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April 6, 2015

 

Today's Congressional Action:    capital

The House and Senate are not in session.

 

Media  

 

Science [Opinion] Why Politicians Need Science. Sen. Ted Cruz, who recently announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential ticket, thinks, like many conservatives, global warming isn't happening. As he said on Seth Meyers' talk show on March 16, "Satellite data demonstrate for the last 17 years there's been zero warming, none whatsoever." It's no surprise that Cruz picked that figure: 17 years ago was 1998, an "El Nino" year, when global temperatures were artificially elevated after which they returned to their normal gradually increasing rate. When you look at all the data published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (not just the cherry-picked data that fits neatly into a political ideology), the long-term increase in global temperatures is unmistakable. Politico 

 

Did the Anthropocene Begin in 1950 or 50,000 Years Ago? There are no more woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos or giant ground sloths. Around 50,000 years ago the biggest land animals in the world began to disappear. The number-one suspect: Homo sapiens. Hunting combined with the burning of landscapes in places like Australia seem to be the main reason there are no more giant kangaroos, along with these other big animals. The lethal pairing of hunting and burning is just one of the ways humans have been changing the world for millennia. Another is planting crops such as corn or wheat, which now cover most of the world's arable land. Scientific American

 

Kamchatka, Home to Russian Version of Alaska Iditarod, Frets Over Growth. When Vladislav Revenok, an Orthodox priest, first participated in the obscure Russian version of Alaska's Iditarod, he found himself in places so isolated that he was mobbed by villagers demanding to be baptized. They told him he was the first priest to visit the outback of the already remote Kamchatka Peninsula in about 50 years. "Only a few small villages see us," Mr. Revenok, a veteran musher, said by telephone after finishing the arduous 17-day race in late March. "When I arrive at the finish line and see all those people waiting - journalists, the crowd, so many cars - I feel like I am arriving back on a different planet." New York Times

 

ANWR Obama Administration Calls for 12 Million Acre 'Wilderness' Area in Arctic Refuge. The Obama administration on Friday finalized its recommendation to expand protected areas of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, calling on Congress to block about 12 million acres (5 million hectares) from oil and gas drilling. U.S. President Barack Obama, in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner released by the White House, stood by his administration's earlier recommendation to preserve a wide swath of the state's Arctic refuge, setting up a likely battle with the Republican-led Congress over the oil-rich area. Huffington Post

 

[Opinion] Icebreakers: Essential Assets for Changing Arctic. For most of U.S. history, the Arctic Ocean's frozen surface and hostile climate excluded most human activity from the region, outside of intrepid explorers trekking over the ice and stealthy naval submarines prowling beneath it. This extensive, year-round shield of ice protected the ocean and its ecosystems from commercial extraction of the region's living and mineral resources, and precluded any need for regular U.S. Coast Guard patrols beyond scientific research. But times-and the Arctic's climate-have changed. Carbon pollution has resulted in the warming of the Alaskan Arctic at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the United States, thinning the polar ice cap and shrinking the extent of the Arctic Ocean's perennial sea ice by 13 percent per decade since 1978. In other words, the gates to the Arctic are opening to shippers eager to shorten traditional intercontinental trade routes; oil corporations keen to tap one of the planet's last great fossil fuel reservoirs; and international fishing interests, which have demonstrated aptitude for both legal and illegal harvests, even in high-latitude seas. American Progress

 

Shell in Chukchi Shell Has Major Hurdles to Clear Before Chukchi Drilling Resumes. Now that the Department of the Interior has, for the second time, affirmed the record-breaking Chukchi Sea lease sale it held seven years ago, is it smooth sailing for Royal Dutch Shell and its plans to drill this year on leases purchased in the sale? Not so fast. Shell, which spent over $2 billion on Chukchi leases, has already spent about $6 billion in total on its Alaska program and has ambitions for transforming the remote and undeveloped waters off Northwest Alaska into a major oil-producing region, still must clear several hurdles before it is given permission to sink a drill bit into hydrocarbons lying beneath the seafloor. Anchorage Daily News

 

Legislative Actionfutureevents  

 

 

No Arctic legislation was formally considered Friday.

Future Events

  

NOAA Science Seminar: Indigenous Knowledge and Use of Ocean Currents in the Bering Strait Region, April 9, 2015 (Webinar). Julie Raymond-Yakoubian of Kawerak, Inc. will be discussing a recently completed project on indigenous knowledge and use of ocean currents. This webinar will share perspectives on the importance of traditional understandings of ocean currents as a critical aspect of the body of knowledge held by communities in the region, how this knowledge was collected, and the modern-day practical applications of this knowledge for marine policy, planning, and safety considerations. The session will include examples of where this knowledge is currently being used.

  

Leadership, Diplomacy and Science: Resolving the Arctic Paradox" April 13-14, 2015, (Medford, MA, USA). The 4th annual Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy International Inquiry on the Warming Arctic will convene high-level decision makers from diplomatic and security circles, cutting-edge energy and science researchers, and social, environmental and business stakeholders to investigate solutions to the Arctic Paradox and promote a sustainable future for Arctic inhabitants within a "High North, Low Tension" policy framework.  Special appearance: the North American debut of the Arctic Circle Assembly's panel "Rising Stars: Young Arctic Energy Researchers". Confirmed speakers include H.E. President Grimsson, Dr. John P. Holdren, Prof. Bruce Forbes and Dr. Fiamma Straneo.

 

Arctic States Symposium, April 17-19, 2015 (Charlottesville, VA, USA).

ARCTIC STATES, a three-day symposium at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, brings together an international consortium of leading designers and colleagues from allied disciplines to posit the role of design in the rapidly transforming region, and generate critical discussions by sharing recent work that will trace, critique and speculate on its past, present, and future.  

 

Arctic Science Summit Week, April 23-30, 2015 (Toyama, Japan). The Arctic Science Summit Week (ASSW) is the annual gathering of the international organizations engaged in supporting and facilitating Arctic research. The purpose of the summit is to provide opportunities for coordination, collaboration and cooperation in all areas of Arctic science. The summit attracts scientists, students, policy makers and other professionals from all over the world. 


The Polar Geography and Cryosphere, April 21-25, 2015 (Chicago, IL, USA). The Polar Geography and Cryosphere Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers will host its annual meeting in Chicago to consider: current topics in human-environment interactions; current topics in politics, resource geographies, and extractive industries; current topics in Antarctic research; advances in cryosphere research; high latitude environments in a changing climate; an mountain ice and snow.

The House of Sweden Conference, May 19-20, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA). A two day conference focusing on changes, adaptations and opportunities for a changing Arctic. The conference will be divided into separate, but intertwined thematic segments - policy, science, climate change and green technologies. The conference is organized by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat, the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and is aimed at Arctic oriented policy-makers, researchers, business representatives and NGO's in the lead-up to the U.S. chairmanship of the Arctic Council. 
 

The European Union and Arctic (2015 EU-Arctic Conference), May 29, 2015 (Dundee, UK). The School of Law, University of Dundee, UK and the K. G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea, University of Troms?, Norway are pleased to announce the registration open for "The European Union and the Arctic" (2015 EU-Arctic Conference). This conference will bring together academics and practitioners from relevant disciplines such as international law, international relations, political science and marine biology, NGOs, representatives from EU institutions and international organizations to discuss the EU's potential contribution to enhance Arctic governance. A roadmap for increasing the effectiveness of the EU's action in the Arctic will be drawn at the end of the conference. 

 

52nd Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society, June 10-14, 2015 (Anchorage, Alaska, USA). The Animal Behavior Society was founded in 1964 to promote the study of animal behavior in the broadest sense, including studies using descriptive and experimental methods under natural and controlled conditions. Current members' research activities span the invertebrates and vertebrates, both in the field and in the laboratory, and include experimental psychology, behavioral ecology, neuroscience, zoology, biology, applied ethology, and human ethology as well as many other specialized areas.


 

2015 ESSAS Annual Science Meeting, June 15-17, 2015 (Seattle, WA, USA). This symposium, to be held at the University of Washington, is intended for interdisciplinary scholars who will be prepared to discuss their research in the sub-arctic North Atlantic, sub-arctic North Pacific, and the Arctic Ocean that bears on the issue of how changes in sea ice are likely to affect these marine ecosystems. The symposium will also consider the people who depend upon these ecosystems and how they may be able to cope with the changes in the ecosystem goods and services that are coming. These goods and services include the availability of transportation corridors, the availability of subsistence foods, and the opportunity for commercial fishing. To put the present day in a longer perspective, the symposium will include a session on the paleo-ecology of people in sub-arctic and arctic regions that were forced to adjust to changing sea-ice conditions in the past.

  

6th Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Naval and Maritime Operations, July 14-16, 2015 (Washington, DC, USA). Program in development...check back soon. To see the programs from prior symposia, click here.  

 
Polar Law Symposium (8th) will be held in Alaska ( Sept. 23-24, UAF; Sept. 25-26, UAA). It's sponsored by UAF, UAA (and ISER), UAA Justice Center, UW Law School. Abstracts due 3/15/15. This year's conference theme is, "The Science, Scholarship, and Practice of Polar Law: Strengthening Arctic Peoples and Places."

2015 Arctic Energy Summit, September 28-30, 2015 (Fairbanks, Alaska, USA).The Institute of the North's 2015 Arctic Energy Summit builds on our legacy efforts to address energy as a fundamental element of the sustainable development of the Arctic as a lasting frontier.Central to this concept is a focus on providing pathways for affordable energy development in the Arctic and for Arctic communities.

 
The Polar Oceans and Global Climate Change, November 3-6, 2015  (La Jolla, California USA.)  The American Polar Society will host this Symposium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  A flyer with a partial list of presenters is available on the Society's website ( americanpolar.org ) and from the Society's Membership Chairman by email.

  

11th International Conference on Permafrost (ICOP 2016), June 20-24, 2016 (Potsdam, Germany). The Alfred Wegener Institute has teamed up with UP Transfer GmbH and the University of Potsdam to organize a great conference for you, permafrost researchers. The conference aims at covering all relevant aspects of permafrost research, engineering and outreach on a global and regional level.

  

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