Spare Change for the Alaska Democratic Party

Having received an invitation from the Alaska Democratic Party to meet the Mayor of Seattle, I had questioned the parties use of the voter's registration.

I think I am a registered Republican who is running against a Democrat. At least I thought so. Maybe I had better check.

Then I thought, why is Mayor Begich inviting a Mayor from Seattle to Alaska?

Is he that big of a draw?

A quick google search and you come up with his name on Global Warming.

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/06/15/little-nickels/

Meet the pied piper of one of the most exciting green grassroots uprisings to hit the U.S. in years: Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (D).He's managed to get roughly 300 mayors nationwide -- from the Northwest to the deep South and everywhere in between -- to agree that it's a good idea for U.S. cities to meet or beat Kyoto Protocol targets for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, despite the Bush administration's rejection of the treaty.

Municipal leaders attending a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Chicago on Monday unanimously endorsed Nickels' initiative calling on cities to do their part to stave off climate change. Before the conference vote, 165 mayors from 37 states had individually signed on to the initiative; now Nickels hopes many more will follow suit.

Now I have to say in all fairness to Mike Doogan, I found a commentary that he wrote back in 1997 to hold a certain sentiment to what I have said about global warming. But he is a Democrat and it is more appropriate to use his words instead of mine on the subject. After all the Mayor from Seattle is a Democrat. (snicker)

Anchorage Daily News (AK)
September 5, 1997
Section: Metro
Edition: Final
Page: B1

ALASKANS SHOULD SUPPORT GLOBAL WARMING, AND TRY TO HELP IT ALONG

Mike Doogan
Anchorage Daily News
Staff

Someone has got to stop these fiends from Greenpeace. Normally, I don't pay much attention to the stunts of the organization's Luddite pranksters. If they want to expend their energy trying to make sure the planet doesn't change one iota from the way it was when they first noticed it, fine. They've got no shot, but it keeps them from doing really harmful things, like designing women's clothes or writing advertising copy.

So when the Greenpeace boat tried to keep the oil rig from moving, I didn't think it was any big deal. Everybody knew who was going to win that one, and, frankly, the oil industry hasn't always been the most environmentally sensitive group of good ol' boys. And it didn't bother me when some Greenpeace protesters hung from that bridge, trying to keep factory trawlers from sailing for Alaska waters. American fishing practices can be pretty ugly, and I don't eat much cod anyway.

But when those guys draped a banner protesting global warming from the side of an office building here, I got ticked off. In fact, if I'd found out about the protest sooner, I'd have gone down there to cut the ropes holding the banner myself. Because I am absolutely, positively, 100 percent in favor of global warming.

Any real Alaskan would be. Global warming is the theory that exhaust pipes and smokestacks are spewing out gases that make the earth's atmosphere thicker. Light can get in and change to heat, but heat can't get out. So the planet heats up. This greenhouse effect will gradually shrink the polar ice caps, raise the level of the world's oceans and change weather patterns.Let's say the scientists who make these claims are right, as scientists sometimes are. So what?

Greenpeace, and that whole pack of environmental gloomy Guses, say global warming is bad. Why? I guess because they think that anything mankind does to change the natural world is bad.You don't see them protesting the changes nature is making in the environment, do you? Like El Nino.

Greenpeace doesn't seem at all concerned that nature is warming up the Pacific, making it likely that we may all soon be fishing for tuna instead of salmon. What if tuna won't bite on Spin 'n' Glos? You don't see eco-terrorists hanging from anything to protest that potential catastrophe, do you?No, they're too busy protesting global warming, the best environmental development for Alaska since the end of the last Ice Age. Think about it. What's the one drawback of living in Alaska? Summer's too cool and too short, right? Well, do you think the wonderful summer we've had, which has hung in there right on into September, is an accident? Heck, no. We've got global warming to thank for it.Granted, our gain might be somebody else's loss.

People in fancy resorts might gripe when the rising water level drowns their expensive houses. But so what? Exactly which worldwide climate pattern benefits everybody? The natural one, with its floods and droughts and heat waves and, here anyway, December days that make the surface of Pluto seem balmy?We are supposed to root for that climate, because it is nature's, and against one which gives us longer, warmer summers, because humans caused it?Fat chance.

If the members of Greenpeace want to be Druids, let them. Me, I'm going to follow the greenie slogan: Think globally. Act locally. I'm buying a car with a bigger engine, one that burns more gas and, hopefully, emits more greenhouse gases. And if you're planning to live in Alaska, not some coven of self-righteous tree huggers, you will, too.*

Mike Doogan's opinion column appears in the Daily News each Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. You can hear more of Mike Doogan on the Daily Newsline. Call 277-1500 and enter code 2205.

Do you think past Green party candidates like Jed will still vote for Mike? Do you think Mike might attend the function and tell Nickels he is one of those Loony evironmental Druids?


Or will Mike hold the line? Somewhere there is an Inconsistent Truth. I'll leave it up to Mike and the Democrats to decide that one.