Youths urge restoration of climate information online

Alaska Youth for Environmental Action is urging Gov. Mike Dunleavy to restore online information on gathered by the Climate Action Leadership Team appointed by former Gov. Bill Walker. All information about the climate change team posted previously by the Walker administration was deleted after Dunleavy took office late last year.

Griffin Plush, a senior studying social science at the University of Alaska Southeast, and AYEA alumni, with Juneau-Douglas High School student Linnea Lentfer, a current AYEA member, delivered a petition with that request on Feb. 7 to the governor’s office in Juneau. The petition contained some 1,300 signatures collected online by Cook Inletkeeper, a community-based nonprofit in Homer whose mission is to protect the Cook Inlet watershed and the life it sustains.

Plush said that they had hoped to present the petition directly to Dunleavy, but that instead one of his staff took the petition and told them it could not be accepted as a rule making petition, because the signatures were collected online.

“Our intention was to send a message, that there are many Alaskans asking for the governor’s office to put the information back online,” Plush said. “We really hope the governor listens to the voices of these 1,300 Alaskans who ask him to be accountable to the people of Alaska.

“We have a right to know about the climate report and have it put back up on the website.

“It is critical that the issue of climate change stay in the forefront despite all the political intrigue with the Legislature right now,” he said.

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