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Warming trend will decimate Arctic peoples
By Stephen Leahy
Brooklin, Canada, Sept. 9 (IPS)— Climate change will soon
make the Arctic regions of the world nearly unrecognizable, dramatically
disrupting traditional Inuit and other northern native peoples’
way of life, according to a new report that has yet to be publicly released.
The dire predictions are just some of the findings by the Arctic Climate
Impact Assessment (ACIA), an unprecedented four-year scientific investigation
into the current and future impact of climate change in the region.
“This assessment projects the end of the Inuit as a hunting culture,”
said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chairwoman of the group that represents about
155,000 Inuit in the Arctic regions of Canada, Russia, Greenland, and
the United States.
The report predicts the depletion of summer sea ice, which will push
marine mammals like polar bears, walrus and some seal species into extinction
by the middle of this century, Watt-Cloutier told IPS.
The assessment was commissioned by the Arctic Council, an intergovernmental
body involving the eight Arctic nations — Canada, Denmark, Finland,
Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Russia, and the United States.
The Inuit and other Arctic peoples also participate in the Council and
contributed to the ACIA report, along with over 600 hundred scientists
from around the world. Although complete, it will not be made public
or presented to governments until after the US presidential elections
at a conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, Nov. 9-12.
The impacts of climate change are already widely felt in the Arctic.
Thawing permafrost — the normally perpetually frozen layer of earth
— has collapsed roads and buildings. Unexpectedly thinner sea ice
and small streams that have become raging rivers has led to several
drownings in recent years, according to Watt-Cloutier.
“Our traditional wisdom on how to survive and thrive on the land
is becoming useless because everything is changing and changing fast,”
she said.
Alaska experienced its warmest and driest summer ever this year, Patricia
Anderson of the ACIA Secretariat University of Alaska said in an interview.
Temperatures soared 50 degrees. above normal and millions of hectares
of forest burned in the worst wildfires ever recorded, following several
recent years with major fires.
And now the state is facing infestations from the spruce budworm, a
tree-eating insect that had only plagued southern forests previously.
“It used to be too cold for it up here,” Anderson noted.
Unable to provide details on the report itself, Anderson confirmed that
the report documents that these are not just unusual events but are
in fact trends.
“Sea ice will continue to get thinner, there will be much more
melting of permafrost and more coastal erosion due to stronger storm
surges.”
Inuit people will be unable to continue living off the land in the future
and the changes are coming so fast they won’t be able to adapt,
she said. “These are the results of climate change.”
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere else because of global
air circulation patterns and natural feedback loops such as less ice
reflecting sunlight, leading to increased warming at ground level and
more ice melt.
Computer projections by the ACIA show that trend will continue with
the Arctic warming by an average of 843 degrees C by the end of the
century — even if the Kyoto Protocol commitments to reducing greenhouse
gases like carbon dioxide go into effect on a global scale.
And yet things could be even worse. Scientists deliberately selected
moderate projections to avoid controversy, Anderson said.
“The rest of the world needs to pay attention to what’s happening
in the Arctic because it’s acting as an early warning barometer
for what will happen in the rest of the world,” said Watt-Cloutier.
If that’s not reason enough, another key finding in the ACIA report,
Anderson said, is the concern that the melting of Arctic ice and snow
will dump enough fresh water into the Arctic ocean to slow or shut down
the vital North Atlantic Ocean conveyor current.
This conveyor current brings warm tropical waters north and moderates
temperatures in eastern North America and Europe. Large volumes of fresh
water spilling out of the Arctic ocean could slow its northward movement,
leading to an abrupt climate shift where the region would experience
much cooler temperatures in just a few years time.
Some scientists have detected signs that this may be already starting
to happen.
Despite the alarming evidence, there is little good news when it comes
to taking action on climate change. Carbon dioxide emissions are climbing
globally, including by the biggest contributor, the United States.
“The Bush administration doesn’t believe there’s a problem
and are behind the delay in the release of the report,” said Gordon
McBean, an ACIA participant from the Institute for Catastrophic Loss
Reduction at the University of Western Ontario. “They don’t
even think they ought to reduce their emissions, period.”
But to truly reduce the impact on the Arctic, global emissions have
to be reduced by a whopping 50 percent before the year 2050, McBean
told IPS.
The Kyoto Protocol, which has not been ratified in the seven years since
it was created because the United States and Russia, among others, will
not support it, would reduce emissions a mere five percent by 2012.
“Kyoto was just a first step; we need a strategy to get to a 50
percent reduction,” McBean said.
Even Canada, which strongly supports Kyoto and emissions reductions,
has done little to reduce its own pollution, he said.
Government inaction on climate change by Canada and the United States
is due in large part to the failure of the general public to apply pressure
on the issue, says Watt-Cloutier.
“People don’t seem to understand that what they do on a daily
basis has a direct impact on the people and wildlife of the north,”
she said, adding that she hopes people will begin to see that their
actions — their choice of vehicle, for example — can produce
negative consequences for others and future generations.
“People do want to do the right thing, but they just don’t
realize that the Arctic is melting and they are responsible,” she
said.
Oil and gas drilling leases increase
for sacred lands
By Brenda Norrell
Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sept. 10— Lands sacred to Native
Americans in the West became further endangered as the Bush administration
pressed for approval of a record number of new oil and gas drilling
permits, targeting unspoiled pristine wilderness, including the Rocky
Mountain region.
The Environmental Working Group, a consumer watchdog group, released
a comprehensive report of oil and gas leases in the West, showing many
American Indian sacred places have been targeted.
Other areas in Indian country have never been reclaimed from previous
drilling and mining, which have left trails of uranium tailings, scarred
lands, tainted waterways and foul air.
After taking office, the Bush administration developed a task force
to facilitate industry requests and fast track requests for oil and
gas drilling. Now, the Bureau of Land Management has increased drilling
permits by 70 percent since the Clinton administration.
Navajo President Joe Shirley, in a letter to the Bureau of Land Management,
urged the agency to halt oil and gas drilling near the Navajo place
of origin and sacred mountains.
“Because of their significance to Diné life, any desecration
through oil and gas drilling on or near the two mountains will have
a devastating effect on Navajo beliefs,” Shirley said.
The Environmental Working Group’s new report shows the federal
government has offered 27.9 million acres of public and private land
in New Mexico for oil and gas drilling. New Mexico ranks second among
12 western states for lands currently leased and second for the amount
of land currently producing oil and gas.
San Juan County, the Diné place of origin, is among the top three
counties targeted, along with Eddy and Lea counties, according to the
new national report.
Navajos living in nearby San Juan County in southeastern Utah have long
protested the saturation of oil and gas wells around their homes. Navajo
Councilman Mark Maryboy of Aneth, Utah, and other Utah Navajos have
long argued that the Navajo Nation returns little profit to Navajos
living in desperate conditions in the Utah portion of tribal land.
Utah Navajo allegations of corruption within the US Interior gained
support from an Interior whistleblower in 2003.
Kevin Gambrell, head of the Farmington, NM Indian Minerals Office since
1996, entered complaints for six years that Navajo landowners were not
receiving fair compensation for the use of their land.
After receiving no response, he contacted Alan Balaran, an investigator
appointed by the federal judge presiding in the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit,
alleging billions in missing dollars for Indian land use and minerals.
Balaran’s report said private landowners near the Navajo Nation
were paid up to 20 times what Navajos were paid for leases.
Gambrell was fired after reporting that Navajos, many of whom do not
speak English, were given blank leases to sign by oil and gas companies
to build pipelines across tribal land. Navajo leaders were told the
companies would fill in the lease rates later. Gambrell said it resulted
in the loss of millions of dollars for Navajos.
The Interior Department did not respond to the allegations of collusion
with energy corporations and the federal lawsuit, Cobell. v. Norton,
is ongoing.
Pristine land in the Four Corners region, however, is not the only land
targeted for new oil and gas drilling. Energy companies are vying for
oil and gas leases in the most pristine regions of the Rocky Mountains,
where bears, wolves and elk attract travelers. In Wyoming, herds of
pronghorn antelope are on the run from oil and gas development.
In Montana, oil and gas leases threaten Badger-Two Medicine, sacred
ground of the Blackfeet. In Colorado, 1,000-year-old petroglyphs are
threatened in Vermillion Basin. In Utah, oil and gas leases have been
issued for Book Cliffs, Desolation Canyon, and Fisher Towers, with ancient
burial grounds.
Wyoming and Montana’s Powder River Basin are also targeted. The
14 million acres are surrounded by the Bighorn Mountains in the West,
the Black Hills in the east, Montana’s Cedar Ridge in the north,
and Wyoming’s Laramie Mountains, Casper arch and Hartville Uplift
in the South.
Since 1997, the Basin has also been the site of intensive coal bed methane
production and has recently become the most active area in the country
for gas development.
The Environmental Working Group pointed out campaign dollars play a
role. Between 2000 and 2004, the oil and gas industry poured more than
$75 million into political campaigns, with 79 percent going to Republicans.
Further, it said the corporate spoilage of land is doing little to satisfy
the nation’s need for energy.
“Despite access to more than 200 million acres of public land over
the past 15 years (1989 - 2003), the oil and gas industry has produced
enough energy from this land to satisfy only 53 days of US oil consumption
and 221 days of natural gas consumption,” according to EWG’s
analysis of well-by-well oil and gas production records obtained Aug.
16 via a Freedom of Information Act Request.
The report states that drilling on federal lands in the West has done
nothing to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign energy. In
fact, since 1982, the US dependence on foreign oil has doubled and dependence
on foreign natural gas has tripled.
Source: Indian Country Today
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