Transcript Inuit and Global Climate Change

Inuit and Global Climate Change
Professor Ned Searles’s
Focus the Nation Presentation
January 31, 2008
Bucknell University
Who are the Canadian Inuit?
• Indigenous peoples of the far north,
46,000 living in four regions of Canada
Map of Canadian Arcic
“Inuit are the canary in the global coal mine” Mary
Simon, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
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Inuit living in the Arctic are experiencing the
direct effects of global warming
Inuit and non-Inuit have been studying global
climate change since the late 90s
Most Inuit live on a diet rich in local (country)
foods like caribou, seal and walrus. One recent
study found that 7 in 10 Inuit adults harvested
country food in 2000, and that for 38% of Inuit
households, country food made up more than
half of the meat and fish that was eaten (33%
said country food made up about half of the
meat and fish that was eaten).
Inuit identity depends on their ability to hunt,
“When we can no longer hunt on the sea ice and
eat what we hunt, we will no longer exist as a
people” Mary Simon, president of Inuit Tapiriit
Kanatami
According to one report, “Inuit are experiencing
some of the most rapid and severe climate
change on earth”
 Shoreline erosion causing a number of villages to have to
relocate
 Earlier breakup of ice and snow
 Later freezing in the fall
 Diminished quality of ice and snow (more dangerous for
hunting and traveling)
 Increasingly violent storms--making it more risky to hunt
 Unusual shifts in the location of marine mammals
 Decreased water quality
List courtesy of Franklyn Griffiths, “Camels in the Arctic?”, The
Walrus, December 2007
The spectrum of Inuit views on global climate
change
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There have been no significant changes in weather patterns in the last
several decades
Climate change is cyclical; Inuit have experienced many warming and
cooling trends over the past several millennia
“Global warming” is another crisis narrative that is perpetrated by
southerners (non-Inuit) to manipulate or coerce Inuit into accepting
southern-based values and changes
You reap what you sow...increasingly dangerous weather patterns are
the result of not treating others and the environment with respect
In 2005, a group of Canadian Inuit filed a petition with the Washington,
DC-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. “The petition
seeks relief from violations of the human rights of Inuit resulting from
global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from the United
States” (www.ciel.org)
What does the future hold for
Inuit?
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It’s hard to forecast accurately; global warming is affecting the Arctic
unevenly (the western Arctic is warming much faster than the eastern
Arctic)
Some coastal communities will have to be relocated
Some hunting practices (e.g. hunting through the sea ice or at the
floe edge) may cease altogether; other activities may increase (whale
and polar bear hunting)
Arctic ecosystems will change, creating favorable conditions for
some new species (moose along the Labrador coast) but less
favorable for others (ringed seal and caribou populations may
decline)
Aqqaluk Lynge, former president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council,
states “All we are asking is that our neighbors in the south greatly
reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. This does not need big
sacrifices, but it will need some change in people’s lifestyles. Is that
plane trip really necessary?” The Independent (London), May 30,
2007
Projected Environmental
and Climatic
Changes
Major
Development
Projects in the
Circumpolar
North
Projected changes in Arctic Climate
2090