While the world gets ready for December’s climate meeting in Copenhagen, a group of native Arctic women traveled to Washington this week to talk about what climate change is doing right now in places like Arctic Village, Alaska, and Whitehorse, in Canada’s Yukon.

Five of the women talked emotionally about how much harder it is to hunt for traditional game animals like caribou in a time of global warming, and how important these traditional foods are to their culture and health. They also took aim at some of Sarah Palin’s statements, especially her push for oil and gas exploration in the Arctic.

Watch below as Norma Kassi, a member of the Gwich’in nation — sometimes translated as “People of the Caribou” — talks about her practices as a hunter, and her take on Palin and her “drill baby drill” strategy. (It’s a fairly long video; her comments on Palin start about halfway through):

Now watch Sarah James, of Arctic Village, talk about the plain fact that “Western” fare like pizza, meatloaf and fast food simply can’t satisfy her son like a soothing caribou soup:

Kassi, James and other members of the Arctic delegation are telling their story on Capitol Hill and to members of the Obama administration. Some are planning to attend the Copenhagen conference, despite dampening hopes of a major agreement from that gathering.

They have an invitation for President Barack Obama: they’d like him to visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge next year, the 50th anniversary of this far-north protected area where caribou herds have their calves and where some energy companies have hoped to drill.

Video credits: REUTERS/Deborah Zabarenko (Washington, November 11, 2009)

Photo credit: REUTERS/Nathaniel Wilder (Sarah Palin outside the Mocha Moose Espresso after voting in Wasilla, Alaska, November 4, 2008)

Former Arkanas Governor and Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee has won the first informal round in what will no doubt be a long race to head the party's White House ticket in 2012.

The affable Baptist preacher, who won the hearts and minds of conservative evangelicals during his failed 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination, topped other possible Republican presidential contenders in a straw poll at a summit of Christian conservative voters in Washington.

Out of a field of nine, Huckabee garnered the most votes or 28.5 percent. Delegates to the convention were asked: "Thinking ahead to the 2012 presidential election and assuming the nomination of Barack Obama as Democtats' choice for president, who would you vote for as the Republicans nominee for president?"

Surprisingly, former Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who lit up the party's conservative Christian base last year, came in fourth with 12 percent. Her relatively poor performance could have been linked to her failure to attend the summit -- Huckabee delivered a rousing speech on Friday.

Huckabee's arch rival in the 2008 race, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, was the runner-up with 12.4 percent.  He also gave a well-received speech that stuck mostly to economic and foreign policy themes.

Like any straw poll, this one counts for nothing. But it does give an idea of what this key Republican base is looking for as the party tries to chart a path back to power in Congress and the White House.

The second question on the straw poll asked the almost 2,000 delegates -- of whom about 600 responded -- to indicate the most important issue in determining their choice of candidate out of a list of 13 choices.

Abortion won by a long shot at almost 41 percent, while "protection of religious liberty" was a distant second at 18 percent.

Some observers have suggested the conservative Christian movement, known as the "Religious Right," needs to expand its agenda beyond "hot-button social issues" if it wants to grow and have political and electoral success. And much of its leadership has been talking more about issues such as poverty.

The movement has also turned its attention to climate change in response to Obama's agenda, which includes proposed legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Conservative Christian radio stations have spent the summer assailing the "cap and trade" provisions of this legislation as a massive tax hike and several of the delegates whom I spoke to expressed skepticism if not hostility to the widely accepted scientific idea that humans are causing climate change.

One of the break-out sessions on Saturday was called "Global Warming Hysteria: The New Face of the 'Pro-Death' Agenda." For a synposis of this and other sessions click here.

But it is clear that abortion remains by far the biggest issue to this crowd -- and even when they talk about climate change these "pro-lifers" talk about the "culture of death." Time will tell if this is an electoral winner or loser for the Republican Party.

Admit it: we all wondered just what Sarah Palin would turn her time and talents to after she announced her resignation from the Alaska governor’s job, and now she’s given what looks like an answer. In an op-ed column in The Washington Post, Palin took a swipe at Washington insiders and the mainstream media for ignoring the economy, and then tipped her hand.

“Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges,” she wrote. “So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be: I am deeply concerned about President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage.”

In a brief story about this, we noted that Palin’s plans for spurring the U.S. economy include offshore drilling, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and exploring the possibility of nuclear power in every state.

We’re not the only ones who noticed Palin’s opening salvo. Daniel Weiss of the Center for American Progress Action Fund saw her column as “the first stop on Gov. Palin’s comeback tour.” In his opinion, Palin is definitely mulling a presidential run.

“She wants to make sure that she’s still seen as serious and relevant,” Weiss said. “Her policies, though, isolate her in the corner with big oil and big coal and Rush Limbaugh … It would not surprise me if she shows up in Iowa talking about ethanol or New Hampshire talking about nuclear power or in Louisiana talking about oil. That would appeal to primary or caucus-going voters on those states.”

Weiss told me he can’t wait for the Palin campaign, but others weren’t so enthusiastic. Sen. Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that will take up U.S. carbon-capping legislation in September, took time out from a hearing to pour cold water on Palin’s contention that tackling the causes of climate change would send the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

“Sarah Palin wrote this naysaying op-ed piece on why we shouldn’t move forward …” Boxer said. “So I would just tell the American people to take a look at history. Every single time we’ve gone forward to go after pollution, the naysayers have been wrong about the predictions, wrong about the gloom and doom and we have in fact led the world.”

Another Democrat, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, criticized Palin’s piece, which for a while was one of the most popular on the Washingtonpost.com site.

“Unfortunately, her promise to roll up her sleeves and tackle serious issues is followed by a column that focuses on everything but the single grave challenge that forms the basis of all of our actions: the crisis of global climate change,” Kerry wrote in remarks that showed up on the Huffington Post. “Yes, she manages to write about the climate change action in Congress without ever mentioning the reason we are doing this in the first place. It’s like complaining about the cost of repairing a roof without factoring in the leaks destroying your home.”

Kerry took specific aim at the impact of climate change in Alaska, where warming permafrost and rising sea levels have prompted some villagers to leave their long-time homes as the earth melts under their feet.

There was no immediate response to Palin’s column from the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute or the Republican National Committee.

But what do you think? Does this effort mean she’s running for president? Will she take a bigger role in the debate over climate change?

Photo credits: REUTERS/Tami Chappell (Palin in Duluth, George, December 1, 2008); REUTERS/NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (Satellite image of Arctic ice, September 10, 2008)

Sarah Palin’s looming departure from the governor’s office in Alaska may deprive at least one animal welfare group of a key source of green.

The moose-hunting and ultra-conservative hockey mom shot to national prominence last year as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate on the losing Republican ticket. Palin, who in a surprise move said on Friday that she would step down this month as Alaskan governor, remains a political lighting rod who is loved and loathed in equal measure.

 This polarizing profile has made her a major fund raising force for the Republican Party. It has also made her a focal point for groups staunchly opposed to her politics and policies.

Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund has been using Palin’s support of the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska as a peg to bring attention to the issue – and also it seems to drum up some donations amid the recessionary crunch.

The home page on its web site says: “Help Stop Palin’s Wolf Slaughter: DONATE NOW”.

The seven press releases it has issued so far this year on its online newsroom have one main topic: Palin and wolf hunting.

“Palin Administration Calls in the Helicopters for Sweeping Wolf Massacre,” says one.  Another talks about “Palin’s extreme Anti-Conservation Agenda.” The group has also distributed a graphic video narrated by Hollywood star Ashley Judd which takes aim at Palin and the aerial hunting of wolves.

Jessica Brand, a spokesperson with Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, said :”It’s not really a personality thing … It’s an issue we will work on after she is governor and it is an issue we worked on before she was governor.”

Still, one has to wonder if they can really gin up this issue without Palin as a polar bear-sized target. Their “Eye on Palin” campaign has been a key part of their wider campaign against wolf hunting. That will be difficult to sustain with her no longer in a position to make or execute policy in Alaska.

Palin has also inadvertently helped to ignite other bases on the other side of the fence.  In September last year, Obama’s campaign said that after her fiery speech to the Republican National Convention, $8 million had poured into it from more than 130,000 donors within a matter of hours.

(Photo: A video frame grab shows former U.S. Republican Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announcing that she will resign this month and will not run for re-election as governor in Wasilla, Alaska, July 3, 2009. REUTERS/KTUU-TV (UNITED STATES POLITICS ELECTIONS)

Sarah Palin has struck back at Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, which is running a video accusing the Alaska governor of planning to expand the aerial hunting of wolves in her state.

The graphic video, part of the group’s “Eye on Palin” campaign, is narrated by Hollywood star Ashley Judd and has generated a lot of media attention this week.

Here is the full text of Palin’s brief statement, which was released late on Tuesday:

“It is reprehensible and hypocritical that the Defenders of Wildlife would use Alaska and my administration as a fundraising tool to deceive Americans into parting with their hard-earned money.”

“The ad campaign by this extreme fringe group, as Alaskans have witnessed over the last several years, distorts the facts about Alaska’s wildlife management programs. Alaskans depend on wildlife for food and cultural practices which can’t be sustained when predators are allowed to decimate moose and caribou populations. Our predator control programs are scientific and successful at protecting vulnerable wildlife. These audacious fundraising attempts misrepresent what goes on in Alaska, and I encourage people to learn the facts about Alaska’s positive record of managing wildlife for abundance.”

“Shame on the Defenders of Wildlife for twisting the truth in an effort to raise funds from innocent and hard-pressed Americans struggling with these rough economic times.”

What is perhaps most revealing about the statement is that Palin, who shot to national prominence last year as the Republican Party’s vice presidential candidate, did not address one of the group’s key allegations: that she plans to introduce legislation shortly that would expand the aerial predator hunting program.

Whether the program is expanded or not, what do you think? is this kind of predator control cruel and inhumane? Or are most if not all efforts at the control of wild predators cruel? Can it ever be justified on scientific grounds? Or to, say, protect humans from man-eaters such as crocodiles? And is Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund using Palin to raise cash during a recession? What do you think?

(Photo Credit: REUTERS/Hans Deryk, USA, Nov 13, 2008)

Sarah Palin still has environmentalists howling.

The Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential hopeful is the target of a campaign by the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund which claims she is pushing for an expanded program for the shooting of wolves from the sky.

In a graphic video narrated by Hollywood star Ashley Judd, the group claims Palin even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf collected. You can view the video here.

“When Sarah Palin came on the national scene last summer, few knew that she promotes the brutal aerial killing of wolves. Now, back in Alaska, Palin is again casting aside science and championing the slaughter of wildlife,” Judd says in the video, which features footage of a wolf howling in pain after apparently being shot from the sky.

(Photo: Palin works a crowd, Dec 1, 2008. REUTERS/Tami Chappell, USA)

On its web site, the group said in a statement that: “Governor Palin is expected shortly to introduce state legislation that would dramatically expand the aerial killing program by removing the few remaining scientific requirements from the program. ” Palin’s office was contacted by Reuters and was not immediately available for comment.

Palin, an avid hunter and angler like many Alaskans, has frequently clashed with environmentalists on issues ranging from artic oil drilling to the delisting of endangered species.

After suing last year to keep polar bears off the U.S. threatened species list, Alaska’s government said in January it plans to issue a similar challenge to block federal protections for a struggling population of beluga whales in Cook Inlet, a mature oil-producing basin.

(Photo: Judd has an eye on Palin REUTERS/Ramin Rahimian, Jan 17, 2009, USA)

Palin was credited with galvanizing the Democratic Party base and raising money for abortion rights causes last year because of her social and religious conservatism and strong opposition to abortion rights.

It seems Palin can still galvanize activsists on the left and in this case perhaps help raise money for a conservation group.

(Photo Credit: Wolves on the prowl. Canon USA Handout, Undated)

 U.S. Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is making few friends among U.N. climate experts with her view that natural swings, along with human activities, may explain global warming.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Climate Panel, says that evidence is mounting that human activities are the main cause of warming. The panel reported last year that it was at least 90 percent certain that human activities, led by burning fossil fuels, were heating the planet.

He predicted in a telephone interview that Palin’s influence would be limited on climate change if Republican John McCain won the presidency.

“In the ultimate analysis I don’t think the vice president of the United States really matters in these subjects. I wouldn’t really worry too much about her,” he said.

 (…even so, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, with Pachauri’s panel. Or did Gore only become a guru for greens after he left office?)

Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, also said when asked about Palin’s views that: “We have the science. The debate over the science is over.”

Many delegates at an International Union for Conservation of Nature congress I am attending in Barcelona also say they worry that Palin’s views make it sound as if the science of global warming is far less certain than it is.

So, at least from interviews I have been doing for a Reuters News environment summit, Palin is out in the cold.

Who’s right?

California environmentalists are in tizzy this week, accusing Republican Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of telling their governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, how to do his job.

At issue is a letter Palin sent to Schwarzenegger last month, asking him to veto a bill that would raise shipping container fees to pay for pollution-reduction programs at three major California ports.

The letter, which Palin sent to Schwarzenegger a day before she was announced as John McCain’s running mate, began circling on the Web on Thursday.

In it, Palin argues that the fees would hurt Alaskans, who rely heavily on marine cargo to receive goods.

“Shipping costs have increased significantly with the rising price of fuel and these higher costs are quickly passed on to Alaskans,” Palin wrote. “This tax makes the situation worse.”

Palin also argued that the $30 fee per 20-foot container would “harm California by driving port business away.”

California’s three biggest ports — Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland — are responsible for nearly half of the nation’s imports.

“Gov. Palin needs to visit Southern California and understand that we are the tailpipe of the nation, ” said the bill’s author, California State Senator Alan Lowenthal. “By getting cheap goods from Asia to Alaska, we are subsidizing Alaskans with our health.” 

Environmentalists also countered the letter swiftly, saying the bill was critical to reducing the number of pollution-related deaths in California.

“We’re counting on the governor to stand up for California and not out-of-state interests,” Martin Schlageter, campaign director for California air quality group the Coalition for Clean Air, said of the letter.

The bill has received the approval of the California legislature, but the Governor himself has yet to sign it or comment on his plans.

McCain, whose presidential bid Schwarzenegger has endorsed, toured the Los Angeles port area with the California Governor in February of last year. At the time, he called for a nationwide roll-out of California’s low carbon fuel standard.

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?

Stuart Gaffin is a climate researcher at Columbia University and a regular contributor with his blog “Exhausted Earth”. ThomsonReuters is not responsible for the content - the views are the author’s alone.

I am not a Republican. However, early in John McCain’s campaign for the presidency, I would often say to friends and family-who know I am not a Republican-that if I did vote solely on the one issue I research most, climate change, I would probably vote for McCain.

He came across to me as the candidate who most respected the science and gravity of the issue (perhaps even as much as Al Gore I thought … why else take such a big political risk with his party?) and was prepared to lead America in a new direction. That was then, this is now.

The Republican political machine, in bringing new ‘discipline’ to the McCain campaign, has no doubt also shut him down on the global warming issue. I seem to hear little about it any more from him (”Drill here!  Drill Now!”). His new vice-presidential (VP) pick - Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, is just further evidence of this. 

Palin believes that current global warming is somehow unrelated to the massive greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere.  

 Her online climate change report  clearly implies that she thinks it is a natural cycle and that nothing except adaptation should be done about it. (See my last blog about the ‘first question’ I often would like to ask skeptics of global warming.)

These extreme positions are offered without a single piece of scientific evidence to support them. They obviously will only justify unmitigated fossil fuel combustion.

We’ve had eight years of an administration with a vice president who holds similar positions and who has demonstrated the stagnating power that VP’s can exert on U.S. climate policy and which only leads to accelerated greenhouse gas emissions. It would be true change to have a VP who understands that it there is a profound difference between an atmosphere with a carbon dioxide concentration of 1000 parts per million versus one with 400 or less.