Lori Townsend: Climate change in Alaska affects everything from infrastructure stability to small businesses who need seasonal certainty for success, but no longer have it.

Unknown: I really think of it as climate chaos.

It just makes it all, so many unknowns and it seems to get more chaotic every year.

Lori Townsend: A new program has a dual aim of measuring greenhouse gas emissions and supporting community adaptation ideas.

We'll discuss plans for adjusting to a changing climate right now on Alaska Insight.

April is birch tree sap season in Southcentral Alaska, a season that is harder and harder to predict because of climate change.

Alaska Public Media's Lex Treinen visited some longtime birch sap harvesters in Talkeetna to learn more.

Unknown: The air is just above freezing as the afternoon sun pokes through the forest near Talkeetna.

A crew of workers from Kahiltna Birchworks are testing some trees.

No luck.

This one doesn't seem to be running pretty heavily but possible start after a few minutes.

Birch trees need freezing temperatures at night to produce sap, but too cold at night and their veins freeze up.

Less than half the trees are running today.

Tapping is delayed another day.

Right now it's just a lot of waiting because you can't control weather.

The owners of Kahiltna Birchworks say in the last decade the weather has felt more out of control.

This was quite a detailed log back in 91.

They've been logging data about the sap season since the operation began about 30 years ago.

Here's another good note never use a pickle bucket.

It shows a trend toward earlier sap seasons, but also more variability.

I really think of it as climate chaos.

It just makes it all, so many unknowns and it seems to get more chaotic every year.

Researchers say the effect of snow cover and warmer air temperatures mean fewer sap days.

It's trending toward an earlier and a shorter window for those kinds of conditions which the sap producers say are ideal.

The changes have real effects for the business.

After collecting sap from hundreds of acres of property it's brought here to the syrup house.

This will meter how much sap we get.

It's collected in giant tanks, then pumped through a reverse osmosis machine and an evaporator which concentrates the sugar.

This is a great instrument, we can take this out in the field.

They measure sugar content with a refractometer.

They found warmer temperatures means less sugary sap.

In a warm year, you really lose sugar fast so, so instead of having sap that's 1.1% sugar, which is great, it'll start dropping to 0.9, 0.8.

And at that point it's almost not worth making syrup from it.

It just costs too much money.

Warmer temps can also mean more pests like birch aphids and leaf miners and warmer summers make drought and wildfires more likely.

It's a challenge.

But Benny says adapting to the climate has always been part of the business.

It's never an easy harvest.

I can remember a few times in 32 years where it flowed really well.

In other words, she says you just have to go with the flow.

Reporting in Talkeetna, I'm Lex Treinen.

Lori Townsend: Joining me tonight to discuss the effects of climate change in Alaska and a new program to measure emissions in the state and aid communities in adaptation strategies is Robin Bronen, the executive director of the Alaska Institute for Justice.

Also with us this evening is Darcy Peter, a research assistant with the Woodwell Center for Climate Justice.

Thanks both of you for being available for tonight's discussion.

Really appreciate it.

Unknown: Thanks for the invitation.

Lori Townsend: I want to start with you, Robin, we just saw an example of how climate change can create problems for small businesses.

It seems like so much of this comes down to unpredictability, or as we heard in the story, climate chaos.

How has that made planning for future community sustainability more difficult?

Unknown: That is a great question Lori.

And that's the heart of the reason why we're doing the work that we are currently going to do with the Permafrost Pathways project.

So as mentioned in the previous video, the conditions are constantly changing.

And so what that means is communities need to be able to monitor the environmental changes that are happening because the chain, those changes are going to continue far into the future.

And so by measuring permafrost thaw, and erosion and flooding, communities are going to get real time data in regard to how that those changes are happening.

And because erosion and permafrost thaw are slow, ongoing environmental processes, it's really important to understand those predictive rates of change.

So by doing the coupling the community based environmental monitoring, with Woodwell's ability to model and get remote sensing data, communities will have a much better idea about what those predicted rates of change will be, hopefully in regard to permafrost thaw.

Lori Townsend: All right, thank you, Robin, for getting us started.

Darcy, I want to turn to you now.

Your research work at the Woodwell Center is directly connected to the newly launched Permafrost Pathways project.

Robin was talking about what, some of what the project endeavors to do but give us a description of of how you see this unfolding in Alaska and what the goals will be going forward.

Unknown: Right, well, thank you for having me.

Um, so in terms of the goals, I think of Woodwell Climate Research Center being involved in this, in working with Alaska Institute for Justice and with our partners, I think a big part of the goal is to get help on the ground for the Indigenous communities that need it.

In particular, you know, the ones that are feeling the impacts of permafrost thaw and, you know, communities across the entire state are feeling the impacts of permafrost thaw and of climate change.

Permafrost is tied to a plethora of things that are happening on the ground that is impacting their day to day life and their way of life as Indigenous people.

This goes into food security, it goes into policy goes into erosion, it goes into human rights.

So hopefully with, you know, a science team or research team, the people on the ground, you know, the Alaska Institute for Justice for everybody involved, we can get the resources necessary to the people who need them the most, who are experiencing climate change at three times the rate as the rest of the world.

Lori Townsend: You grew up in Alaska, in the community of Beaver along the Yukon River and have no doubt witnessed a lot of change yourself.

Your bio on the Woodwell Center site says that you believe if research is properly communicated to the public and policymakers that it can result in policy change.

Talk about where you see success in this regard, especially related to climate change.

Unknown: Right.

Yeah, so as you mentioned, I'm from the remote village of Beaver, Alaska.

It's about 100 miles north of Fairbanks along the Yukon River.

And the changes that I've seen, just in my lifetime are astronomical.

It's very, very daunting to see in terms of food security, safety, just the day to day life.

And I think that where I personally have seen the most success when scientists work with Indigenous people, is in terms of policy.

There's a board that I sit on called the Yukon River Intertribal Fish Commission.

And it's one community member from each village along the Yukon River.

And we get together and go over each individual proposal and we go to the Board of Fish and we vote on the different proposals, but whether they pass or, or don't get passed, and that directly impacts our ability to fish.

So that's just one example of how science can benefit Indigenous peoples on the ground, who might not have a voice at the table.

But there are definitely a bunch of resources that can get people around the table where they need to be.

So I think policy plays a huge part in this not only in the sense of erosion and of permafrost thaw, but there are so many different activities in cultural practices that are linked to permafrost thaw that might not be directly linked.

Lori Townsend: Robin, I want to turn back to you.

You've described this as a human rights project focused on justice and equity.

Darcy was just talking about the concerns around food security and other things.

So explain that connection for you.

Unknown: Yeah, so the the adaptation work that we've been focused at at the Alaska Institute for Justice is related to population displacement.

And many people are, have been looking at the international movement of people because of the environmental changes that are happening because of the climate crisis.

But there was a report that was issued by the World Bank, which found that the majority of people who are going to be displaced because of the climate crisis are going to be displaced within their countries of origin.

And that is significant.

And the reason why that's significant is because there is no governance institution, not only in the United States, but worldwide that is focused to manage the internal movement of people.

And as I mentioned, the World Bank's focus on internal displacement in their report, they issued an involuntary resettlement handbook that has been used by governments like India and China to forcibly displaced people so that development projects can be built.

And that cannot be the model that we use to determine how communities are going to find another place to live if the place that they're currently living becomes uninhabitable.

So when I talk about human rights, the most important human right is the right to self determination.

And what that means is that communities make all of the decisions.

They make the decision of whether they move, how they move, and where are they will move to.

And that's why the environmental monitoring is so important because communities need that information to make these extraordinarily difficult decisions.

Lori Townsend: I saw the premiere of a documentary a Newtok at the Anchorage Museum this week.

They first voted to move in 1996.

It was stunning to realize how long they've been working on this.

New homes and a school are now in Mertarvik, the new village location.

But two thirds of the residents are still in crumbling homes in Newtok.

As climate change affects so many areas, do you think the federal government has a responsibility to prioritize Native communities that were forced to live in these coastal locations year round because the BIA said we're building schools and we're going to build them here.

And so now you have to stay here or risk going to jail, your kids won't go to school.

Who should be prioritized in this setting where we know, California wildfires, hurricanes in Florida.

There's, the needs are immense.

And they're right now.

It's not a future scenario we're talking about who should be the priority?

Unknown: Yeah, well, thank you for bringing up Newtok.

Because when I decided to go back to graduate school, I, I did work on my research was focused on Newtok's relocation.

And that's when I realized there was this giant governance gap that prevented the community of Newtok from implementing what the community had decided.

And what I mean by a governance gap is there is no state or federal government agency in the United States that has the mandate or funding to facilitate a community-wide relocation if that community makes that decision.

And so despite the enormous efforts of federal and state government agencies, as you said, two-thirds of the community is still not in a safe place.

And there's no timeline for when they will be in a safe place.

And they are currently living in a humanitarian crisis.

The community has no running water during the pandemic.

And so that's a human rights issue.

And it speaks to the urgency of us figuring this out.

And in addition, I would mention that the federal government has recognized this gap.

There have been numerous reports identifying the lack of federal leadership and the need for federal leadership in order to facilitate a community-wide process.

And despite all of these programs being implemented, since President Biden took office, there is still no federal leadership in regard to making a governance wide framework that integrates all the different agencies that need to be involved in this process, like FEMA, like HUD, like the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, like the department of health and housing, health and human services.

So there are all these federal government agencies that have an important piece to play in providing funding and technical assistance to the communities that need these resources.

But there's it's right at this moment, it's extraordinarily difficult to coordinate those resources because each government agency and government grant program has different criteria, different timelines, different different franchise cycles, that make it extraordinarily difficult for a community, any community to access the resources that they need to be able to get to safety.

Lori Townsend: Some kind of coordinated way.

Darcy, beyond the concern and the problems with getting government agencies to work together.

This Permafrost Pathways program takes a really a different approach, rather than scientists kind of swooping in from other places.

It's designed to be led by the community Describe how that will work and and the importance in that shift.

Unknown: Yeah, well, that is a really good shift that I think is necessary in, in the scientific research community.

I think that the way that research has been done in the past is not the way that research should be done in future.

It should not be exploitative.

It shouldn't be extractive.

And I think that this has been a long time coming.

And I think one of the aspects of the project that I'm most proud of is the fact that it will be led by Indigenous people, for Indigenous people.

Everything that the project is doing or aims to do, will be at the benefit of Alaska Native people of Indigenous people who need it the most.

And, you know, I am a firm believer that if, you know, scientists communicated in the way that everybody's going to understand that it definitely has the power to induce change, especially if communicated at the proper levels of government of policy, in the same room, as all the people who are making the decisions that impact the day to day lives of people who are facing these climate injustices.

So I think that, you know, in terms of Permafrost Pathways, and the co production of knowledge that's going to happen out of this, I think that there's a lot of Western scientists, there's a lot that they can contribute.

But there's also a lot that they can learn in terms of how research is conducted.

And I think that this is a win win for researchers in terms of learning and for Indigenous people in terms of getting the help that they need.

Lori Townsend: There's two pieces to this effort: the measuring of carbon emissions and adaptation strategies.

Talk about the adaptation piece, do you think are you hearing communities talking in terms of the need to move?

We know that there's at least 30 villages or more that are at an imminent risk and will need to relocate at some point.

Are they talking, are communities talking more about that?

Or are they looking more for ways to help stabilize where they are so they can stay?

Unknown: Yeah, I would defer to Robin, for that question.

But it just in my own personal experience, I think it really depends community to community.

If this were happening in my own village, I know I wouldn't willingly want to leave the place that I was born and raised.

Being an Indigenous person, you there is such a big tie to place, in culture, in history, in ancestors and stories.

Everything is connected to place when it comes to Alaska Native culture and Indigenous culture in general.

In order, yeah, for a tribe, for a community to make that decision - - and Robin's touched on this - - is insanely difficult.

I cannot imagine discussing with, you know, the people who raised me who helped raise me and everyone who taught me how to be everything about an Indigenous person to discuss leaving the place where we are so deeply connected, is something that I can't even imagine.

So yeah, I would defer to Robin for this question.

But it is a very, very tough decision to make.

And I'm not sure yeah, that I'd be able to be in the room just for my own mental health.

Lori Townsend: You know, before I go back to Robin, what you said, this so resonates with what I heard in that Newtok documentary; that even though there is real danger in staying in the community during the winter storms, and as Robin noted, there's no, there's no running water, there's no piped sewer system, even then it was it was very clear how difficult it was for people to have to actually move away from this place.

That there is such a connection there.

That was that was one of the really strong points that came out of this.

An article in the Arctic Sounder reported that the Council for the Native Village of Point Lay declared a climate emergency last month.

They could apply for FEMA's program for help, but they first have to have an updated hazard mitigation plan that requires mapping permafrost.

Will the Permafrost Pathways project help with that sort of need mapping areas as well as measuring emissions?

Unknown: Yeah, so nothing is outside of the realm of possibility when it comes to Permafrost Pathways.

I think that we have a few amazing cartographers here at what about climate who are very much involved in the work that we do?

Yeah, I mean, nothing is outside of the realm of possibility when it comes to this project.

And that's what I really, really love about it, because we're really listening to the tribes and to the people who are on the ground, and we're discussing with them what they need in order to make the best informed decision moving forward.

So I think that no matter what it is that they need, we're going to do our best with the partners that we have in place to make sure that it's happy that it happens and that they have the resources that they need.

They have all the information and all the knowledge to that they might need.

It is an extremely emotional thing to discuss.

To be tied so deeply to a place.

I have no other way to describe it except, like your great, great, great grandparents, you know, passed down this house from generation to generation, and you have to move.

It's falling into the ocean.

There's nothing you can do.

There's nothing anybody can do to help you.

You just have to move and watch it disappear in front of your eyes.

It's, it's like that, but it's not even comparable, because it's, it's a relationship with the land that's existed since time immemorial, since before time existed.

So a lot of our history, a lot of our culture is tied with place.

So again, we're going to do anything that we can within the Permafrost Pathways project in order to ensure that they have everything that they need.

Lori Townsend: Thank you, Darcy.

Robin, I would ask you to comment on those adaptation strategies also.

But first, the amount of emissions that are being released from permafrost could potentially eat up 20 to 40% of the overall global carbon budget.

That's a staggering amount.

Talk about what that means, in real terms.

If permafrost emissions are added, how would countries handle that?

Especially small countries that don't have the resources to adapt in a timely manner.

Unknown: Yeah, so this is why it's a human rights issue, Lori, is because we're not curbing our greenhouse gas emissions, we're not choosing to lower the temperature of the planet, which is causing permafrost to thaw.

And that we continue to make these choices about not reducing our greenhouse gas emissions when we have almost really no plans in place for what you just described.

So part of the work the Alaska Institute for Justice has done is to connect with communities in the South Pacific.

And we had a convening in Girdwood, Alaska in 2018, and eight countries were represented from the South Pacific, including Fiji and Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands.

And they have been begging the world community to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Because places like the Marshall Islands, they're an atoll nation, there is no higher ground.

There is no higher ground.

And yet the world community is not making that decision.

So it's, it's why I continue to come back to this a justice and human rights issue.

And as Darcy so eloquently said, like we are going to do whatever is possible, because everything is possible with this funding to make sure that communities get access to the resources that they need.

And just as a final because you mentioned that hazard mitigation plan process for Point Lay, that's an excellent example of a process that has not served Indigenous communities, that is now being used as a barrier for Indigenous communities to get access to those resources.

And that has to change.

And we've done a ton of work with the tribes that we've worked with, about identifying these barriers.

And what this project will do is scale it up.

So that we're able actually to do an intervention to change these policies that are not serving Alaskan Native communities.

Lori Townsend: Darcy, what's the timeline here?

Are you started now, or when do you plan to get started?

What do you hope our discussion will be like, in a couple of years from now, when we have you come back and talk, give us a report on how it's going?

Unknown: Right, yeah, so the work started, I would say years ago, in terms of the work that's been being done.

But now we just have, you know, this, this big pot of funding that we can now dip into to really do everything that we've been planning on.

So I'd say the work started a long time ago.

But this project has officially started.

It's live.

We're, you know, going through the hiring process, we're trying to get all the resources that we can.

And yeah, I mean, it's, it's started already, and hopefully in a few years, we can report back with some real policy change that's been in, that's been established, hopefully, at both the local and international level, as well as the governmental level in the U.S.

So hopefully, there'll be some positive reports in a couple of years.

And hopefully, there'll be a lot more partners and a lot more people here to tell their story, who haven't had the chance to do so.

Lori Townsend: And in just about 30 seconds here, do you have an idea yet of the communities you're going to start with or is that not yet determined?

Unknown: Yeah, so I will defer to Robin to touch on this.

Lori Townsend: Robin in about 10 seconds, then do you have ideas about the communities?

Unknown: Yeah, so we've been working with 15 Alaska Native communities for the last seven years.

And so those are the communities that were identified in the government report that identified the communities that were imminently threatened by flooding and erosion.

And so there they've got first first choice about whether or not they want to continue to partner with us to get access to this funding, and they're mostly communities in the Y-K Delta.

Lori Townsend: All right, thank you so much.

Thanks, Darcy and Robin for being with us this evening.

New tools and increasing focus on climate change and permafrost melt will help scientists better define the scope of the problems arising from the rapid pace of change.

That will in turn aid in developing better mitigation and adaptation strategies for the work that's needed.

Not in the future.

But right now.

That's all the time we have for this edition of Alaska Insight.

Be sure to tune in daily to your local public radio station for Alaska Morning News and Alaska News Nightly every week night.

Be part of important conversations on Talk of Alaska every Tuesday and visit our website alaskapublic.org for breaking news from across the state.

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We'll be back next week.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Lori Townsend.

Good night.