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A First Step in Building a Healthy Economy for all: Alaska’s First Just Transition Summit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 13, 2020 FAIRBANKS, AK: January 8-10. Local community organizations Native Movement, Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition (FCAC), Native Peoples Action, Gwich’in Steering Committee, The Alaska Center, Alaska Public Interest Research Group (AKPIRG) and Alaska Community Action on Toxics came together to create an open space for community dialogue and planning. Over the past 30 years, Alaska has …

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Leg With Louie: hope for the future in the dim light of a dawning decade

Under a newly proposed Trump Administration rule, Environmental Impact Statements on major federal actions, say permitting a Pebble Mine or a transnational oil pipeline, would be limited to a maximum of two years of agency and public review and among other limitations, the analysis of cumulative impacts is not allowed. Trump’s new EIS rule change would institutionalize the same shoddy, …

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Local youths lead a growing Alaska climate justice movement

Youth around Alaska have been at the forefront of recent actions: over 300 people in Fairbanks joined 4 million people globally as part of the youth climate strikes and sixteen young Alaskans are suing the state for contributing to climate change. Young people are mobilizing at unprecedented scales to fight for our futures. Here in Fairbanks, we have drafted seventeen …

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Alaskan youth take part in global climate action strike

Activists say millions around the world are taking part in a global climate strike Friday. And some young people in Alaska are joining in. Alaska Youth for Environmental Action has teamed up with several other climate action advocacy groups and organized a climate strike at the Cuddy Family Midtown Park in Anchorage. The event comes ahead of the U.N.’s Climate …

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First big local politics forum draws 18 of 28 candidates

Candidates for local office agreed Tuesday that people have the right to unionize, to drink clean water and breathe clean air. They agreed there’s a need to better address suicide, that first responders need more de-escalation training and that major factors associated with climate change are human caused. They disagreed on issues such as whether transgender students may use the bathroom …

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Ready or not, candidate forums signal municipal election season

A political candidate forum at noon today at the Carlson Center will focus on business and the economy. A second larger forum tonight at the JP Jones Community Development Center will spotlight issues such as climate change and equal rights. The two events kick off a series of forums involving candidates for Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly, the Board of …

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It’s time to act on climate change

You can’t live in Fairbanks for more than two years and not feel the impacts of climate change. Sleeting storms, excessive snowfall, intense forest fires, thawing permafrost, increasing humidity, high winds, sinking roads, flooding, fishing closures. For 19 years, I’ve seen these “rare incidents” become the norm, and I’ve seen and felt how these impacts threaten our homes, jobs and …

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Stand up. Get counted. Be heard.

The decennial U.S. census will shape decisions and structures in our country for the next ten years. Among its many impacts, the census determines electoral districts, funding for services, and civil rights enforcement, making it critical that the people in this country are accurately accounted for. We are already seeing tactics from this administration ― like defunding the census effort …

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Leg with Louie: what’s next?

There is little to no chance the legislature will accede to Governor Dunleavy’s request for a special session at a middle school in Wasilla (though the idea is fun). This administration is no friend to the Legislative majorities right now and appears to have an instinct for bullying. I bet if they go, they go to gavel in and gavel …

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Leg With Louie: Summer Homework

Friends, I know it is sad to think about, but someday the fanfare will fade, the bloggers and pundits and lobbyists will move on to other questionable endeavors, and the special session will conclude. Our lawmakers will voyage in the annual diaspora to their home districts where they will convert to members of the community again, and be welcomed back …