Hear Franklyn Griffiths’ November 22 lecture from the “Breakfast on the Hill” broadcast on CPAC.
The cake for the most horrific climate change horror story surely goes to James Lovelock. In The Revenge of Gaia (2006), he hints at a world that’s become so unbearably hot that almost all of our billions have died off. How this happens is not made fully clear. But it’s easily imagined as the end result of a runaway global warming that leaves the benign climate of the last ten or twelve millennia in the dust. The few of us who have survived, no doubt well-armed and capable, must relocate to relatively habitable areas on the face of a superheated planet. Equipped with a book of knowledge written in indelible ink on everlasting paper, we head for the Arctic. Reduced there to a mere handful, perhaps even to a few breeding pairs, the last remnants of humanity are left to persist in the High Arctic for 100,000 years or more, until the Earth becomes benign again. Lovelock implores us to see that none of this happens. He ends his plea with a vision.A band of survivors is gathering in the desert for the trek to come. Their camel rises and belches, and they set out on an unspeakable journey to a new polar centre of civilization. If they make it, there will be camels in the Arctic. If not, it’s the end of civilization, and very possibly of the human species.
Note that today’s Arctic indigenous peoples are nowhere to be seen in this vision. The continuation of civilization would owe nothing to acknowledged masters of survival under conditions of extremity. Instead, it would come in remnants from the south and on camels. All this is metaphor, of course. Only blockheads take such things literally. Still, there’s something symptomatic going on.
In Lovelock’s and other recent studies of collapse, catastrophe, and the like, civilization figures as a value to be protected and preserved. In my view, civilization is a one-word mission statement for the human contribution to climate change. When we seek out the deeper sources of climate change, civilization — a conception invented only in 1757, just as we were putting ourselves on to fossil fuels in a big way — emerges as the basis of the planet’s present predicament. To think of packing civilization onto the backs of camels for preservation in the Arctic is to have learned nothing. It is to dwell on hard science when it is humanity, its practices, and how to alter them that should have first claim on our attention. It is to construct a scary endgame when what really counts is an understanding of what holds us back from justifiable fear in the present.
In what follows, I consider the human experience of a changing planetary climate through the eyes of those who thus far are most directly exposed to it, Canada’s Inuit. In the preface to a marvellous book, Unikkaaqatigiit Putting the Human Face on Climate Change: Perspectives from Inuit in Canada (2006), Jose Kusugak, past president of the national Inuit organization, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, refers to the fearful possibility of “having to completely reinvent what it means to be Inuit.” He does not speak of an overwhelming catastrophe that might come from the loss of a livable climate. Nor does he envisage a future in which smarter behaviour somehow allows us to remain basically as we are. Instead, he alludes to change that’s sufficiently severe to compel his people to surrender a treasured way of life in order to survive.
The scenario here is not a horror story written to secure prompt reductions in greenhouse gas emissions or an account of getting by with green technology and switching off the lights. Given the very real uncertainties that attend the magnitude and the rapidity of what is now happening to human existence, it’s a cautionary tale that should govern us in imagining the near future of our species. The new prevailing narrative ought to be one in which we are able to say, “Even if proven wrong, we did the right thing.” It is one in which we treat nature with renewed respect and, in so doing, see whether we might reinvent what it means to be civilized.
the climate dew line
With something like this in mind, I travelled from one end of Canada’s Arctic to the other — from northern Labrador to the mouth of the Mackenzie River — between late April and early June. Seeking out and gathering impressions in encounters with Inuit from Nain to Kuujjuaq and Iqaluit to Igloolik and Arctic Bay, and on out to Yellowknife, Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, and Paulatuk, I flew some 24,000 kilometres in twenty-five flights. How many tonnes of CO2 were laid down I will not estimate. Hopelessly compromised am I, but so are a great many of us unless we happen to be ignorant of the issues, in denial, or actually in favour of climate change.
Canada’s 46,000 or slightly more Inuit are to be found for the most part in four far-flung areas marked by varying degrees of self-government. Inuit also live in the provinces to the south. Starting in the eastern Arctic, the first of the Inuit regions is Nunatsiavut, in northern Labrador. With a little more than 4,500 Inuit and some 2,000 settlers, it is the smallest and, owing to generations of coexistence with Europeans, perhaps the most racially integrated of Inuit lands. Heading west, the distance is short to Nunavik, in northern Quebec, which has a population of about 8,000 Inuit. In the centre of Arctic Canada we have Nunavut. The largest territory, with an Inuit population of roughly 23,000, the area is so big that Europe from the Channel to the Bosporus could be put into it with room to spare. In the far west, we encounter the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, in the Beaufort Delta area, with a population of some 3,500.
The climate varies in each of these regions — so much so that it’s impossible to conceive of climate change in the Arctic as a uniform process. When the phenomenon is reduced to warming, the surface effects on land and animals are furthest advanced in the Inuvialuit region. Of all Inuit it was the Inuvialuit who first took climate change seriously, this with a path-breaking video co-produced with the International Institute for Sustainable Development and presented to Kyoto delegations at The Hague in 2000. Today, the Inuvialuit are planning for the relocation of coastal communities threatened by intense storm activity and rising sea levels. Meanwhile, the sale of bikinis has, so to speak, taken off in the Inuvialuit region. Inuit in bikinis.
Comments (10 comments)
Brad Arnold: It is very unlikely that mankind will cut their greenhouse gas emissions so fast and drastically that abrupt climate change and runaway global warming will be avoided.
Dr James Hansen of NASA says any feasible planetary rescue plan must include a method of removing the excess carbon dioxide from the air. I suggest the low cost method of biosequestration-removing vast amounts of carbon from the air and putting it back into the ground. I suggest seeding an extensively tested GMO into the ocean.
Author Franklyn Griffiths, in the article "Camels in the Arctic" writes "He does not speak of an overwhelming catastrophe that might come from the loss of a livable climate. Nor does he envisage a future in which smarter behaviour somehow allows us to remain basically as we are. Instead, he alludes to change that’s sufficiently severe to compel his people to surrender a treasured way of life in order to survive."
The only options are to either avoid abrupt climate change and runaway global warming, or lose a livable climate. It is too late to matter if we remain basically as we are, or surrender a treasured way of life:
"We now have evidence from the Earth's history that a similar event happened fifty-five million years ago when a geological accident released into the air more than a terraton of gaseous carbon compounds. As a consequence the temperature in the arctic and temperate regions rose eight degree Celsius and in tropical regions about five degrees, and it took over one hundred thousand years before normality was restored. We have already put more than half this quantity of carbon gas into the air and now the Earth is weakened by the loss of land we took to feed and house ourselves. In addition, the sun is now warmer, and as a consequence the Earth is now returning to the hot state it was in before, millions of years ago, and as it warms, most living things will die." (The Revenge of Gaia) October 16, 2007 04:07 EST
Danny Bloom: This is a very important and insightful article. One thing I wonder about is this, in terms of the far distant future: might humankind need polar cities to house potential survivors of catastrophic global warming events, say in the year 2500 or so? I have created a blog about "polar cities" to pose the question and get feedback pro and con from observers around the world. Google the term "polar cities" or Wikipedia it, and tell me your point of view. I would especially like to hear what Franklyn Griffiths thinks about polar cities, as a concept worth pursuing or just a silly idea. October 22, 2007 17:49 EST
N. Ramsingh: Asking the Inuit if they see evidence of global climate change is like asking people who live on a small island, who see the erosion of their beaches and coastline, the same question - their answer is relevant, but varied. Some will believe in global climate change, and others only see cyclical climate changes.
A microcosm can not define 'global' climate change, especially when that microcosm see themselves as bystanders to others' actions, i.e. do not see their actions reflected in any perceived local climate changes. It's a question that is not relevant to most of these people, and hence, can not be used to say whether the question of global climate change is relevant or not.
To use the varied perceptions of (not to be argued) most affected populations of 'global' climate change in support of or against climate change is not going to get us very far. All we really see is the playing out of the larger divide in perceptions worldwide.
October 24, 2007 08:26 EST
D Chen: Firstly, a quick thanks Brad Arnold: I appreciate your comments. In my way of thinking, just because James Lovelock's ideas are terrible and unappealing, does not necessarily make them physically implausible. His academic credentials should be noted. Case in point, IPCC predicted 4 to 6 degrees C average temperature rise is actuallly a death sentence for millions (or billions ?) of people and most ecosystems. Once you start counting in billions of deaths, it would surely be difficult to predict whether the number of surivors (by century's end) will be counted in the billions, millions, thousands, or less. Furthermore, if James Hansen is right, that 4 to 6 degrees C rise might only represent the first half of the long-term temperature rise for the planet due to slow feedback mechanisms. What then is the probable severity of future climate change? Can governments, societies and corporations cooperate, mitigate and adapt sufficently quickly ? CC is clearly not the only issue, the bigger picture has never changed in our political worldview - people kill people for geopolitical reasons. Usually for resources (and more so for water, oil, food, living space, culture, race, religion). Rapidly changing political agendas (and possibly involving nuclear weapons) presents a volatile mix especially if a quick fix for CC is not found. Ideally, the world should uncertake a rapid educational program to explain the full risks of CC. We still need nuclear disarmament and better political systems, population control, sustainable technologies, and fossil fuel substitution. Perhaps a rapid slowing of the global economoy has to be triggered. I would not discount the possibility that Washington is considering that very option. No doubt, some scientists somewhere are undertaking feasability studies for building 10 million CO2 scrubbers and sapce shields etc. October 28, 2007 08:19 EST
Leslie Barcza: Griffiths holds a mirror to the lack of imagination within our current culture tainted by the fetishization of technology and material wealth. (and how do i send this message without my PC, without electricity, heat, etc? )
The VERY inconvenient truth is our need to change our ways to avoid killing human life on the planet. Real sustainability? Maybe we should ask the Inuit. The comment from N. Ramsingh ("To use the varied perceptions of...most affected populations of 'global' climate change in support of or against climate change is not going to get us very far") misses the point. Civilization and the objectives of our culture need to be reinvented/rethought to avoid the danger. The Inuit aren't just canaries in the mine, but possible role-models as well. November 25, 2007 09:00 EST
Maureen Flynn-Burhoe: How can a Canadian social scientist in 2007 set aside economic development, energy security, youth perspectives, mental and spiritual health issues to focus on climate change as it related to hunting, sea ice, and the maintenance of an Inuit [pre-contact?] way of life? Readers would have benefited from a more accurate thumbnail sketch of the complexity of Inuit everyday life today: linguistic disparities, Inuit governing bodies, local initiatives, the long history of meddling in Inuit affairs by successive waves of interlopers. How much trust and intimacy can you develop in each community as you seek Inuit to gather impressions when the six-week enquiry is divided between tiny, remote towns, communities and hamlets like Nain in northern Labrador; Kuujjuaq in Nunavik; Iqaluit, Igloolik, Arctic Bay in Nunavut; Yellowknife, NWT and the Inuvialuit in western Arctic Ocean communities like Paulatuk and Tuktoyaktuk reached in twenty-five zigzag flights covering 24,000 kilometres? How does that improve the way social scientists put people in the picture in studies of the Arctic? Where is the background context based on Inuit-initiated research? Where are the sources so a public policy researcher can follow through with questions arising from this article? Has this article and lecture by the same name helped in anyway to revisit the distorted history of the Inuit as called for in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996)? It is misleading to suggest that increased suicide will be a future unintended consequence of the destruction of the Inuit lifestyle without acknowledging the heart-rending on-going tragedy of youth suicide epidemic, with rates that are among the highest in the planet, that directly or indirectly touches every northern Inuit community as well as thousands of urban Inuit in the south. How can any social scientist claim a people-centred ethnography while skimming over key social issues and structional changes affecting Inuit lives such as land claims implementation and human rights concerns regarding access to housing, employment, health and education services (the early exit from schooling). Two or three well-edited and well-researched paragraphs could have briefly traced a critical Inuit social history to dismantle some of the commonly held myths about the north. At the end of the lecture did the assistant from PEI understand that Inuit do not live in igloos anymore and that there are Inuit hunters who are politically-saavy individuals with cellphones and computers who travel frequently to regional, national and international conferences. Did no Inuit in his travels mention the northerly creep of flora and fauna? Would Griffiths not have found those who are deeply troubled, skeptical or even optimistic about climate change among Newfoundland fishers, PEI farmers, Alberta ranchers or First Nations hunters? Would isolationist southern fishers, farmers and ranchers not also be found to be conservative, pragmatic and immediate in their responses to climate change? " November 30, 2007 13:05 EST
Geza C. Teleki: In my view, as a practicing environmental and social sector professional for over 30 years, Prof. Griffiths goal was to present a snapshot—a different viewpoint on the basis of an insightful, albiet short, visit to selected areas of arctic. I found the article clear, all underlying assumptions defined, and done with great sensitivity. I loved Leslie Barcza's comments and appreciated the depth of Maureen Flynn-Burhoe's commentary we need to take on board. I found Prof Griffith's article a breath of fresh air and something all of us southern do-gooders (me included) should read very carefully. History is replete with examples of where the "educated macro-scale thinkers" have lost sight of the the intuitive, observational and anicdotal accounts of local people on the ground. I think of Griffiths acccount of the polar bear issue! We must seek out and include such data in our "southern thinking and decision-making". No doubt the views expressed by the Inuit are views from 'within'—but my question is why is the south continuing to ignore them. Just think of the Goverment's plan to keep the NW passage Canadian—but with little or no involvement (at least as far as I have heard) of the Inuit? We would do well to listen to their message about adaptation, while at the same time cleaning up our own local CO2 footprints by turning off lights,wearing sweaters, refusing packaging and using a bike instead of a car. I for one am sending the article's web-link to all my colleagues around the world December 18, 2007 07:05 EST
Danny Bloom: I got some images on my website now, of polar cities. And Nina Munteanu linked to this site here today.
http://sfgirl-thealiennextdoor.blogspot.com/2008/02/polar-citiesfriday-feature.html February 23, 2008 02:05 EST
Danny Bloom: Quick link to SF GIRL blog here above. February 23, 2008 02:05 EST
Anonymous: your page is too long and didnt have the info i needed March 25, 2008 15:50 EST