That is apparently the Governor of Alaska's Koan-of-the-Day, as he tells a reporter that climate change is causing major expenses to the state (such as sea-side villages being washed away), so Alaska needs to drill more oil in order to pay for it.
Which is a huge heaping of cognitive dissonance with a hefty side order of gobsmack.
Alaska's an interesting place. Basically it's a rural state that's financially dependent on petroleum production for its state income. There is no income tax or sales tax — in fact, citizens have been used to getting dividend checks from a share-the-oil-wealth scheme over some decades.
But the North Slope is drying up, the pipeline is running at 1/4 capacity, and Shell just decided that its controversial exploration didn't turn up enough (at current prices) to make further extraction worthwhile.
Alaska is in for some hard times ahead — and would be even without climate change. Suggesting that they can get out of a hole by digging even faster makes no sense, but it's an understandable reaction given the situation.
Alaska Gov. Says State “Urgently” Needs More Oil Drilling to Pay for Climate Change Damage
Yep. In an interview with the BBC’s Matt McGrath, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker just made perhaps the most remarkable statement I’ve ever encountered. “We are in a significant fiscal challenge. We have villages that are washing away because of the change in the climate,” Walker said. Relocating these villages is…
