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Our economy won’t recover without child care reform

Economy means management of home. But the short-sighted efforts to “reopen the economy” reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of what a whole, healthy and functioning economy looks like, and a complete disregard for the foundation of home: our families. Our economic production is dependent upon child care, yet our economic model has neglected to put our home and families at the …

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Leg with Louie: Toward an Electric Tomorrow

Imagine, some future day after a bruising legislative session, our legislators and staff head homeward from Juneau, in quiet vehicles that require little maintenance, have zero CO2 emissions, and that glide lightly along the highway. By the time they reached their home districts, all of the accumulated malice, rancor, and ill-will of a typical session would be gone, replaced by …

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Leg With Louie: Building the new economy starts now

Yours may be cowboys, Willie, but my heroes have always been journalists. Even today, in the middle of the daily whirlwind of sheep-dip and gibberish from our highest officer in the land, with uncertainty on all horizons and a pandemic at our door, journalists are out there asking questions, arranging facts, allowing citizens a foothold of logic in the world …

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Leg with Louie: Ways to participate in the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day.

I am easily distracted. In the middle of trying to write that sentence, I watched a youtube video of John Prine concert footage from 1980, then read a beautiful lonesome poem by Antonio Machado, another by William Stafford. I checked in on the rhubarb bush just exposed from under the snow and already starting to sprout, and also I tried …

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Lucky to have member-owned electric service

Let’s take advantage of this. We in the area serviced by Golden Valley Electric Association are lucky in that we, the ratepayers, are actually member-owners rather than customers of a private, for-profit energy provider. This gives us several advantages, not the least of which is being able to vote for the directors of our co-op in order to influence the direction …

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Just Transition Summit hopes to share ideas about moving away from single resource economies

A summit next month in Fairbanks hopes to build collaboration and strategies that address the challenges of relying on oil-and-gas development. Organizers hope that the Just Transition Summit – January 8-10, 2020 – provides a space for “Indigenous and non-Indigenous collaboration to build critical thinking around economic and social transition.” “Just Transition is an exciting concept … about building a …

Anchorage nonprofit hosts open house on climate change

More than a dozen organizations will come together for an open house-style event to talk about climate change in Alaska on Tuesday. The event is hosted by Alaska Common Ground, a nonprofit that aims to facilitate community discussions on important public policy issues. “Climate change is obviously one of those issues,” said Kari Gardey, the program coordinator for Alaska Common …

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Solar energy lighting up more of land of Midnight Sun

A new industry is lighting up Alaska. Anchorage residents in particular have seen solar panels going up on buildings in their communities in the past five years. But across the state, more Alaskans are turning to the sun to power their homes and businesses. Over the last four years, Arctic Solar Ventures in Anchorage has seen 200 percent year-over-year growth, …

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Building a brighter economy with solar energy

Alaska is in a state of change – most strikingly evidenced by climate change and our economy. The economic recession- in part caused by and coupled with a decline in commodity pricing and generous tax structures – has lead to Alaskans leaving for new economic opportunities. From 2015 through 2019, the Alaska solar industry has seen exponential growth and a …

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Two more legal challenges brought to EPA’s Pebble Mine actions

ANCHORAGE (KTUU) – One day after five regional groups representing Alaska Natives, commercial fisherman, and economic development organizations filed a suit, several environmental groups filed two separate lawsuits today alleging the that the Environmental Protection Agency violated environmental laws. Trout Unlimited, a coldwater fisheries conservation organization with more than 300,000 members nationwide, filed its complaint Wednesday. The lawsuit claims that …