As a world champion cross-country skier who excels in sprint events, I have an obsession with snow and speed. Downhill skiers fly by harnessing the raw power of gravity. Nordic sprinters go fast through sheer force of will. We fight gravity as much as harness it. Through the coordinated actions of arms, legs and mind, and by maximizing push and minimizing friction, we seek the infinite glide. Cross-country skiing is the mastery of the glide. To glide is to find that elusive, fleeting moment of inertia where we seemingly free ourselves from our bond with Earth. To glide is to fly on flat ground. To glide is to give in to the magical properties of snow.
Cross-country skiing is my job, my passion and my life. I'm an Alaskan, and like many Alaskans I got my first skis around the same time I learned to walk. To me, snow is family. Skiing, snowshoeing, sledding and simply playing in the snow are how we form friendships as children, how we bond as families, how we connect as communities. Fresh-fallen snow provides calm quietude. Watching snowflakes fall is to witness atmospheric alchemy. Snow is the tie that binds us together as Alaskans.
This summer, hundreds of fires encompassing nearly five million acres burned across our state. People in the Lower 48 have a hard time believing this. They think of Eskimos and polar bears when they think of Alaska. Forest fires are for hot and dry places, for Colorado and Idaho and New Mexico. Increasingly, they are the norm up here, too. The patterns we knew as children are changing.
As a child, my parents often brought me to visit a local glacier. I vividly remember thinking how cool it was to watch the glacier calve right there in front of my eyes. Thirty years later, that glacier is no longer visible from the visitor's center. Children visiting today can no longer experience that powerful natural force as I did.
In summer, I frequently train on the glacial snowfield above Girdwood. I've watched that glacier change before my eyes through the years. Every year there are more crevasses, more runoff, more melting.
Racing on the World Cup for nine years has allowed me to witness the global winter meltdown firsthand. More than half of International Ski Federation (FIS) competitions are now held on manmade snow. Even with snowmaking, however, national and international cross-country races are being canceled at an increasing rate because temperatures are not cold enough to make snow. Fourteen of the hottest years on record have come in the past 15 years, and 2015 is on pace to be the hottest yet. You don't have to be a scientist to understand this.
Warmer and shorter winters present a huge challenge for the snow industry. Within a decade, the venue that hosted the 2015 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in Falun, Sweden, may no longer be able to hold the event. Temperature trends and climate models show it will be too warm to maintain enough snow. Falun, like Fairbanks, like Anchorage, is a historically cold northern latitude city. These losses simply can't be quantified in economic terms. By diminishing snow, we are stealing from the future.
So, if you want to look into the future of climate change, just visit Alaska. Alaska has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the United States over the past 60 years. We are on the front lines of change. Ask any local. Or speak to the residents of Kotzebue or Kivalina about thawing permafrost, (which is especially problematic as it'll release toxic methane from lake bottoms), or the disappearance of sea ice and storm surges making relocation of all the residents an almost certainty.
This week, President Obama did just that -- talked to locals -- when he traveled to Alaska and became the first sitting president to ever visit the Arctic Circle. He wants to talk to locals and see for himself the impacts of climate change. Let's hope that what he saw and learned in Alaska pushes him to make climate action a part of his legacy. He has already begun to act. The Clean Power Plan he announced in early August is a historic step forward in cleaning up the nation's power plants, which are the source of 40 percent of our carbon emissions. Sen. Murkowski lobbied successfully to have Alaska exempted from the plan, with which every other state must comply.
That's too bad. Alaska should lead by example, not seek exemptions from climate action. By 2100, the United States could face as much as $180 billion in economic losses because of drought and water shortages. In Alaska, the replacement costs of our public infrastructure from climate change could be as much as $6.1 billion over the next 20 years, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it will cost $125 million to relocate just one of the many villages impacted by rising sea levels. And the area burned by wildfires in Alaska is projected to double by mid-century and to triple by the end of the century.
The social costs will be even greater. Native American culture, entire villages and ancestral hunting and fishing grounds, will be lost forever if we fail to act now. Carbon dioxide has no boundaries. As Alaskans we need to show our support for the Clean Power Plan and climate action.
As someone who has spent her life nurturing speed, I urge everyone to act fast to safeguard snow and winter and Alaska. We must harness our collective power as citizens to make change. It's time to fly, to go fast.
Four-time Olympian and three-time Overall World Cup Sprint Champion Kikkan Randall is among the most decorated female cross-country athletes in American history. A graduate of East High School, she lives in Anchorage and is an inductee in the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame.
The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.