Alaska sits at the heart of two big, tangled global questions: how to slow climate change, and where, or whether, to develop oil.
Alaska uses the income from oil to fund basic services. But oil production in the state is in long-term decline. Oil companies and their many allies are pushing for a crude revival. Can Alaska reconcile the desire to drill, with the need to limit climate change?
In the first episode of a special two-part series, Charlotte Howard reports from Alaska. Iñupiat elder Bobby Schaeffer explains how warming temperatures are affecting his community. Alaska’s Governor Mike Dunleavy pushes for a resurgence in American drilling. And Kara Moriarty from the Alaska Oil and Gas Association explains why she thinks the state needs to rejuvenate its oil industry.
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