A 1917 sign in Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska shows where the end of the Exit Glacier used to be — a mile from the current edge of a receding wall of ice.

Read my colleague Ed Stoddard’s fascinating tale from the park about the U.S. ‘environmental wars’ since Republican presidential candidate John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Would a Vice President Palin sway a President McCain away from his long-standing drive for tougher action on climate change if the Republican pair win November’s election?

Palin favours expanded drilling for oil, opposes a Bush administration decision to list polar bears as threatened and doubts that human activities cause climate change, which is warming the Arctic twice as fast as the rest of the globe. The aptly named Exit glacier, like almost all glaciers around the world, is shrinking.   

And Palin’s environmental views aren’t just about the climate – Ed writes that she has also clashed with environmentalists by favouring shooting wolves from helicopters.

McCain was, among other things, the author of the “Climate Stewardship Act” with Sen. Joe Lieberman in 2003. The Act, which would have capped U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, was defeated in the Senate by 55-43 votes.

So will Palin’s views — here is a link to her Alaska policy – swing McCain away from toughening U.S. climate policies, which have been slammed by many U.S. allies around the world as too weak?