Clinton: No Doubt That Global Warming Is a Real Threat

A whirlwind tour of western Canada and Alaska is leaving Senator Clinton and three of her Republican colleagues more convinced than ever that global warming is a real and menacing phenomenon, the lawmakers said yesterday.“I don’t think there is any doubt left for anyone who actually looks at the science,” Mrs. Clinton said during a news conference in Anchorage. “There are still some holdouts, but they are facing a losing battle. The science is overwhelming, but what is deeply concerning is that climate change is accelerating.”The four-day trip to some of the northernmost settlements in Canada and America was organized by Senator McCain of Arizona, who is sponsoring legislation to limit emissions of so-called greenhouse gases thought to contribute to global warming. Also along for the journey were Senators Collins of Maine and Graham of South Carolina.The first stop for the group was the city of Whitehorse in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The senators flew by helicopter over forests badly hurt by an infestation of the spruce bark beetle. According to locals, the pest is usually kept in check by hard winter freezes. However, in recent years temperatures have not gotten low enough to kill the beetle, which causes damage that reduces lumber quality and makes the forests more susceptible to fire.“The North is kind of a sounding board for what’s going to be happening in other parts of the world,” the top tribal leader in the area, Andy Carvill, said. Mr. Carvill, who is grand chief of the Council of Yukon First Nations, said the visiting senators were treated to a dinner that featured local delicacies, such as roast caribou, salmon, and berries.The senators joined with locals in a performance of traditional dance by the Teslin Tlingit council, Mr. Carvill said. Mrs. Clinton was reportedly the most enthusiastic participant, donning a pair of special moccasins she was given for the occasion. “It was really a sight to behold,” the grand chief said. “As they were calling her up, she put on her slippers, which was really good.”The delegation, which traveled by military aircraft, spent most of Tuesday in Barrow, Alaska, which is the home base for a number of climate research projects.While residents of the region say temperatures there have been unseasonably mild in recent years, the weather Mrs. Clinton and her colleagues have encountered is far from the summertime scorchers New York City residents have been enduring. Parts of Canada experienced record highs over the weekend, but while the delegation was on the ground in Barrow, the mercury peaked at 38 degrees.The near-freezing temperatures seemed to be a bit of a shock to the senators, who are used to warmer climes, the executive director of the Barrow Arctic Research Consortium, Glenn Sheehan, said. “It was a lot brisker here,” he said in a phone interview. “Last night, it snowed, for instance.”Mr. Sheehan said the senators met a wide range of Barrow residents. “They ate with local people, including scientists and hunters,” he said. “They got out to field locations on the tundra.”Senator Murkowski of Alaska hosted a dinner for the senators Tuesday night in Anchorage, but not all locals were so welcoming. The chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rep. Don Young, a Republican of Alaska, dismissed the senators’ trip as a “junket” and suggested they should have spent the congressional recess visiting their own states, the Daily News reported.The president of High Country Inn in Whitehorse, Yukon, where Mrs. Clinton and the others spent the night Monday, said the trip was no vacation. “I think they had a nice stay, but, boy, I wouldn’t like their schedule,” said Barry Bellchambers. “They flew in, had a meeting, dinner, and a reception; the following morning, they had a press conference and flew out.” The inn’s slogan is “We’re a Yukon adventure, with none of that ‘roughing it’ stuff.”The delegation was to visit Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska, today before returning home tonight.During the press conference yesterday, Mrs. Clinton railed against global warming skeptics in Washington, accusing them of attempting to turn the capital into an “evidence-free zone.”“You just keep saying something, no matter how untrue and unfactual it might be, over and over and over again, and try to drive the politics to meet your ideological or commercial agenda,” she said, according to the Associated Press.Some saw political motives in the trip, as both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain are considered likely presidential candidates in 2008.One political analyst, Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report, said she saw Mrs. Clinton’s journey with the Republican senators as part of an effort to soften her image as a die-hard liberal. “It’s not that she has so much a base problem, but more of an electability issue and she’s not going to be accepted by moderates,” Ms. Duffy said. “If so, what better way than to go camping with three of them.” Ms. Duffy said that while the senator has political ambitions, Mrs. Clinton is probably not courting Alaskans. “There’s not a lot of electoral votes up there for her.”While in Whitehorse, Mrs. Clinton also insisted on a tour of the local fish ladder that helps Chinook salmon complete a 1,800-mile journey to spawn in streams that feed the upper Yukon River.The visit may have jogged memories for the New York senator of the summer she spent working and traveling in Alaska in 1969. Among the odd jobs she took was one gutting fish. “My job required me to wear knee-high boots and stand in bloody water while removing guts from the salmon with a spoon,” Mrs. Clinton recalled in her memoir, “Living History.”Mrs. Clinton said she was fired after complaining that some fish looked spoiled. “Sliming fish was pretty good preparation for life in Washington,” she joked.

Clinton: No Doubt That Global Warming Is a Real Threat

More from the New York Sun

Florida Freeze Prompts Roundup of Cold-Stunned Iguanas as Thousands Fall From Trees

The 50,000 Dow

The Dow 50,000 Prosperity Rocket Ship

More from the New York Sun

Florida Freeze Prompts Roundup of Cold-Stunned Iguanas as Thousands Fall From Trees

The 50,000 Dow

The Dow 50,000 Prosperity Rocket Ship

Luigi Mangione’s Jeopardy

Will the Navy End Iran’s Ability To Export Oil?

Algebra, English, and Activism: Teachers at Middle and High School Instruct Students How To Protest ICE

Ex-CNN Star Ashleigh Banfield, Savannah Guthrie’s Former Coworker, Doubles Down on Her Reporting About Brother-in-Law

Economical Horror Indie ‘The Arborist’ Outshines Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners,’ in Many Respects