Native Vote 2026
President Trump’s campaign rally in Wasilla, Alaska, followed the script. Attack “dumbocrats.” Dismiss concerns about high gas prices. And, of course, one of his favorite tunes, climate change is a hoax.
To read more articles by Mark Trahant, go to: Marktrahant.substack.com
Trump’s talk:
“They used to talk about, remember global warming? We’re all going to be dead in 12 years. Well, here we are. It’s 12 years. Nobody … anybody die recently 12 years. So it didn’t work. Global warming didn’t work.
So they called it climate change because it was getting cooler, not warmer. In fact, you notice the ice caps are bigger than they’ve ever been. So the it’s been getting cooler. So they called it climate change. No more global warm climate change. Because in climate change, it can get warmer, colder, it can rain, it can snow.
You can have the worst weather, the best weather. It’s climate change.”
And of course one reason for him campaigning is the Senate race between incumbent Dan Sullivan and challenger Mary Peltola, Yup’ik.
“The D.C. Democrats don’t have a positive agenda for Alaska. They have a target on Alaska. But this would also be horrible for the country we love, for the great United States of America. So, ladies and gentlemen, especially here in the Mat-Su Valley, you need to understand Alaska is the firewall for freedom for the entire country.”
But the firewall for freedom is a straight out contradiction when it comes to climate change. The Trump administration has scrubbed most of its web pages when it comes to climate information, except the USDA somehow forgot Alaska.
Annual climate changes over last fifty years in Alaska, source: NOAA via the USDA climate hub.
“Alaska is at the forefront of climate change. Because of its northern latitude and seasonal changes in sea ice, the state is warming at two to three times the rate of the global average. Rising temperatures can be tied to most of the effects of climate change in Alaska. Reduced ice coverage, including shrinking glaciers, retreating sea ice, and thawing permafrost, are all serious impacts of rapid warming. Meanwhile, much of Alaska has seen increases in precipitation, with more of that precipitation falling as rain than snow. However, portions of the Cook Inlet and eastern Interior Alaska are experiencing a long-term decrease in precipitation. These changes to temperature, precipitation, and ice have a diverse range of effects, including extreme droughts, reduced snowpack, changes in sea level, ocean warming and acidification, large wildfires, and more impactful heatwaves.”
And just to make sure that climate change is not on the agenda in Alaska — or anywhere else for that matter — the administration ordered agencies to rollback scientific studies. Earlier this month the Trump administration exempted winter oil and gas-drilling in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve exempt from reviews required under the National Environmental Policy Act.
Items considered as a “categorical exclusion” include seismic surveys, temporary road construction, and exploratory well drilling what the Interior Department calls activities “whose environmental consequences are well understood.”
Bobby McEnany, senior lands analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, put it this way: “The Trump administration is giving itself the power to approve oil wells, ice roads and other infrastructure in the Arctic without any consideration of the environmental impact or chance for the public to have a say.”
Perhaps Alaska is the ideal place for a Trump visit because it allows us to shift the conversation to “what’s next?”
Alaska needs a massive investment in climate resilience — go down the list, from ocean management to solar. Some of that is already happening despite Trump’s view of the climate crisis as a hoax.
The Nature Conservancy says Alaskans are coming up with unique solutions.
“For instance, an approach to renewable energy in Kodiak has drawn on local resources to design a transformative approach to generating nearly 100% renewable energy—replacing polluting fossil fuel each and every year. In Juneau and several rural Southeast communities where fish-friendly hydropower produces most local electricity, homeowners are turning to efficient electric air source heat pumps to heat their homes—a proven way to reduce families’ energy costs.
“In a state ranking sixth in petroleum production—after Texas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Colorado but ahead of California—clean energy still makes up a major part of our energy mix: Communities across our state have been thinking ahead—and now a third of Alaska’s electricity generation comes from clean and reliable renewables. And there’s more to come.”
Bill Hill, Dena’ina Athabascan from Naknek, recently told radio station KYUK about how he he has seen the climate evolve from his work as a commercial fisherman.
“I believe that I can represent all of us very well. I’ve had a really fortunate life to have worked in a lot of different careers in a lot of different places, but I think particularly for Bush Alaska, I’ve spent most of my life in Bush Alaska. So I get us. […] I was talking to someone in a small village here yesterday, where their price of fuel oil had just jumped in one week from $10 a gallon to over $12 a gallon. […] And there’s some villages in my region that are already at $13 a gallon. And I know in some of the other regions it’s even higher than that. So the challenge of energy and heating, I understand that completely. The challenge of providing good education, I understand that. The challenge of health care, I understand that as well. And we got to drive by your impressive [Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation] hospital here. You guys have what looks from the exterior, looks to be a really great system for your people. But not every community has that.
I also understand a lot of things about, where in a small village there are only a handful of jobs to be had. And so if we talk about trying to implement a Western civilization sort of a life in some of our smaller villages, where the number of opportunities to earn a regular paycheck is pretty limited, that’s just not realistic. So how do we make ends meet and how to make life work for people there? We talk about all sorts of things, even global warming. You can talk about global warming. And from a Bush perspective, I’ve spent decades in the Southwest [Alaska] region, and I remember when I was young, all of the lakes and the rivers and things were just, in the wintertime it was just a massive highway system. And we could go everywhere, and not just with snowmachines or four-wheelers, but also with trucks. They were frozen solid, and we used them. It’s become very intermittent.
That’s an immediate climate danger; trying to get home after hunting and not being able to rely on a frozen “road.”
You gotta beg the 49th climate question here: Will Alaskans rallying for Trump believe their own eyes … or their great leader?
