We should distinguish between climate change in the singular and climate changes in the plural. Climate change is a human-induced planetary process in which greenhouse gases produce and otherwise contribute to variations of climate and climate-related effects, which together I will call climate changes. We do not need to believe in climate change as a planetary process in order to observe and report an abundance of local climate changes and consequences. In speaking to Inuit, it seemed vital to me to know whether it was climate change or climate changes that we were talking about.
Meanwhile, climate change and climate changes are perceived by Inuit through a lens of concern for the survival of a beloved way of life. Nowhere is climate the pre-eminent issue. Jobs, housing, suicide, early exit from schooling, and land claims implementation are but some of the overriding Inuit concerns. Where life might go and how far an individual Inuk might already be into what comes next are matters of considerable uncertainty. Diversity and continuity in the attachment of Inuit to a received way of life are evident in what they have to say about ice and travelling on it. I begin in Nain.
Currents and tides that maintain open water or a thin cover of sea or freshwater ice in winter are known as rattles. They are perilous for Inuit who travel the deeply indented Labrador shores to fish and hunt, bring in sticks of firewood, and see one another. Traditional knowledge of where the rattles are and how to handle them is shared and maintained. Early in March 2006, two experienced men went out on Ski-Doos, following an ice road known by all to be reliable. Returning at night, they went through and perished in a rattle that had never been there before. People were still talking about it when I showed up in Nain in May.
The event was a vivid demonstration that established truths no longer hold. A number of hunters spoke to me about this. “The indicators are changed,” Amos Maggo told me. (By the way, all names are those of Inuit unless otherwise indicated.) Others who mark the channels for Voisey’s Bay ore carriers said that sea ice had gone through “a big, big, change” over the past twenty years: where previously it had been “the whiter, the better,” this is no longer the case. And George Lyall explained that it is now necessary to stop and check the thickness, sometimes detouring with considerable difficulty. In short, when it comes to ice conditions in Nunatsiavut, a changing climate appears to be unsettling the Inuit, making them uneasy, even fearful, about their ability to operate in their own land.
Not surprisingly, the top priority of the Nunatsiavut government is to restore the culture, traditions, and language of Inuit. But climate change gets in the way of efforts to do away with a mindset of colonialism, dependence, and disempowerment: it makes for an undercurrent of anxiety. As my mentor in Nain, Wilson Jararuse, put it, language, culture, “even our pride” could be at stake. A life without hunting “would be unbearable.”
nunavik, northern quebec
In Nunavik, it’s different but the same. Winter trail networks are vital in northern Quebec for hunting, fishing, and travel. Owing to changes in sea and freshwater ice, these trails are becoming less reliable and more dangerous. A neat adaptive response is taking shape, however, under the guidance of the regional Inuit government. Sandy Gordon, a part-time hunter, trapper, ranger, and director of renewable resources for the Kativik regional government, told me that various means and strategies are used to reduce the number of search and rescue missions. Aside from greater reliance on global positioning systems (gps) and satellite phones, people are urged to check weather reports and to let others know where they are going before they set out. Beyond this, a community-based monitoring and advisory project is raising winter trail traffic in Nunavik to new levels of safety and efficiency.
Relying on elders and other experienced individuals, this project brings together traditional and scientific knowledge to help ensure safe passage in increasingly risky ice and travel conditions. Updated advisory data is posted weekly on the project’s website. Guidance is also available through an interactive cd-rom containing maps of principal and risky routes. But what might the hunters of sixty years ago have made of their children and grandchildren, who rely on the Internet, gps, CB radio, and satellite phones to arrive home safely? Is Nunavik’s organized trail-marking principally an adaptation to climate change or mainly a means of offsetting and compensating for a loss of traditional land skills?
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