The Young Turks on President Obama blocking Arctic and Atlantic drilling and what Donald Trump can do about it

President Obama is blocking oil drilling in The Arctic Ocean

I read on Vice and The Guardian that President Obama's Administration is blocking any oil drilling in The Arctic Ocean. They feel like doing any drilling would be too dangerous to our environment.

I know this isn't going to sit well with some of my friends and family. People would like to get some kind of work around here in Kotzebue and there was hope that it would be possible to drill for oil near this area.

But you gotta think long term. Yes there might be oil out there. Maybe. But you know what is there? Seals. Fish. The food we eat.

Are we really going to risk that? A lot of the times when the topic of our food supply is brought up I hear people worried about the dwindling caribou herd. The fact that there isn't the amount of seals there has been.

We took steps in trying to protect the caribou herd by putting a stop to outside hunters coming into our region in hopes that maybe that will help the caribou population. But lets be real. They just got a fraction of the caribou that was hunted. So you're telling me you're fine taking dangerous oil out of Kotzebue Sound or The Bering Sea but hunters from The Lower 48 can't come here to do a little bit of hunting and spend some money?

What's the deal with that?

You know in a perfect world a company could come in and drill. Everyone on the rig will be on the ball and the workers will get great production safely. They'll bring some people from out of state or Anchorage to run the show while getting some hands from the villages around here. They'll learn a trade and grow into it. Then after a year or two we'll thank them and we'll then be running the show. We'll have oil and you know what that means? We could be Barrow! Costs will either go down or be eliminated all together. No one is going to have to worry about being cold or having to chop wood. We get drive our vehicles more often because of lowered gas prices. Everything could be great.

It would be nice if all that could happen. But we don't live in a perfect world. All you need to do is read the Arctic Sounder or watch the news on KTUU to see that.

We have taken steps to protect the caribou herd by stopping outside hunters. Well President Obama is protecting Kotzebue Sound and The Arctic Ocean by stopping oil drilling here.

And you know maybe it's futile because we're only two months away from a Trump Presidency.

No Road to Ambler

Please help and sign this petition to stop the construction of a 200 mile road in Alaska. That's 200 miles, leading up to 14 rivers in Alaska, and other sources of water. It'll lead to environmental danger, and possible littering in the great wilderness of Alaska. There's plenty of game that migrates throughout Alaska, and I'm a little scared they'll be affected by this road.
We only need 300 signatures, and we're already at 200~.

Donald Trump on Global Warming

Several days ago businessman Donald Trump was elected President of The United States. What is he going to do about Climate Change, or Global Warming as he calls it. It's hard to know what Donald Trump is going to do. There is already big promises he made during his campaign that he's already going back on. Do you remember that wall? Well here's some old Tweets he made.

The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012

This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps,and our GW scientists are stuck in ice

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2014

So clearly he doesn't believe Climate Change is happening. Or maybe that's another con he's making. He flirted running for President back in 2012.

But is he going to follow through on his promise to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency? Willie Burnley Jr. wrote an article on ATTN saying no. But he think that like Ronald Reagan he'll slash their budget. He shared this as well.

Even though his energy adviser claims #Trump has never head of #DAPL, he received $100K from the company building it https://t.co/c1UwxIwmZX

— Greenpeace USA (@greenpeaceusa) October 26, 2016

 Here's Willie Burnley Jr. article.

Arnold Schwarzenegger on protecting The Environment and The Economy

Is November supposed to look like this?

I went out for a walk with my good friend Christopher Foster. We decided to take a look at how the ice was building up in The Kotzebue Sound. What we saw alarmed us.

Checking out the ice with @Chris_Tigga pic.twitter.com/QK0i1tgOTu

— Josh Hadley (@JoshJHadley) November 12, 2016

 It is November here in Kotzebue, Alaska and we still have open water in our sound. We talked this over and we concluded it's clear that the culprit is Climate Change.

Yes it's cold outside and you can see Chris wear his winter gear in my Tweet. But something's wrong. And it's not me just saying that.

I read a article by Yereth Rosen in The Arctic Sounder that Kotzebue has recorded a record warm temperature average for the month of October.

Don't let anyone tell you that climate change isn't happening. In fact I think that debate is really over. The question is what are we going to do about it. Some people wonder if something can be done about it.