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FREEZE & The Alaska Forum

FREEZE is pleased to announce that the Alaska Forum on the Environment, 2009 will be held February 2-6, 2009 using both the Anchorage Egan Convention Center and the new Dena’ina Center for the event.  This year the Alaska Forum will offer over 90 technical breakout sessions and 8 sensational Keynote Events. Join the Forum for a full week of sessions on climate change, energy, environmental regulations, cleanup and remediation, fish & wildlife, solid waste, and much more.  For more information visit www.akforum.com.

Presentation: Northern Ecology

Presentation on the polar bears of the Arctic, by USGS researcher Steven C. Amstrup.

Steven C. Amstrup is a Research Wildlife Biologist with the Unites States Geological Survey at the Alaska Science Center, Anchorage AK. He holds a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Washington (1972), a M.S. in Wildlife Management from the University of Idaho (1975), and a Ph.D. in Wildlife Management from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (1995). He has been conducting research on all aspects of polar bear ecology in the Beaufort Sea for 24 years. His interests include distribution and movement patterns as well as population dynamics of wildlife, and how information on those topics can be used to assure wise stewardship. He is particularly interested in how science can help to reconcile the ever enlarging human footprint on our environment with the needs of other species for that same environment. Prior work experiences include studies of black bears in central Idaho, and pronghorns and grouse in Wyoming. On their honeymoon in New Zealand in 1999, Steven and his wife Virginia helped in a tagging study of little blue penguins. That experience gave Steve the honor of being one of the very few people ever to have been bitten by both polar bears and penguins.

Anchorage Museum Auditorium, FREE.

Movie: Strait Through the Ice

Part of the Movies For Your Mind series, this film shows with a Chilly Willy Cartoon “Half Baked Alaska” 7 minutes (total running time 59m).

US documentary, 2008. 52 minutes. MPAA RATING: Not Rated.  Directed by Yves Billy
http://icarusfilms.com/new2008/strait.html

From the official website: Today the North Pole is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet. The Arctic ice cap is less than half the size it was 50 years ago. This radical climate change has thus begun to open the ice-packed Northwest Passage between Europe and Asia, and some scientists predict that the transoceanic maritime route will soon be permanently ice free during its ever-longer summers.  STRAIT THROUGH THE ICE examines the geopolitical ramifications of this development, including disputes between the five nations bordering the Arctic Ocean-the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia-over claims to territorial waters, the control of sea traffic, and the right to exploit the region’s untapped resources of oil and other natural resources. But if this multinational race to the Arctic is not legally regulated, the region’s fragile ecosystem could be devastated.

Anchorage Museum.

The Changing North

Presentations by:

• Margaret Manousoff, Outreach & Advocacy Coordinator at Alaska Conservation Solutions, will give a presentation on the causes and effects of global warming with a specific focus on the challenges and opportunities in Alaska. 11:00 – 11:30 am.
• Anne Jensen, a Senior Scientist for the Ukpeagvik Iñupiat Corporation and National Science Foundation-funded researcher, will give a presentation on Barrow archaeology, which substantiates the long ties between local people and whales, and on the incorporation of local students in field and laboratory work. 11:30 am – 12:00 pm.
• Lunch break. 12:00 – 1:00 pm.
• FREEZE musical spot performance featuring Melissa Wannamaker. 1:00 – 1:15 pm.
• Leonard Piitkaq Apangalook, Sr., is a leader and whaling captain from the Yupik community of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island. He has kept a meticulous daily weather journal for 20 years and, as a key contributor for the Sea Ice Knowledge and Use (SIKU): Assessing Arctic Environmental and Social Change project, produced daily logs on sea ice, weather and local subsistence activities in his community for the 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 “ice years” for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year, an international effort researching the polar regions. Mr. Apangalook will discuss the effects of climate change in his region and his on-going work for SIKU. 1:15 – 2:00 pm.
• Larry Merculieff, an Unangax (Aleut) leader from St. Paul Island, will speak from the perspective of traditional hunters and Native elders on the subject of changes in the Arctic due to global warming. 2:00 – 2:45 pm.
• Coffee break. 2:45 – 3:00 pm.
• Jana Pausauraq Harcharek, head of Iñupiaq education for the North Slope Borough School District (NSBSD) will present a talk on the district’s language and culture-based projects. Debby Dahl Edwardson is the Director of the Center of Community and Workforce Development at Ilisagvik College and a member of the NSBSD Board.  Author of the bi-lingual children’s book Whale Snow, Debby will read from her book and talk about its making. 3:00 – 4:00 pm.
• Charles Wohlforth, author of The Whale and the Supercomputer, will present slides taken while traveling in the Arctic with Inupiaq whalers and scientists, as each culture struggled to understand and adapt to the fast-changing climate. 4:00 – 5:00 pm.

Anchorage Museum.  FREE.

Movies for Your Mind

The Last Days of Shishmaref

Anchorage Museum Auditorium

Alaska/Netherlands 2008 documentary, In English/Inupiaq with English subtitles, 90 minutes.  MPAA RATING: Not rated.  Directed by Jan Louter.

www.shishmaref.nl/shishmaref/shishmaref_release-2.4.4/MainView.html

Review from the AFI Film Festival by Jacqueline Lyanga:
While politicians, scientists and environmentalists debate the effects of global warming, an Inupiaq Eskimo community in northwest Alaska, just under the Arctic Circle, faces the real world consequences of climate change every day. The ice beneath the small Alaskan village of Shishmaref, on the island of Sarichef, is melting. Homes are falling into the ocean. The situation is so severe that it has been predicted that the entire village will disappear within the next 10 years. How can you move an entire way of life? And should these villagers go to the edges of a city, or retain their rural ways? Filmmaker Jan Louter captures the transience of the Inupiaq’s traditional way of life in the face of the collision of climate change, satellite television and mail order shopping. The icy landscape—its water, smoke, steam and sky—is beautifully photographed, as are the village’s inhabitants. Every frame is a poignant portrait. The film doesn’t present a barrage of facts and figures to make its point, instead giving the viewer entry into the issue of climate change by way of a third eye. We feel the loss, the pain and the sadness of the families as they realize that they will never recover a way of life being swallowed by the sea.

Movies For Your Mind

The Ice People

6 p.m., Anchorage Museum

France/USA documentary 2008, 77 minutes
MPAA RATING: Not rated.  Directed by Anne Aghion.

A once-in-a-lifetime journey with Antarctica’s 21st-century explorers
http://www.icepeople.com

From the official web site:
Unique in the genre of exploration and adventure films, ICE PEOPLE takes you on one of the earth’s most seductive journeys—Antarctica.  Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Anne Aghion spent four months “on the ice” with modern-day polar explorers, to find out what drives dedicated researchers to leave the world behind in pursuit of science, and to capture the true experience of living and working in this extreme environment.  And, as it turns out, the film also witnesses one of the most significant discoveries about climate change in recent Antarctic science.