A May 9 article by Yereth Rosen appeared in the Anchorage Daily News, painting a bleak and misleading picture of Alaska’s future by claiming that permafrost thaw driven by climate change will cost our state up to $51 billion by mid-century. The study she cites, from Nature Communications Earth and Environment, may sound authoritative, but this is just another in a long line of climate doomsday projections that cherry-pick data, ignore history, discount human innovation, and attack Alaska’s right to develop its natural resources.
Rosen appears to support the recent lawsuit filed by Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown against President Trump’s executive order aimed at unleashing Alaska’s resource potential. That lawsuit is a direct attack on our way of life. Brown and Rosen seem to agree that choking off the very industries that fund our roads and schools is the solution, and that the innovation and adaptation measures which Rosen’s article ignores simply won’t happen.
Truth is, the sky is not falling, and the answer isn’t ending our oil and gas economy. The solution is doubling down on smart, energy-driven adaptation, something we Alaskans know how to do.
Rosen’s article leans heavily on worst-case climate models, assuming we’ll all be baking in heat and wading through water in just a few decades. But as Gregory Wrightstone documents in Inconvenient Facts, these models are routinely wrong, especially in the Arctic, where natural climate fluctuations have occurred for thousands of years. Permafrost has thawed before, during periods like the Medieval Warm Period, yet we’re still here adapting and innovating.
Even if methane releases were to become more significant, a society with abundant, affordable energy will be well equipped to handle the problem.
In fact, today’s temperatures are not tracking with the extreme scenarios the IPCC continues to promote. Real-world data from NASA and NOAA show that warming is occurring at a much slower rate. Ignoring that in favor of panic-driven forecasts is a disservice to science and to Alaskans.
Let’s be clear. Fossil fuels are not destroying Alaska. They are the reason we have been able to thrive in one of the harshest environments on Earth. In Fossil Future, Alex Epstein explains that affordable, reliable energy is the foundation of human progress and resilience. Fossil fuels are why the modern world can support today’s population. They are the reason we have alternatives like wind and solar, AI, data centers, global transportation, and the ability to live in places that would otherwise be uninhabitable.
It’s no coincidence that the very technologies used to assess and adapt to permafrost challenges, such as satellite imagery and heavy construction equipment, depend on energy from oil and gas. The Bottomless Well by Huber and Mills makes this clear: the more energy we have, the more solutions we can implement.
The $37 to $51 billion figure cited in the article is a classic example of speculative modeling that does not reflect reality. As Steve Goreham explains in The Green Breakdown, these kinds of cost estimates often overlook market-driven adaptation and the engineering advances that dramatically reduce costs over time.
Rosen’s article relies on fear and leaves out essential facts. It exaggerates the risks, ignores historical context, and underestimates our capacity to adapt
Take Fairbanks, for example. Yes, it faces serious challenges from thawing ground. But we are already using proven techniques like insulated foundations, thermosyphons, and strategic siting of infrastructure. These methods are not only effective, they cost far less than the inflated projections in Rosen’s article. The idea that Alaska is just going to sit back and let buildings collapse is both absurd and insulting.
Rosen doesn’t directly state it, but she hints at the idea of a methane “time bomb” from thawing permafrost – also an overblown claim. As both Wrightstone and Epstein point out, methane from permafrost is a minor factor compared to emissions from wetlands and agriculture. Furthermore, methane breaks down in the atmosphere over a relatively short time.
Even if methane releases were to become more significant, a society with abundant, affordable energy will be well equipped to handle the problem. But that depends on continuing to produce energy and maintaining the technology and innovation that comes with it.
The core issue here isn’t permafrost. It’s political overreach. Ideologically driven lawsuits aimed at blocking Alaska energy development won’t stop the ground from thawing. What it will do is make it harder to pay for the practical solutions we already know how to apply.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
The Green Breakdown and The Bottomless Well both reinforce the same point: adaptation is faster and more affordable and effective than sweeping global climate mitigation policies. We don’t need approval from Washington bureaucrats or climate activists to build strong, resilient communities. We just need the freedom to use our own resources and the determination to invest in real-world solutions. The kind of solutions that come from access to abundant and affordable energy, including fossil fuels and other emerging sources.
Rosen’s article relies on fear and leaves out essential facts. It exaggerates the risks, ignores historical context, and underestimates our capacity to adapt. More concerning, it supports a broader agenda that seeks to sideline Alaska’s resource economy under the cover of environmental concern.
Books like Fossil Future, Inconvenient Facts, The Bottomless Well, and The Green Breakdown offer a far more realistic perspective. Innovation, energy, and engineering; not fear, regulation, or restriction, are what will secure our future.
Alaskans are resilient. We have built roads through tundra, pipelines across mountains, and airports on permafrost. We can meet future challenges too but only if we are allowed to keep using the tools and resources that built this great state in the first place.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
32 Comments
McCabe is the myna bird for any subject that gives him some attention. He repeats and repeats!
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At this point McCabe has become Alaska’s most egregious RINO i don’t know anyone who believes him or trust him in any capacity he is no conservative, nor is he a republican in any way except for a name only.
What makes you call him a RHINO? Did he do something wrong? I always thought he voted and talked conservative.
I would not accept scientific analysis from a religious non-scientist.
Well, CAGW sure is looking like a religion. Apparently, nonfalsifiable.
No Rod. Don’t be dense. Science relies evidence and religion is whatever you want it to be. “Science flies you to the moon
Religion flies you into buildings”
I say drill baby drill.
YES!!!
TRUSTWORTHY IS NOT A MCRIBCAGE ATTRIBUTE! RHINO RASH IS!
The way I see it all is; we have to many people that want the lime light and refuse/don’t do any research and go with the RINO explanation. This causes articles like this one.
Well said Rep. McCabe; glad I voted for you. Only you were too easy on those naysayers. I would handcuff ’em.
I’m a retired professional electrical engineer, a type of physicist, who was once registered in 13 states (not Alaska). In the 1970s I also professionally studied solar, wind, and other types of alternate energy under pioneering world-class engineering professors, like Professors RL Baily, EA Farber, and FA Lindholm. The ways the left has corrupted alternate energy are legion, and actually harmful to attainment of it. I expect my old professors would never have agreed with the current “green” (really, quite brown) movement.
Climate is changing, always has. Warmer or colder? Flip a coin. What would be truly weird would be if it didn’t. The only question is what drives it. The sun surely is the 800,000lb gorilla. And water vapor is the 8000 lb gorilla of greenhouse gasses. Oceans full, who knew. We are in saturation for CO2, and the other GH gasses, like methane, are bit players. Doubt me? How smart does one have to be to realize that when the probability of an IR photon hitting a CO2 molecule is ~100%, that we would be in CO2 saturation? And that additional CO2 will have a ~zero effect?
Well, two brilliant world-class physics professors, at Princeton & York Universities, doing math few in the world can understand (including me, and I write that having been a renowned math student at two colleges/univ, where the math professors used to ask ME to lecture THEM on my theorems in advanced calculus – many times). “Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases” (by W. A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.03098) shows the earth is entering CO2 saturation. Saturation COULD explain why all of the “big science” (= big money?) computer models are seemingly always wrong: they ignore it, like an inconvenient fact.
In view of this, it is instructive to examine even the AMS’ own data, per Fig 2 in https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/17/a-critique-of-bill-gates-new-book/ and ask the question “why is reality always colder than even the coldest model?” Ah…
So be happy! The earth is NOT going to burn up! And for those of you determined to be sad, I’m pretty sure I can beat ANY of you in a logical debate on CAGW. So, get ready to lose, and BE HAPPY!
Hey Rod. Pro tip for you. Use way more sunscreen than you think you need on your exposed tail feathers and bum.
Earth is not entering CO2 saturation. HOWEVER, with that being said: as long as Billy Gates and others keep clear-cutting our forests all over the world, our earth is losing its ability to store carbon more efficiently in a natural way. Now, we have idiots that want to pump carbon under the ground and store it there. Makes no sense.
Correct on 2/3. Not saturation. we are entering CO2, CH4, H2O vapor, etc saturation. You need to study my other comments. GH gas effects are not linear. There is a point where there is ~100% probability that an IR photon will hit a CO2 molecule. I’m a math guy, I deal in logic. THINK.
Most of the people in the smartest cohorts in the world agree with me. Engineers, physicists. I spent my career in engineering; I know firsthand. They do not, as a group, agree with CAGW. But these groups have radically changed our world, for the better (so far).
And if you are truly a friend of humanity why not celebrate:
1. The CO2 increase and 1.5F warming are greening the earth, so while there are ~8 billion people, they are eating better than ever in history. Satellite pics prove it.
2. Fossil fuels are helping to lift millions out of poverty.
Did you know that the father of CO2 global warming, Svante Arrhenius, ~100 years ago, figured all this out? He said ‘burn more coal.’ What’s not to like?
Ecological disaster has become fully fubar. It is all a lie. Anybody who proclaims anything about it is worthy of complete discrediting.
Reggie. You just “proclaim[ed] anything about it is worthy of complete discrediting.” Thus … go back to bed.
Insults are not arguments.
Joel, I know we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater so to speak, but I have to agree with the majority of the comments above. What RINO McCabe says in this article aren’t wrong, but he is the wrong messenger. This turncoat has no place on AlaskaWatchman.com. His message though correct is overshadowed by his non-conservative and left leaning behaviors.
What he done or how has he voted to make you say that? I really want to know. I have watched his votes and his stances on life as well as second amendment and resource and transportation and I do not see a RHINO in them. What am I missing?
Agree. I voted for him.
Not to worry!
With Bill Gates wanting to spray aerosols into the atmosphere, and Bayer/Monsanto still spraying our food with Glyphosate, humanity will be too sick and dead to care about the condition of the planet for much longer. The dark cabal that profits off fear, doom and gloom will certainly do everything they can to squeeze every last resource out of the slave class before that happens though.
Wake up.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2021/01/11/bill-gates-backed-climate-solution-gains-traction-but-concerns-linger/
This is criminal, quite like Fauci’s COVID gain of function. Bill Gates is proving that he isn’t so smart, but was just in the right place at the right time. MSDOS, which gave him his empire, is a kludgy and simplistic “in line code” OS. I wrote a true multitasking OS a decade or more before Windows achieved it, so Gates only impresses me with his erroneous vapid projects.
Let’s say they could do this. Why the h*ll would you want to cool the earth? To return to famines? Cold kills multiples more people than heat, not even counting famine – which, outside of conflict zones, has largely been eliminated in recent decades: largely, per real scientific studies, due to plant fertilizer CO2 and 1.5F of warming.
Lock ’em up.
Two things we know: Increasing CO2 and CH4 in the atmosphere is warming the planet, and for every degree celsius the atmosphere warms, it is able to hold 7% more moisture. These are not political opinions, they are scientific facts. And given that the atmosphere has warmed 1.75 degrees celsius during the Industrial Age, we can conclude that the atmosphere is holding at least 10% more moisture. We have no frame of reference for how these increases are affecting weather patterns, and computer models can only tell us so much, but the impact is increasingly obvious and accelerating. Say what you want about economic development and “prosperity,” but it won’t save you when the ecosystem begins collapsing.
Paul, you need to get smart. Saturation. Study the groundbreaking H & W paper I linked to above — a paper that surely SHOULD have won a Nobel physics prize (if the Nobel committee was not evidently so politicized) — by two world-class and brilliant physics professors. Unless you have a very high IQ and several years to study the underlying math, you’ll never understand the paper BUT you can look at the very telling pictures. They proved that doubling methane, CO2, etc will have very little effect, writing:
“Fig. 9 as well as Tables 2 and 4 show that at current concentrations, the forcings from all greenhouse gases are saturated. The saturations of the abundant greenhouse gases H2O and CO2 are so extreme that the per-molecule forcing is attenuated by four orders of magnitude with respect to the optically thin values. Saturation also suppresses the forcing power per molecule for the less abundant greenhouse gases, O3, N2O and CH4, from their optically thin values, but far less than for H2O and CO2.”
BE HAPPY that the world is not going to burn up. (FYI an order of magnitude is a power of 10.)
IF you are not going to be happy, maybe you have a mental illness? Or a hidden agenda?
Lastly, H&W’s analysis assumed a clear sky. So it even overstates the GH effect, because clouds are known to REDUCE warming by increasing atmospheric albedo – reflecting solar irradiation (this cloud effect is greater than their nighttime insulating effect).
The H&W paper may explain why all of Big Climate’s computer “models” are (far as I know) always wrong: They ignore saturation. Garbage in, garbage out. No matter what the IPCC and Big Climate “scientists” say.
A quack search of the internet reveals these quotes:
The paper, Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases, has been reportedly rejected from several major journals. It hasn’t been peer reviewed.
Neither author has any expertise or experience in any relevant field, and every one of their claims has been demonstrated false.
Happer worked in the first Trump administration. Any scientist who would work for Trump knowing that he called global warming a hoax has a bias and isn’t scientifically credible.
For every claim against the climate change evidence, there is ten billion evidenced-based claims proving we are royally fucked.
Manny, get a brain. Wow, just look around! Oh the tragedy! The earth is doing just fine. CO2 and 1.5F warming are greening the earth. Mass starvation is gone, save in war zones. So what do you know? Not much, apparently.
The reason that paper, by two world-class physicists, wasn’t published was because it didn’t fit the left’s Big Climate narrative. Shame on those biased journals. Who knew. Not you. I dare say it was Greek to you. No comprende. History will judge the Climate Mafia harshly.
Dr. Steven Koonin, decades long Cal Tech theoretical physics professor (once on Big Climate’s side), and President Obama’s Energy Dept Chief Scientist, who has a very very high IQ, in his seminal book “Unsettled?” (you should carefully read it, might learn something) gives the W & H paper what actually could be considered a de facto a peer review.
And Professor Koonin uses that paper in a clever analogy: If the first 400 ppm of CO2 is like a single coat of black paint on a sunward window, there will surely be a few pinholes. A 2nd coat, like the next 400ppm CO2 (for 800 ppm) will simply plug those holes.
Saturation, wow, what a difficult concept.
Apparently you folks are too dense to understand that this is NOT linear. OK, stay stupid. And all of Big Climate’s models will stay wrong. Poetic judgement is built-in.
So be happy that the earth is not going to burn up. Or get used to losing debates.
Some good books are written by the late Michael Crichton who also wrote the essay “Why do we keep scaring ourselves?” The two books we have read are STATE OF FEAR, FEAR IS THE KEY (also a movie). Man cannot do better than our Creator who created the heavens and the earth in the beginning. By the way, Bill Gates is mentally ill and should not be listened to no matter how rich he is. He is part of the death cult that wants to keep killing people, aborting babies and killing children by mutilating them, We are part of those who know that people were created in God’s image and should not be destroyed, devalued or experimented on. Pray for an awakening and revival in our country.
Amen.
Rod. What % of your investments are in oil, gas and coal? Which dirty industry pays you to shill for their dirty impacts?
Everything ADN prints is MISLEADING !!!