administration, so you have further records out there. i will be following it, and i am ok being in that space of people accusing me of being too thoughtful on this. i want to be too thoughtful and i think alaskans expect me to be thoughtful. and i am welcoming their opinions, their views, everybody comes out it with something they care about. there is a process ahead of me, and as you have noted, i am in the swirl because i haven't been pegged into either box. and i won't be pegged into a box, i'm going to do my own work on this and do what alaskans expect me to do, which is be thorough and thoughtful. next, a visit to the foundation created by the states long time republican senator, ted stevens. follyska was not source

and is no longer an impoverished territory. alaska is a great the state and eccentric contributor to our security and national defense. of alaska including alaska's statehood including the settlement act, the fisheries conversation and transatlantic act and numerous others that we are going to talk about today. the ted stevens foundation was created to recognize and honor the senator's career and apply his legs he drew -- throughout to reach -- his legacy

throughout reach. archiving and curating his papers which show over 40 years of his career in public service. our archivists are hard at work. it is one of the largest congressional collections amassed in the united states. he was born in 1923 in indiana. he was raised in the early years by his grandparents and in his later teenage years, moved to california and was raised by his and and uncle. a love for surfing and his surfboard was in his senate office through his career. graduation, he attended college in oregon for a semester. his enjoying was to be a member of the armed services. and he really wanted to be a pilot. when he went to take the eye exam, he failed.

he told the story how he wanted back, didn't research -- did exercises andid i took the test and passed. tigers for the flying during world war ii. journey to alaska took twists and turns after his military service, he attended harvard law school on the g.i. bill. after graduating, he moved to the seat and started working at a law firm where he worked for an alaska-based client. that was his first title alaska. job to gor received a to anchorage. he moved his young family to alaska. from there, he was pointed to serve as an assistant to the secretary at the department of interior at the eisenhower administration. the biggest goal was to get

alaska statehood. one of the things i wanted to to talk about, you can see the special counsel to the president, this was the original pen used to sign with the alaska statehood. -- i am glad it to send and using toe pens sign the proclamation of allowing alaska into the union. alaska statehood was an issue that helped define senator stevens' career and he was known .s mr. alaska during that time, he gained an appreciation of the appoint his hisating diverse groups -- appreciation of bringing together diverse groups. it was trying to convince states of congress and

that it was part of the union that alaska statehood was beneficial. he brought together journalists and people from outside the normal realm to help sell the message to the american people and congress. while serving in a the alaska state legislature as a representative, the governor appointed a senator stevens to the u.s. send seat apart -- a senate seat upon the death of bob bartlett. one thing that was pressing in congress was settling the aboriginal land claims of alaska natives. prior to that, oil had been discovered. the question established under statehood, who owned land in alaska had never been settled. the discovery of the oil was threatened because he could not access it. the senator called his time working on what was in the

act.a-native claim it was another instance of how senator stevens used innovation and bipartisanship, which is a theme you can see through his career. he worked to bring together alaska natives and other to finally resolve these claims. what a stevens realized failure the reservoir system in the lower 48 was. he wanted to create something where the natives had control of their destiny, both to preserve the cultural tradition but to have an economic base from which they could perpetuate those in perpetuity. one of the things i wanted to show you today was a that act finally passed in 1971. that theis the note senators center -- -- senator sent --

and to establish 13 regional centers into which it gave the alaska natives control over their land and resources. the senator turned his attention on how we actually get the energy resources from the north of alaska to the rest of the united states. on the legislative agenda was authorizing the transatlantic pipeline. here, we see the actual president read -- richard nixon signing the act. there is an interesting story behind this. senator stevens and senator gravelle introduced an amendment which would block any kind of

legal challenge to the pipeline system. they were losing the vote and senator stevens on the floor gave a very impassioned statement which changed the mind of a fellow senator, which led into a tie in the vote which vice president spyro is a new had to break the tie. once the authorization was passed, construction began on the pipeline. that pipeline system and and it is a marvel of innovation. a fishermanallow cannot harvest a maximum yield which will not complete the species and they would have to fishter and pay a fee to and would be closely monitored.

on the high seas, the termination of dislocate -- the determination of dislocation would be made. chris the next issue the senator cap was the problem -- tackled was the problem of overfishing in it you as waters. -- in u.s. waters. at the time, senator stevens served on the commerce committee. madison was a democrat and senator stevens was a republican. but, senator and madison saw something in senator stevens and they decided to work together to try to resolve the issue. they went on the international and that it was taking quite a long time. they developed an innovative program which became the madison-stevens management act. byhave the pen signing

president jerry ford acknowledging passage of the fishery covers -- conservation act. what if the deal was extended u.s. jurisdiction to 200 miles off the coast of the united states. that's what we could regulate fisheries. it created fisheries managing councils which helped manage the population to make sure our fisheries remained healthy for future generations of americans. the senator was a lifelong advocate of healthy living. when he was in high school, he was a lifeguard in manhattan beach. that kind of physical activity translated later on in life. desire to ensure everybody had axes to the opportunities that sports provide led him to not only be a cosponsor of title ix but a lead

the amateur sports at. here is an example of the pen used by jimmy carter which established the amateur sports act of 1978. olympicnized the u.s. committee and gave both of the olympic up it -- committee and appellees of financial basis in which to excel. amateur sports act passed, senator stevens realized there was an act to ensure people of all abilities were able to protect the paint. he sponsored an amendment to the act which included paralympian's special olympians as part of the u.s. olympic program. here is a photo

the archives are incredibly important because of they show the story often senator steven'' approach. one of the things he was known for was his ability to reach across party lines to a factual way to change. his most famous quote is "to hell with politics and do what right." we pulled some representation from different letters. here's one where they were working on the alaska national interest lands conservation act which was designated wilderness areas, parks in alaska. he was working with his counterpart, representative in at the house. i will read of the letter to you. dear ted, you are a good man and

i all you an apology. i meant to call. i did want to sit down and work out a compromise but it got where i must work with -- and go with the markup process. i suspect we will be working get out in conference stage together. another example of bipartisanship and senator stevens loved to bring people to alaska. i think alaska is such a vast estate. ruralst of our communities are only accessible by air or both. because of that, they do not have running water home etc. she thought it was important to bring representatives to alaska. here's a photo of senator stevens with senator ted kennedy. they are in pilot station, alaska. , phoneas no email

service was spotty as word telegram. archivist was able to track down the daughter of the postmaster in the photo and ask of the story behind this photograph. the daughter related at that time, they had an idea somebody was coming and they saw 2 big military aircraft approaching. everybody thought the soviets were attacking them until the plane landed and senator stevens and senator kennedy got off. thing we do is to try to track down the stories behind the photos to give them a more complete view of alaska's history. the hearte is where is. homes. is so, i have 2 one is in the chamber and the other is my beloved state of alaska. i must leave a one to return to the other.

>> senator stevens left of the senate in january 2009. we lost him in a plane crash on august ninth, 2010. the time wasat disbelief. senator stevens had been a larger-than-life figure. he was the alaskan of the century. people refer to him as uncle ted. he was so approachable. if somebody had an issue with a problem with their social security or on corporation, they could speak to him directly. his loss was deeply felt throughout the state. looking around the state, you can see the tangible evidence of the things he worked on. the fisheries and oil and gas and hospitals and clinics. there is aviation and the airport. i think that senator stevens

lasting legacy is in the people whose lives he touched. one thing at the foundation we are doing is we really see those people of the lexi in action. they are continuing the work to improve -- of the legacy in action. -- their continuing the work to improve. his legacy is in people continuing the good work of the senator. >> welcome to the alaska state capital. startedng that construction in 1929 and completed in 1931. originally the territorial building in transition it to the capital in 1959.

the center of industry in the area. it is of the most important city of the time. the traditional capital of russia was in kodiak and him moved to sicca and congress neau and that area was moved. this was originally constructed -- the total cost including all the furnishings was about $1 million. this is a very modest rendition

of arctic cold architecture. building and composed of a brick, stone and terra-cotta. building and probably because it was intended to be a federal building with the territorial component. 4 of the office was dedicated to federal buildings and the other two territorial government. federal andy of territorial building which was in title when it was built 1929. it was one very distinctive characteristic which was -- supported by 4 large marble columns. they are from marble from the mine in southeast alaska. andt 300 feet in diameter 25 feet high. no mistaking the building.

it was an entire block which sounds like a lot but it takes up almost a block. some interesting associations with the capital and one is across the street at the plaza. in that plaza is a statue of william henry stewart, he was in the secretary of state for president abraham lincoln. treaty, he negotiated a with the russian minister to the united states that resulted interest furring russian america act of the time to the united states which was renamed on -- alaska. we commemorated the treaty. one of the events was the constructing of a statue of cross of the capital. that is very prominent in many of the photographs. now, we are standing in

the lobby of the ground floor. it is a very low selling space. space. -- ceiling it is a very welcoming place. the lobby is surrounded by marble, which is the same used in the columns outside, used here on the floor and the walls. it is another representation of using alaska resources in the construction of the building. we have moved to the chambers of the house of representatives on the east wing of the second floor of the capitol building. is the same location that it be house of representatives was housed. there were only 16 members of the house of representatives. today, we have 40. one place there are large columns in the building and those are original construction columns and structural building

columns. the room has expanded beyond that because it takes more time for the greater number of legislators and the interesting thing is in 1931 when they first opened, they did not have offices. all the legislators worked at their desk and the photos we have during session show papers all over their desks and that is not the case today. room and had plain a plaster ceiling and wall. today it has been remodeled and there is a larger wooden ling has and the cei been raised and the desks are more important. it has been significant improvement and the house chamber is larger than it the

senate chamber. where the large dias speaker of the house presides. adopted ineal was the district area and includes representation of the different industries, locking, fishing and and the different populations, human resources, indigenous population, which is a considerable population in alaska. it represents about 25% of the total population. indigenous people are active in the legislation. we moved into the senate chambers. the senate has room for 20 senators. it used to be the territorial museum. on the second floor, the senate chambers were originally in the southeast corner. they moved the senate chambers because it was more senators and

they what not all fit. they created a new room and the west wing of the second floor. it is decorated exactly the same as the house chambers. it is just smaller. it only houses 20 senators. an interesting piece of andslation that alaska has was sent to was the alaska permanent fund. when oil was discovered in started to reproduce from the bay, alaska had a real windfall in revenue. one of the issues that was discussed at how will we deal with that influx of cash knowing this is a resource that will eventually run out or be depleted? a permanent fund was set up to handle some of the revenue from the oil industry. -- it can not to be

spent without a certain amount of approval from the constituents. the revenue that spun off of that is available for revenue. now, i think there's something like $70 billion in that font. which a unique feature was a permanent fund dividend, which every year residents of the state would be given a dividend check, just like you are a stockholder. it was based on the revenue .roduced by the permanent fund it varied from a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand dollars. very significant. just now, it is considered some of that will be used for a state operations area it was only set up as "a rainy day fund." now the oil revenue is decreasing and the cost of state cover -- government has not

decreased and we are looking at different ways to fund state government. we have moved into the governor's office on the third floor. the governor's office has always been located in this portion of the building. it has been totally remodeled from the earlier days. during the recent reconstruction and the retrofit, all of the extra walls were removed. from this building, you could see from the outside. everything has been restored. constructed and restored to the way it was prior to the renovation. one of the interesting things is , when alaska became a district and being a territory, governors were appointed by the president of the united states. before statehood, they were elected i constituents. alaska has been fortunate to have distinguished senators.

-- governors. he -- governor greening was another very important governor during territorial days. another important figure, alaska's current governor, governor bill walker, the list and independent and will be seeking his second term this fall. and lieutenant governor, a democrat, the two of them were elected to a first-term a little while ago and will be running again. this building is a good representation of alaska. first of all, very welcoming, very collegial atmosphere where legislators have an opportunity to meet routinely with members of the other body and the

executive branch. it is a very modest representation. i think that fits with alaska values. i just think it is a good representation of that era, the 1930's, 1940's. anchorage is the largest city in alaska. while in anchorage, we visited potter marsh, thunderbird falls, and portage glacier.

[birds chirping] [water running] >> the glacier.

> see if you can get -- [wind whistling] teller, whoedward was the so-called father of the h-bomb, came up to alaska

unannounced and unveiled his plan to create an instant harbor on the coast of alaska by burying and detonating multiple thermonuclear bombs. it would blow up a gigantic crater a mile-long. dirt would be ejected as high as the stratosphere. you would have this instant harbor. it might glow-in-the-dark, but it would be a harbor. the atomic energy commission was part of the federal government. they were an agency of almost unlimited funding. consider me, we didn't we had to answer to anybody but the president. nothing congress, not anybody. thwarted iner been anything they wanted to do until project chariot. of eskimoillage people gave them their first

defeat. like theseally atomic scientists came up to alaska with nuclear bombs in their back pockets, and they were faced down by guys with harpoons. teller was a famous physicist who came out of hungary, had fled the not season come to america. the nazis and come to america. was set up in the manhattan project. teller was a bit of a renegade. unmanageable much at the manhattan project. loose frome turned the team effort to build the first fission bomb and allowed

to work on his own project which bombeeing past the fission and was very interested in the thermonuclear bomb, the fusion bomb. he ultimately wasn't very he was such aut powerful force and a powerful physicist that they set him up with his own log -- his own laboratory out in livermore while los alamos develops the fission bombs. it was all secret until the first explosion. there was one test in new mexico but nobody knew what it was. two bombs were the dropped in japan to end the war. sentiment toot of hail the advent of the atomic age is a very positive thing. , as some ofg, maybe the political people argued, war

would become obsolete because these weapons were too powerful. no one would dare use them. of course, we just had. it was a big euphoria in this time over all things atomic. tomic physicists were looked by enlightened people about how to manage our education system and all kinds of things that they knew nothing really. you may have read and seen the , theres of the atomic cafe atomic cocktail, when sputnik went around the world, satellites. that whole era of looking toward space and to the atomic future. the soonty was sent to to be too cheap to meter, that would be all free, that there

would be nuclear airplanes, nuclear power chips. attentiony was paying -- nobody was paying attention to was the devastating contamination that come from the whole process from mining through thethe way process of explosion or power generation. toxic waste that will outlast civilization that needs to be managed beyond the lifespan of civilization. that was part of the cultural push. then, emerging in the late , people began to associate fallout from atmospheric testing to certain disease problems. nuclear testoposed ban treaties for the world. that would have shut down the

--ortunities for guys look for guys like teller to test nuclear weapons in the open air. if he could convince people that peaceful use of nuclear weapons was a positive thing, then under the name of peaceful use, he could continue to test, develop, refine what were explosives that could be used as weapons. it is likely they came to alaska for a couple of reasons. touching off a nuclear bomb, things get shook, there is radiation release, there is the seismic effect, but there is also the shockwave. they wanted a remote place. if anything went wrong, you asted as few people around possible. they felt like alaskans had very

little political clout and couldn't mount much of a protest, and that would have been amplified in a village of eskimo people who were nonwhite, non-proficient in the english language. in every method of political influence, they were low. i don't think that was lost on these guys. asked the u.s. geological survey to look around. it might be quite remote. where a harbor might be useful or where the geology might sustain such an escrow -- and excavation. the really isn't many really good sites to support a harbor. is shallow for the most part. a fairly good town, no harbor. they would have liked to put one

year there but it didn't work out. there was a little tiny creek sayingy justified it by that they were fish stocks that could be exploited up there but there was no harbor for safe haven for fishermen. also natural resources like cold it could be exported if there was a harbor. the reality was that harbor would have been frozen solid for nine months of the year. there really were no fish docks -- fish stocks that were commercially exploited. they were going to place the stringn the creek, and a , and blow up this big channel. initially, it was going to be 2.4 megatons of energy.

of 2.4 the equivalent million tons of tnt. if you loaded all of that tnt convoyatbed trucks in a literally bumper-to-bumper, it would stretch from fairbanks, alaska to southern argentina. like 40% of all the firepower expended in world war ii touched off in a single instant. were four little box, six hiroshimas each, and hiroshimasbs at 60 each. this would have created the kind of epic contamination that would eskimoedly mean that

people, for quite a radius around their, certainly scores of miles, they would never go back. happened to bend blowing that day would have been pasted with contamination many times greater than chernobyl. hadplace where they picked a couple of little huts that were occupied seasonally by the local eskimo people who might travel in that direction, caribou hunting. the bluffs themselves were utilized to collect seabird exit. the people lived a subsistence life. most famous for , wales,sea mammals

walrus. nobody is a permanent resident there, but the nearest village, a town called point hope -- what the people college means index finger and it is on a spit of land that points back toward asia. their villages on the tip of that. it is apparently the oldest continuously occupied site in north america. it goes back centuries. oft was maintained because its position relative to the migration of bullhead wales. catching a bullhead whale could sustain a village for quite a while. thousands of pounds of meat, which they could store in underground cellars, frozen.

there were surveyors, and little by little, word filtered back fairbanks and anchorage where teller and then did wordin the process, and filtered back to the people of point hope. their immediate reaction was resistance. they demanded that a delegation come talk to them. 1960.appened in march of have a dozen or so men from the energy commission went up to explain the progress -- display the project to the eskimo people. and said, we don't want it, when we say that, we mean it. a little woman, four foot-plus,

but very tough, stood up and said, we're pretty sure you don't want to bomb the place where you live. just gave them held. -- gave them hell. they said they wanted one of the commissioners to come up. that happened. the commissioner went up there. the people were very smart. tape recorded everything, which was very unusual and very shocking. basically, the atomic energy commission people lined to the people of point hope -- lied to the people of point hope about the effects of nuclear weapons testing in the pacific on animals and on people. and it is on tape. they knew better.

you can go to atomic energy commission publications of that day and see that they knew better when they told the people otherwise. they painted a very benign picture as to effects on human health and the food animals. the eskimo people had their own sources of information. they read "life" magazine, which had the test in the pacific, the fallout of which landed on the japanese fishing trawler, and people died from that exposure. some of them had served in the military. one was even a member of the cleanup crew at nagasaki. they weren't without sources of information. so they challenged what they were hearing. later, they got more information and ended up writing a letter to president kennedy and to the atomic energy commission, the

secretary of the interior. they told the secretary of the claim this land is our land and you hold in trust for us until it is adjudicated. you can't give it to become a nuclear wasteland, legally, and they were right. i think it is fascinating that the atomic energy commission -- i think they were one of the very early professional practitioners of public relations. how toally understood get into the conversation widely to the public. they had speakers bureaus, hadzines for children, they people go to the schools, they had professional pr people on staff.

they made films, commercials. in archives of them today. atom, ourside of the friend of the atom. cheerful little episodes of the wonders of the atom. they of course worked very hard with in alaska among the people they called the opinion shapers. they worked over the press. the press was very taken by the argument of the atomic scientists so that all the major newspapers in the state were very gung ho for project chariot. the president and board of regents of the state university was in favor of it. hisrally, he told professors, if the united states

government says it is safe, that isall we need to hear, which antithetical to the notion of what science is and what the university is. nevertheless, he was a big booster. it met federal dollars coming into the state and his university, it meant growth. in this city and in the state, "buy" word.is the alaska, broadly, endorsed the project. the scientists at the university ratcheted up -- at the university who were conservationists ratcheted up their opposition. one of the outcomes is that teller's group did find a series of studies, maybe to placate the

objective scientists, maybe because they thought they were important. what is clear is that they put together the most comprehensive array of environmental studies prior to a project that had ever been done, i think, everywhere. theretty much prefigured modern environmental impact report, which would not be required until after the passage of the national environmental policy act in 1970. this was in the late 1950's. that is another thing that came out of chariot that was quite historic. it meant that you were going to understand the effect of what you are going to do before you did it. that was a milestone in policy. geology,es included hydrology, soil. they had bird studies, mammal

studies, fish, whether. studies of all kinds. studies to include the human use of that area by the native people in their subsistence lifestyle. there were 42 different studies. the book that resulted is this big. show wheretarted to thatof the scientists, was , around the world, there had been problems with radiation moving up through the food chain to man. state, falloutr say from an atmospheric test in dust, or somewhere, radioactive dust on plans like grass, cows would eat the grass. pretty soon it is in their body, pretty soon it is in their milk.

are of these radio nuclides metabolized like nutrients. one of them is an analog of calcium, it can end up in your bones. these animals were becoming radioactive. then so were people. in the arctic, it was different. in the lower latitudes, and everyands, grass dies off year, and the new plants might take some of those radio nucle ides but they tended to discriminate somewhat. in alaska, we had tundra. it contains a lot of what we spongy little

plant that is religious and grabs nutrition from airborne dust. tois sitting there, designed capture fallout or any particles coming down. incorporating it into its tissues. it didn't die off every year. it could live 70 years. now, you have a caribou coming around eating lichen, and he may graze over 80 acres, and he's collecting the fallout that has come down not just this year but in all previous years going back decades, concentrating that into his body. beyond that, you have the eskimo guy that, i think they used to eat on the order of seven caribou each a year. thoseou are concentrating radionuclided eat -- those radionuclides even further. the arctic food web was much

faster than in lower states and radiation could go in bigger quantities, faster into people. they looked at studies done in canada and the scandinavian countries, and they started to make noise about this. that changed a lot. the momentum of the project. aec hadugh the carefully not design studies to test that here, i think not accidentally, but these guys were aware of the literature from abroad, showing these problematic food webs. simultaneously, the eskimo protests were getting national play. the new york times was reporting on it, time magazine. the conservation movement. the commoners magazine had an

issue on it. is starting to be, in public relations terms, costly for the aec. they probably could have done it because they had done everything they wanted to do before. but i think it became too costly a pr problem for them to continue to push it. at the same time, there were developments happening. this is getting delayed year after year now because of these protests, the length of the studies, so they are doing more testing in nevada and they are some learned -- they are learning some things that the chariot explosion would have taught them. there is less need for it from their point of view. they all of a sudden declare that it is not necessary anymore. we might do it or he might not, but we're going to hold it.

see, behind the scenes, when you see the classified documents, you see that this was quite orchestrated from a pr standpoint. they had a big test in nevada designed to answer some of the big questions chariot could do. they could do anything they wanted in nevada. there was no one breathing down their neck like in alaska. kilotont a 100 explosion, creating a crater big enough to float an aircraft carrier in. the dust from that caused the tople in st. george, utah, have to turn on their streetlights at midday. the radioactive dust went all the way into canada in violation of the atmospheric test ban treaty. on that explosion,

they putsedan blasts, out a press release saying, it answered the questions chariot would have answered, so we don't need chariot. they were clearly trying to withdraw from project chariot and save as much face as they could. they never use the word cancel. to this day, 50 years later, they have not said it was canceled. went on to become arguably the most influential scientists in america in the 20th century. opponent ofdent whatever test ban treaty might be put forward. any sort of arms control. an ardent hawk. when ever we had republican

administrations, his stock rose and he became essentially a counselor to any republican president. when we got a democrat, he would receive to his laboratory. era into the george w. bush -- i think he got the presidential medal of freedom from george w. bush. andas a very renowned respected and listened to elder in the nuclear arms community. interestingly, he came back to 1980's.n the late it was when reagan was pushing nuclears, a space-based defense system using lasers. it was all something concocted on the back of an envelope basically.

it doesn't really exist still and the one they do have is phony, too. that's a different story. said, why not take some of these laser -- i did that were also a laser component. why not put that on the north slope of half -- north slope of alaska? and it is russia, also not a warm place that generates a lot of cloud cover. you had a lot of clear days there. he came back to alaska to visit the north slope and check it out. i was doing my work on project chariot and, working on this book. i thought, here he comes back again with a defense-related,

high-tech project to protect america if alaska will go along. it had a lot of similarities. of their devices involved nuclear explosions in space, too. in any case, it had a lot of similarities to project chariot decades earlier. i was able to interview him. i got on his schedule down in anchorage, went down there with a film crew. minutesight and a half into the interview before he said, can we take a break? we shut down the machine and he just exploded. he went off like his own nuclear blast, cursing and yelling at me, how outraged that i would ask him tough questions about project chariot. they were perfectly appropriate,

perfectly legitimate journalistic questions, it's just that nobody ever really did that to him. a perfect had at interview this morning where the reporter let me talk about anything i want. i said, we've got plenty of that. what we don't have is putting feet to the fire on project chariot. he threw us out. just before the door slammed, i heard him tearing up his release. that recording is in the archives. it can't really be used without his permission, which he never gave. his reaction was his answer, that there was no good answer chariot,about project that it was problematic, that didn't make sense. it had enormous potential to pollute. it wasn't proposed for the reasons they gave. was nonsenseng

from start to finish. he didn't have a good response. i believe that's why he did what he did. teller was, undoubtedly a patriot. very high, if not for most, in the list of his motivations, is to protect america. i think he gave way to many lesser motives as well. but he was doing what he thought was right. thoughtlem was that he it was better to keep the public unaware of what he was doing for the good of the country, as he he --, and, in so doing, that is not how it works. you don't get to keep the information from us and decide what is best for us. we get to decide even if we are

imperfect, even if we don't know all you know. -- he did not get that. we have to be in charge of our fate. that is part of the bargain of democracy. we have to pay attention, stand .p and argue, we have to fight a free society has to be a skeptical one. that's the way we protect our freedoms. chirping] >> this is an installation by a seattle-based artist. it is a representation of an arctic geological phenomenon. of frozen iceion that creates these mounds along the tundra that rise up, that

,an be as much as 150 feet tall and is sometimes as far as my wife. they are found throughout the arctic, whether siberia or the alaskan and siberian arctic. some of them are quite small. some of them are quite large. they are always in the process of building up or eventually deflating and pop marking the ground. they are created when ice or liquid water seeps into the ground. usually, it is the remnant of a shallow lake. freeze,water starts to it starts to expand, as ice expands. an ice core center, and then a mound on top of it. it lifecycle of a pingo,

starts with a shallow lake, the water seeps into the ground and starts to freeze as a part of the permafrost. that is, this occurs in places where permafrost exists. they grow and grow. this invitation and other factors continue to add water to them. it gets into the groundwater and that becomes part of the permafrost. eventually, they reach their endpoint when either there is no more land to cover over the top and they split open, or because they are in a space with changing climate, weather the end of an ice age or a modern reason for climate change and, then the ice will then melt and the structure will collapse. what happens throughout the arctic, as permafrost is no longer being permafrost and they are melting due to the changing climate where they would not normally melt in the course of a

summer and they are starting to melt, that is releasing methane that has been trapped for millennia. there are new forms of pingas we are seeing here that are constructed not a vice but of methane gas bubbles, that are creating smaller versions that are similar in some ways to pingas. they will, if they get enough gas, eventually pop and explode. it is something we are seeing more and more of, and learning more and more about. this is the work of john, and artist out of seattle, washington. he's done a number of installations with us, most of them having to do with the arctic. he did a residency in the north pinga.erienced his first he has created a representation of a pingo. "murmur,"ere, called

is modeled after a specific pingo he researched. it is modeled in his workshop. it uses a steel frame with some actuators, so it actually does move to simulate the lifecycle of the pingo itself. coupled with that is an augmented reality piece. to give people an idea of what the terrain looks like in the area of a pingo, flat marshes, mosquitoes, and you can actually walk into it when you are wearing the virtual-reality lenses and look into the center of it. visitors, many who won't come within 500 miles of a pingo itself, an idea of what these are like. here, we are using augmented reality. you will see what is actually in

the room and see things layered on top of it. as you put on the goggles and look around, you will see the pingo but then you will see puddles, swarms of insects, some of the low-lying florida of the tundra as well. in this part of the world, there are no large trees. you get to walk along in a different environment. you can still see the museum but you can see that as part of it. think,ally, i contextualizes what the arctic is like and what the texture is like. i think, for our visitors, to be able to experience the arctic in excitingingful way is for us. to be able to use an emerging technology like augmented reality to enhance that experience is also really interesting for us. are sort of a

barometer in some very real ways of our climate change we are experiencing here. as our climate here in the arctic, which is warming at twice the rate of climates around the world, continues to grow, we are starting to see 's ice cores melting and we're seeing them collapse at a rate we hadn't seen before. for some people, it is a very direct sign of what our changing climate is starting to look like. we have other climate issues here in alaska. we have more coastline than the rest of the u.s. altogether, and we are starting to see coastal erosion throughout alaska. there are islands in alaska made up of permafrost themselves. these islands are literally melting into the sea. the polar bears that have come onto those lands are having to find more permanent formations to hunt from and live on.

the birds that have used those islands for millennia for nesting or having to find alternate locations. all of the formula of things that you would expect from a warming planet, we are starting to see how interconnected these elements are. we want to use this as a part of the conversation so people can understand the many nuanced ways that global warming is infecting -- is affecting environments. this was part of c-span's cities tour. you can view more of our visit that c-span.org/citiestour. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> one month away from -- >> i think the big wild card the government shutdown situation is president donald trump.