Editorial: Climate-change canary

Monday, July 2, 2007 | 7:08 a.m.

People who still doubt the existence of significant climate change need to look at Alaska, where melting ice caused by higher temperatures could add as much as $6.1 billion to infrastructure repairs over the next 20 years.

A report released last week by the Institute for Social and Economic research at the University of Alaska Anchorage suggests that flooding likely would increase with the continued melting of polar ice and permafrost - an underground layer of ice on which most of Alaska's buildings, roads and other infrastructure are constructed.

Temperatures across the state have risen two to five degrees, on average, over the past couple of decades, the report says, resulting in coastal erosion and wildfires in remote communities.

While the report's authors wrote that they "assume warming temperatures mean infrastructure has to be replaced more often," they also said "it's possible that changing climate could actually increase the life of some structures." Still, the researchers added, no such exceptions have yet been found.

But at least they are looking for potential problems in an effort to avert future infrastructure collapse. Such assessments can't happen unless people take the notion of climate change seriously.

Maybe climate change is simply easier to see in a place where cold is the norm and warm is not. When remote villages that have relied on the seas for centuries start falling into the oceans and huge segments of wildlife populations, such as polar bears, start dying off, it should get the locals' attention.

It should make those of us living in the Lower 48 take pause - and take stock - as well. What's happening to Alaska is happening, in some form, to all of us. Alaska isn't taking any chances, and it's an example the rest of the country would do well to follow.