Help Save Alaskan Communities
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COMMUNITIES IN CRISIS
Rapidly changing climates are affecting the livability of Alaskan villages. We are doing this fundraiser at the request of the Alaskan Indigenous People to help them raise money to protect their future generations.
BACKSTORY AND SOLUTION
Alaska is melting due to permafrost thaw. Whole communities are being washed away due to accelerated erosion. Both existing and new infrastructure in remote villages are failing at an alarming rate. Human health is affected as many homes are sinking causing sewer pipes to pull away from the structures, necessitating the use of honey buckets. Sewage lagoons are threatening to erode, releasing raw sewage into the sea. Also, community wells are being contaminated due to flooding; drinkable water must be collected from snow or freshwater ponds. Even cemeteries are being dug up and relocated. Failing infrastructure is not the only challenge facing villagers. Changes in frozen tundra, ice cellars, travel routes, and storm frequency are just a few of the impacts on the livability of the villages; entire villages are relocating. The Alaska Federation of Natives has declared a state of emergency, with Native Alaskans stating they just “want to survive.” There are over 200 villages in Alaska, each facing new threats to their homes and traditional lifestyles. One Village Elder was quoted saying, “I’m concerned for the younger generation; we need to do something here and now.”
The changes in climate, including the increased occurrence of extreme weather‐related events, are a threat to Alaska and Alaskans. Communities need to adapt to the ‘new’ current conditions while preparing for escalating changes. These environmentally threated villages do not have the information they need for effective resilience planning. Community members need to know what projected climates may look like in 10, 20 or 50 years to help them prepare for the future. This fundraiser will provide actionable data to threatened communities, enabling indigenous villages to be proactive instead of reactive to climate change.
FUNDING PLACEMENT
The total fundraiser is $500,000. Funding for each phase is as follows:
Phase 1 – Collect actionable data. $175,000. The data for Alaska needs to be obtained. This is the base cost: This amount is simply too high for any individual village to fund. We are in Phase 1.
Phase 2 – Process raw data: $100,000. The initial data obtained from Phase 1 will be in a raw form that will need to be transformed into a manageable product.
Phase 3 – Develop Forward-Looking Data: $225,000 – The data will be used to predict and understand the direct risks to villagers.
Phase 4 – Village Support: Any amount raised over $500,000+ will be used to continue to work with villages, including providing monetary matches to enable villages to receive federal funds.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
We appreciate any donation amount you can provide. You can also help by spreading the word about this cause. Please share this GoFundMe link on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform you use. Every dollar will be used directly to benefit Alaska communities.
- Children play next to a sinking boardwalk in Chefornak, AK.
TECHNICAL DETAILS
The current climate data used to determine building criteria is from 1984. Alaska’s climates, e.g., 50-year storm, have changed considerably since then, resulting in costly decisions being made based on outdated information. Extreme climate events have exacerbated the situation, with profound impacts on village infrastructure. With impacts accelerating, vulnerable communities often don’t have time to wait for solutions. As small, poorer communities, they don’t have money to mitigate climate shocks. Many agencies that typically assist with hazards (FEMA, EPA, USDA) require non-governmental matching funds, which are challenging for small communities of only 50-300 people to obtain.
Statewide projection of future climates is needed for creating risk assessments to be used in developing adaptation plans to increase community resilience. For example, the number of road culverts required to handle projected extreme rainfall events, or how to design docks resilient to future flooding, waves and storm events. Such statewide data will also enable spatial analysis of environmental risks and shifts, such as changes in habitats, drought, wildfire, etc., which would provide indigenous communities with understandable and actionable data to address their short- and long-term concerns. For instance, what buildings are projected to be at the greatest risk and when, how high their buildings need to be elevated to avoid potential flooding, how their food sources and water quality might change, how will travel routes be impacted, or to identify areas suitable for relocation. Furthermore, the dataset would provide scientific data to convince government agencies that environmentally threatened villages are facing emergency situations, which could aid them in receiving grant funding to assist with mitigation and adaptation actions, thereby improving village resilience to climate change.
Although there is a vast amount of information available on the projected effects of climate change, there is a dearth of understandable information available to the people that must adapt to a changing environment. The IPCC provides historical and future climate data online, but the people most affected by climate change tend not to have the ability to apply the data effectively. Also, the scale that most data is available is too large to be of practical use. For example, getting climate data at a 50 km scale is not informative for building resilient infrastructure or deciding where to relocate a village. Obtaining meaningful data takes processing, modeling and downscaling, along with an understanding of climate science and the socio-economic needs of the local population. Although the basic science is available, the technical transfer of this data into an applied, a usable form is not readily available or easily obtained by non-scientists, and most importantly, not by the people most affected by climate shocks or changes in environmental services. This fundraiser will provide the means to:
1. Develop Current Baseline Conditions. Update the current 1984 data to 2020 by using existing data from discussions with tribal Elders and members of the community (i.e., traditional knowledge), and data from state and federal agencies, geographic information systems, and remotely sensed data products (e.g., NASA satellite retrievals) to determine the current baseline climate and environmental conditions and how the processes affecting these conditions have varied with recent climate change.
2. Develop Forward-Looking Data: Use the IPCC, CMIP5, SNAP/UAF, CORDEX (Arctic and North America), and NASA NEX-GDDP datasets for RCP 4.5 and 8.5, to predict 8 slow onset variables and the changes in extremes of 3 variables (temperature, precipitation, wind) for baseline (2010), and projected for years 2030, 2060, and 2090, including predicted variability and an uncertainty ranges.
3. Predict Future Climate Impacts from Forward-Looking Data: Different data layers will be overlaid to predict the interaction between variables at different projected time intervals from baseline (current) into the future to determine the impacts of the gradual onset of climate change and of shifts in the frequency and intensity of extreme events. This data will be used to update infrastructure-relevant information on Alaska’s climate, especially the risks associated with building new infrastructure or protecting existing infrastructure and will allow spatial analyses of environmental risks, such as changes in habitats, drought, wildfire, and other impacts that affect community social, economic, and cultural processes, and the livability of their villages.
The goal of this fundraiser is to develop cost-effective, scientifically-sound, easily applied tools that incorporate the biological and socioeconomic dimensions into the planning process for adaptation and mitigation, thereby fostering community resilience and empowering vulnerable communities to move from reactive to proactive climate strategies.
-Village Elder discussing imminent environmental concerns in Chefornak
Rapidly changing climates are affecting the livability of Alaskan villages. We are doing this fundraiser at the request of the Alaskan Indigenous People to help them raise money to protect their future generations.
BACKSTORY AND SOLUTION
Alaska is melting due to permafrost thaw. Whole communities are being washed away due to accelerated erosion. Both existing and new infrastructure in remote villages are failing at an alarming rate. Human health is affected as many homes are sinking causing sewer pipes to pull away from the structures, necessitating the use of honey buckets. Sewage lagoons are threatening to erode, releasing raw sewage into the sea. Also, community wells are being contaminated due to flooding; drinkable water must be collected from snow or freshwater ponds. Even cemeteries are being dug up and relocated. Failing infrastructure is not the only challenge facing villagers. Changes in frozen tundra, ice cellars, travel routes, and storm frequency are just a few of the impacts on the livability of the villages; entire villages are relocating. The Alaska Federation of Natives has declared a state of emergency, with Native Alaskans stating they just “want to survive.” There are over 200 villages in Alaska, each facing new threats to their homes and traditional lifestyles. One Village Elder was quoted saying, “I’m concerned for the younger generation; we need to do something here and now.”
The changes in climate, including the increased occurrence of extreme weather‐related events, are a threat to Alaska and Alaskans. Communities need to adapt to the ‘new’ current conditions while preparing for escalating changes. These environmentally threated villages do not have the information they need for effective resilience planning. Community members need to know what projected climates may look like in 10, 20 or 50 years to help them prepare for the future. This fundraiser will provide actionable data to threatened communities, enabling indigenous villages to be proactive instead of reactive to climate change.
FUNDING PLACEMENT
The total fundraiser is $500,000. Funding for each phase is as follows:
Phase 1 – Collect actionable data. $175,000. The data for Alaska needs to be obtained. This is the base cost: This amount is simply too high for any individual village to fund. We are in Phase 1.
Phase 2 – Process raw data: $100,000. The initial data obtained from Phase 1 will be in a raw form that will need to be transformed into a manageable product.
Phase 3 – Develop Forward-Looking Data: $225,000 – The data will be used to predict and understand the direct risks to villagers.
Phase 4 – Village Support: Any amount raised over $500,000+ will be used to continue to work with villages, including providing monetary matches to enable villages to receive federal funds.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
We appreciate any donation amount you can provide. You can also help by spreading the word about this cause. Please share this GoFundMe link on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media platform you use. Every dollar will be used directly to benefit Alaska communities.
- Children play next to a sinking boardwalk in Chefornak, AK.TECHNICAL DETAILS
The current climate data used to determine building criteria is from 1984. Alaska’s climates, e.g., 50-year storm, have changed considerably since then, resulting in costly decisions being made based on outdated information. Extreme climate events have exacerbated the situation, with profound impacts on village infrastructure. With impacts accelerating, vulnerable communities often don’t have time to wait for solutions. As small, poorer communities, they don’t have money to mitigate climate shocks. Many agencies that typically assist with hazards (FEMA, EPA, USDA) require non-governmental matching funds, which are challenging for small communities of only 50-300 people to obtain.
Statewide projection of future climates is needed for creating risk assessments to be used in developing adaptation plans to increase community resilience. For example, the number of road culverts required to handle projected extreme rainfall events, or how to design docks resilient to future flooding, waves and storm events. Such statewide data will also enable spatial analysis of environmental risks and shifts, such as changes in habitats, drought, wildfire, etc., which would provide indigenous communities with understandable and actionable data to address their short- and long-term concerns. For instance, what buildings are projected to be at the greatest risk and when, how high their buildings need to be elevated to avoid potential flooding, how their food sources and water quality might change, how will travel routes be impacted, or to identify areas suitable for relocation. Furthermore, the dataset would provide scientific data to convince government agencies that environmentally threatened villages are facing emergency situations, which could aid them in receiving grant funding to assist with mitigation and adaptation actions, thereby improving village resilience to climate change.
Although there is a vast amount of information available on the projected effects of climate change, there is a dearth of understandable information available to the people that must adapt to a changing environment. The IPCC provides historical and future climate data online, but the people most affected by climate change tend not to have the ability to apply the data effectively. Also, the scale that most data is available is too large to be of practical use. For example, getting climate data at a 50 km scale is not informative for building resilient infrastructure or deciding where to relocate a village. Obtaining meaningful data takes processing, modeling and downscaling, along with an understanding of climate science and the socio-economic needs of the local population. Although the basic science is available, the technical transfer of this data into an applied, a usable form is not readily available or easily obtained by non-scientists, and most importantly, not by the people most affected by climate shocks or changes in environmental services. This fundraiser will provide the means to:
1. Develop Current Baseline Conditions. Update the current 1984 data to 2020 by using existing data from discussions with tribal Elders and members of the community (i.e., traditional knowledge), and data from state and federal agencies, geographic information systems, and remotely sensed data products (e.g., NASA satellite retrievals) to determine the current baseline climate and environmental conditions and how the processes affecting these conditions have varied with recent climate change.
2. Develop Forward-Looking Data: Use the IPCC, CMIP5, SNAP/UAF, CORDEX (Arctic and North America), and NASA NEX-GDDP datasets for RCP 4.5 and 8.5, to predict 8 slow onset variables and the changes in extremes of 3 variables (temperature, precipitation, wind) for baseline (2010), and projected for years 2030, 2060, and 2090, including predicted variability and an uncertainty ranges.
3. Predict Future Climate Impacts from Forward-Looking Data: Different data layers will be overlaid to predict the interaction between variables at different projected time intervals from baseline (current) into the future to determine the impacts of the gradual onset of climate change and of shifts in the frequency and intensity of extreme events. This data will be used to update infrastructure-relevant information on Alaska’s climate, especially the risks associated with building new infrastructure or protecting existing infrastructure and will allow spatial analyses of environmental risks, such as changes in habitats, drought, wildfire, and other impacts that affect community social, economic, and cultural processes, and the livability of their villages.
The goal of this fundraiser is to develop cost-effective, scientifically-sound, easily applied tools that incorporate the biological and socioeconomic dimensions into the planning process for adaptation and mitigation, thereby fostering community resilience and empowering vulnerable communities to move from reactive to proactive climate strategies.
-Village Elder discussing imminent environmental concerns in Chefornak 
Fundraising team: TBEC (3)
Ronni L Wilcock
Organizer
Anchorage, AK
Rita Kingery Bachand
Team member
Jase Wilcock
Team member