Recent Posts From Ben
Building Our Energy Transition from the Middle Out

Building Our Energy Transition from the Middle Out

We who care about climate action often fool ourselves into only seeing two paths ahead: “topdown”and “bottom-up.” We pivot between too-small individual behavioral changes and too insurmountableinstitutional changes without seeing the local and regional actions in between. This“middle out” space is where our best opportunities exist. We created...

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The road to energy security isn’t through Cook Inlet

The road to energy security isn’t through Cook Inlet

80% of Southcentral Alaska's electricity is generated by natural gas turbines, and about a third of our electric bills go to fueling them. All this gas is extracted from beneath or around Cook Inlet, and for decades this local market has grown increasingly precarious. This April, the near-monopoly supplier of gas to our utilities, Hilcorp,...

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Ben Boettger

Born and raised in Indiana, on traditional lands of the Shawnee and Miami, Ben Boettger came to Alaska in 2014. Prior to joining Cook Inletkeeper, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia, a National Park Service ranger, and a reporter for local and regional newspapers in Vermont, Indiana, and Alaska. From 2014 to 2018, he covered local government, energy, environment, and the Cook Inlet oil and gas industry for the Peninsula Clarion. He enjoys hiking, camping, climbing mountains, and observing ravens, and he would like to learn more about sea kayaking. He currently lives in Soldotna on Dena’ina Land.