2E

Alaska used to be one of the few remaining strongholds for wild Pacific salmon. But Alaska's wild salmon can no longer withstand annual releases of billions of hatchery pink salmon, degrading ocean conditions (i.e. marine heatwaves) and destruction of the marine ecosystem from industrial trawling.

The end of plankton will be the end of times.

“The Arctic is losing its character, losing its soul, that soul being its snow and ice.” Mark Serreze, veteran polar researcher eos.org/features/the...

Here's a shocker: Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was a former lobbyist for the Pebble Mine, which would destroy the planet's greatest remaining wild salmon system in Bristol Bay. We'll fight each and everyone one of these disastrous mines to keep Alaska wild. bit.ly/4g3FzMT

Trump's potential rollback of the Roadless Rule could threaten the Tongass National Forest — key to Southeast Alaska's ecosystems, Indigenous lifeways and economy.

Utqiaġvik today was the 144th day in 2024 with a temperature above freezing. This is the 4th highest annual total in the past 104 years. The typically number of days above freezing per year has increased by more than five weeks since the late 1960s. #akwx #ClimateChange @climatologist49.bsky.social

Meanwhile, Ballot Measure 2, the initiative seeking to repeal Alaska's open primaries and ranked-choice voting system, has failed by about 600 votes. No- 160,619 Yes- 159,955 #akleg

1994 concept drawing of a nature center for Anchorage's Potter Marsh, which of course never happened. There are shelves and shelves of reports and proposals like this in Alaska libraries, like alternate histories of a better world. #alaskahistory #alaska

"I think it's an absolute certainty that Trump is going to push to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to unfettered oil drilling," said Kierán Suckling of the Center forBiological Diversity, "he's been gunning for that for years." abcnews.go.com/US/trump-amb... @centerforbiodiv.bsky.social

New Forest Service cabin at Ward Lake. Shame they cut down a couple off giant spruce. Clear, straight grain old growth.

Reminder: border walls don’t stop people from crossing the border, though they do waste billions and destroy ecosystems. Organ Pipe, where I filmed this video, was *entirely* walled off by Trump, yet it saw the most crossings anywhere along the border last year. More walls aren’t the answer.

Another ore haul truck accident. This is the fifth incident involving ore haul trucks this Fall/Winter.

This is the last view of the sun in Utqiaġvik, Alaska, until January 23rd. There will be no sunrise or sunset for the next 66 days. @alaskawx.bsky.social

Murkowski now wants to encourage more offshore oil and gas drilling in Alaska to provide a small amount of funding for, among other things, "relocation of communities directly affected by coastal erosion, melting permafrost, or climate change-related losses." 🤦🏼‍♂️ www.congress.gov/118/bills/s6...

Another curlew lost. This follows the extinction of the Eskimo curlew that migrated in huge flocks and nested in arctic tundra in Alaska and Canada. Extinction is forever. Biological diversity is measure of how well we are living on the planet. We are failing on all counts.

Extracting and burning gas in the Arctic for bitcoin mining seems like the height of fossil fool insanity. www.northernjournal.com/arctic-bitco...

Monday ice update - #Arctic sea ice extent is currently the 3rd lowest on record (JAXA data) • about 380,000 km² below the 2010s mean • about 1,020,000 km² below the 2000s mean • about 1,670,000 km² below the 1990s mean • about 2,140,000 km² below the 1980s mean Plots zacklabe.com/arctic-sea-i...