Gov. Palin has denied global warming as being man-made.

TIME magazine:

Though warming is happening faster in Alaska than anywhere else in the U.S. — average temperatures in the country’s biggest state have risen 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years — Palin is on record doubting that human action is the main driver behind climate change. In a recent interview with Newsmax.com Palin noted that warming would affect Alaska “more than any other state, because of our location.” But she added, “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

The Associated Press:

Environmentalists have nicknamed Palin the “killa from Wasilla,” a reference to the small town where she formerly was mayor.

“Her philosophy from our perspective is cut, kill, dig and drill,” said John Toppenberg, director of the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, maintaining she is “in the Stone Age of wildlife management and is very opposed to utilizing accepted science.”

While acknowledging the climate is changing, Palin expresses doubt as to whether emissions from human activities are causing it. McCain, on the other hand, supports legislation to reduce heat-trapping pollutants, primarily from the burning of oil and coal.

“John McCain was all about global warming and the integrity of the science. The selection of Sarah Palin is a complete reversal from that position,” said Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., who traveled to the South Pole with McCain in 2006 to visit with scientists studying climate change. “She is disturbingly part of the pattern of the Bush administration in their approach to science generally and the science of the environment in particular.”

The McCain campaign Wednesday characterized Palin as a leader on climate change, noting she set up a sub-cabinet office to map out state response strategies and sought $1.1 million in federal funds to help communities threatened by coastal erosion and other effects.

Palin’s administration relied in part on research from scientists funded by the oil industry to fight against the polar bear’s listing, arguing that the impact of global warming on the bear 20 years from now can’t be predicted. But e-mails obtained by a University of Alaska professor show that the state’s marine mammal experts supported the federal government’s conclusions on the bear.

Palin has opposed the recent listing of Polar bears as threatened by the Bush administration, because she said: “Listing the polar bear as a threatened species [under the Endangered Species Act] will have a significant adverse impact on Alaska because. . . [it] will deter activities such as commercial fisheries, oil and gas exploration and development, transportation, and tourism…”

This Fairbanks Daily News-Miner article described the debate:

But she has been just as dogged trying to protect Alaska’s main industry and cash cow, petroleum extraction, from the side-effects of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne’s decision to list polar bears as a threatened species.

“Listing polar bears under the Endangered Species Act has the potential to damage Alaska’s and the nation’s economy without any benefit to polar bear numbers or their habitat,” Palin said, a statement environmental groups call ridiculous.

Polar bears use sea ice as a platform to hunt seals and the listing has the potential to disrupt future offshore drilling in polar bear territory. The disappearance of ice at such an alarming rate forced Kempthorne, who had not added a U.S. creature to the endangered species list since he took office, to declare polar bears threatened.

Summer sea ice last year shrunk to the lowest level since the beginning of satellite observations, about 1.65 million square miles, nearly 40 percent less than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000. The National Snow and Ice Data Center said this week that 2008 could break that record. Most climate modelers predict a continued downward spiral, possibly with an Arctic Ocean that’s ice free during summer months by 2030 or sooner.

Palin contends climate models are unreliable, polar bear numbers have not crashed and they’ve survived other periods of warming. She has also claimed polar bears could adapt to living on land — a contention most international polar bear scientists find specious, given that grizzly bears already occupy that niche on land and polar bears have shown little ability to feed on land, other than garbage or the occasional whale carcass.

Palin is suing to overturn Kempthorne’s decision.

Palin supports drilling in ANWR, saying through her communications director: “It can be done environmentally safely, with a small footprint thanks to directional drilling, and help bring down the price of gasoline.”

She has disagreed publicly with McCain on his stance against drilling ANWR: “Senator McCain is wrong on that issue. He’s right on a whole lot of other issues, so thank goodness that he’s understanding and evolving with his position on OCS [Outer Continental Shelf]. So that’s encouraging. I think he’s going to evolve into, eventually, supporting ANWR opening also.”

Palin said she believes that drilling in Alaska is of the utmost importance. “Not only to ease the high prices of energy in America but also for national security reasons. Drilling in Alaska is going to be a matter of life and death. Up here in Alaska, we’re bursting with billions of barrels of oil that are warehoused underground. We have to pump [this oil] and feed our hungry markets instead of relying on the foreign sources of energy,” she said.

More of Palin’s arguments in favor of ANWR drilling are in this interview.

This Time article contains some opposing arguments:

But environmentalists say that Palin’s push to open up ANWR to oil exploration would effectively destroy the refuge. Though only a 1.5 million acre coastal plain within ANWR is thought to contain petroleum, drilling would likely wreak havoc with wildlife well beyond that narrow strip of land. “The impact would be cumulative,” says Margaret Williams, Alaska-based director of the World Wildlife Federation’s Bering Sea Program. “You’d have road traffic, and flights overhead bringing in equipment. Development of the tundra would come with a very, very large footprint.”

Drilling would also have minimal long-term impact on gas prices: a 2004 study by the Energy Information Agency found that the oil in ANWR might cut the cost of a gallon of gas by all of 3.5 cents by 2027. Even if the drilling were flawless, exploration would destroy much of what makes ANWR special. As Peter Matthiessen wrote of the reserve, it is “one of the last places on earth when a human being can kneel down and drink from a wild stream without being measurably more poisoned or polluted than before.”

The details of this issue are covered in this San Francisco Chronicle article.

Here are excerpts:

Miller, D-Martinez, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, introduced federal legislation last year to end Alaska’s policy of allowing people to shoot wolves from airplanes — a practice used to keep the number of wolves in check so they don’t eat all the state’s moose and caribou.

Miller, who has strong support from environmental groups around the country, deemed the kills cruel and unnecessary to preserve the moose and caribou population. What’s more, he said, they violate federal law banning airborne hunting.

Faster than you can cry wolf, Palin told the East Bay congressman and his Washington pals to butt out.

“Congressman Miller doesn’t understand rural Alaska (and) doesn’t comprehend wildlife management in the north,” the Alaska governor said in a statement issued last September.

Miller is also clueless to the fact that game hunters rely on the moose and caribou “to put healthy food on their families’ dinner tables,” Palin said.

Miller, however, tells us there are plenty of moose and caribou for native Alaskans to hunt. He says his bill, still waiting to be heard in committee, is really about stopping the state from handing out licenses to sportsmen “in the name of predator control.”