Sipping morning caffeine in a favorite chair the other day, I became aware of something remarkable: On the other side of the window, not 10 feet away, a hummingbird was working methodically among the many nasturtium blossoms in one of the planters in my wife's garden, gathering nectar.
Nursery people have contended that there are hummingbirds in Anchorage, but I've never seen one in 45 years. Until now. By the same token, in addition to black currants, apples and a wonderful variety of flowers and shrubbery, that same garden in the last few years has produced sweet red cherries and kiwi. Most of that wasn't imaginable 45 years ago. Most Alaskans are aware of the consequences of global climate change we see here: shrinking glaciers and sea ice, melting permafrost, storm-generated shore erosion, changing weather patterns, extension of faunal and floral habitat. But that hummingbird brings it home.
Climate change is here, and I can see it clearly from my window.
If policy were left to scientists, we'd have been on the road to eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels long ago, for there are virtually no credible experts remaining who dispute the fact of a major climate shift. How much human action contributes to it may be somewhat debatable, but the fact of the change is reality, as both President Barack Obama and Pope Francis have acknowledged. And the emissions from burning fossil fuels just as clearly contribute to the change.
But policy isn't left to scientists, and that means that our collective reaction to the phenomenon is not scientific. Whatever it is or will be, it's political.
Adapting to global warming is going to cost money. We've depended on fossil fuels for so long, and not just because they are plentiful. Wind and sun are plentiful. We've depended on fossil fuels because they are cheap by comparison, and because we have more than a hundred years of developing the methodologies of extraction, processing, distribution and consumption. Transitioning to alternative energy means retooling to more expensive sources; it means disruption of an industry that's entrenched; it means giving up old habits and adopting new attitudes and behaviors. Change is difficult under most circumstances. It's particularly difficult in a democracy, when it's going to cost people money, jobs and, perhaps most telling, freedom.
In Alaska, we have depended on fossil fuels not only for power, but also for our economy since 1977. The other minerals extracted here and the fish harvested will not support the life we live here, characterized as it is by ready access to the high end of contemporary American material culture. So the transition will be harder here. Without oil, the lives most Alaskans wish to live may not be supportable any longer.
For a great many people living here, Alaska is not home. For them, home is elsewhere and they have no thought of their grandchildren living here. For that reason, and because money has flowed so readily for most of the last 40 years, people have little patience with vision, with deferring gratification and planning concertedly for Alaska's future, at least until now. But only with vision can we meaningfully address climate change. Only with vision can we do anything substantive about it.
Addressing climate change means understanding that we have entered a new era in human existence that many scholars have taken to calling the Anthropocene, an age in which nature cannot be said to exist untouched, unmanipulated, by human action. The world we live in is one created by us, one that we continually mold by our actions and our inaction. We are responsible for what happens in nature. Clearly any significant change in environmental policy, in the political economy of the world we live in, is up to us. We must comprehend and act on our relationship to generations yet unborn, the connection we have to them, our obligations to them. We must find the humility and the courage to act on their behalf. That's what doing something about climate change means, making costly changes for those yet to come. We must develop that capacity.
Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
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