Contributed by Robert Shields
Today, I am calling out the posers. Greenwashing bullies who are only interested in dominating the conversation so they can control the flow of information. The climate distractors who have betrayed the public trust and their duties to protect the environment by maintaining a willful wall of ignorance, that continues to deny people the freedom to choose for themselves who represents them. To dictate what options are available as economically viable solutions, and who for decades now, take your money in good faith that they are providing answers, when all they do is create circular conversations around convoluted issues that leave you to believe “for now” coal is clean, natural gas is cheap, and consumption, extraction, and exploitation are the only industries worth investing in.
Several self-proclaimed “environmental organizations”, including The Alaska Center, Native Movement, The Nanook Diversity and Action Center, the Fairbanks Climate Action Coalition, and UAF Climate Scholars, have chosen to weigh in on the election while remaining utterly silent on the abomination and fraud that is the UAF coal plant in their own front yard. These posers, along with bad actors at the Northern Center for the Environment, the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, the Cold Climate Housing Research Center, and the Alaska Center for Energy and Power are all corporate puppets, who repeatedly use studies and demonstration projects to distract from real game changing solutions viable a decade ago. Bad actors who are paid to distract and disenfranchise advocates into submission, so their hyper vocal opinions are the only one people hear.
The lack of significant action from these actors and their political pandering is why, in 2021 the villages continue to struggle with the corporate welfare of the PHC, the Interior has the worst air quality and the highest cost of energy. Why everyone is forced into silence on the black lung impacts of our continued coal addiction. The people of our state could be thriving for generations not suffering in perpetuity.
I am the chair of the Green Party of Alaska, chair of the Climate Reality Project Alaska climate hub, chair of the Extinction Rebellion, and Sunrise (Arm in Arm) in Alaska. I have a degree in Natural Resource Management and 22 years of professional experience in the nonprofit as well as the business arena of permaculture. In 2021 I became the state’s first EcoDistricts accredited professional (urban planner).
On top of all that I founded, in 2011, an environmental organization, the Alliance for Reason and Knowledge, (ARK) who has for a decade organized solar tours, annual resilient city conferences, and workforce development in clean career fields. I am an environmentalist with a business background for practical solutions that lowers the cost of living and improve the quality of life. This makes me a threat to maintaining business as usual “environment”.
I struggle to know which is worse. A system that is filled with corruption, cronyism, and nepotism or the reality so many people are aware of it and play along because “that’s the game”. As children games are a fun way to learn essential life skills, to socialize, and how to survive. However, these blatant games of coercion, control, and bullying erode the foundation of our trust in ourselves and each other making us vulnerable to manipulation, misinformation, and abuse.
Policy makers carry a heavy burden because the decisions we make impact people’s lives now and into the future. The complete incompetence of our political leaders at all levels as we routinely watch them violate their own principles when they become politically inconvenient is why people don’t trust the government. This lack of trust costs lives needlessly every day, it has allowed our community to become a superfund site, and it is destroying our economy and our environment faster than any coal plant ever could.
A leader should be willing to compromise on the plans, the procedures, the partnerships, and priorities, but never on principle. When good people violate their own code of ethics, that’s when they become part of the problem.
On October 5th, there are statewide elections about who will lead us into the future. Only those who are vocally committed to the cause of doing their part to ensure 140 years from now Alaska will still be a good place to raise a family deserve your support. Don’t be distracted by fools who are comfortable enduring another decade of environmental degradation and human suffering in the name of short-term profits or the comfort of their own position.