Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, credits the indigenous people of Alaska for helping her see climate change as a real threat to the environment, a position not held by many of her fellow Republicans. 

“Maybe it’s because we’ve paved over everything and you live in cities and you don’t feel the world around you,” she told a small audience at The Atlantic magazine’s Women of Washington lecture series on Wednesday morning.

“You can feel your world in Alaska,” Murkowski said. “We are people who pay attention to the world that we live in, the climate that we live in. For the indigenous peoples, or the Alaska Natives, if they fail to pay attention to that, they die. They fall through the ice as they go out hunting, they get exposed to waves and water are simply unsafe. It’s treacherous to not pay attention, and so we are seeing changes.”

Murkowski spoke mostly about how the energy industry can help stoke the global economy. After the forum, she spoke with DC808 about some of the mutual challenges that Hawaii and Alaska face. One area she pointed to was in handling the development of wind energy facilities on indigenous peoples’ land.

“We partner with Hawaii on a lot of things,” Murkowski said. “We’re doing a lot of sharing. We do a lot wind in Alaska, and working through the Indian Energy Program… We’re in similar situations because we’re just so far out of the way, but we’ve got access to a lot more different opportunities. It’s still, you’re not able to tie into anybody else’s market. We’re all looking at these smaller systems and how they can be made sustainable.”

While Alaska has a huge oil industry, Murkowski said the state she represents is also focused on developing technologies that Hawaii is exploring, like geothermal, wind and ocean energy. 

Murkowski serves with Sens. Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye on the Indian Affairs Committee, and with Inouye on the Appropriations Committee.