climate change
Zapotec Migration North
The migration by Zapotec farmers to find work north of the Mexican border is now fostered as much by global climate change as it is by other economic factors. A 2,400-word article published in the National Observer, a Canadian news website, on Monday last week explains the nature of the migration, its causes, and, most […]
Ladakhis Prepare for Climate Change
It took a little over a week for the Ladakhis to spring into action. After the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] issued a report on the perils that changing climate conditions pose to the Hindu Kush/Himalayan region of Asia, several groups in Ladakh announced an action plan to deal with the crisis. Ladakhis […]
Stopping Climate Change with a Wheelbarrow
The journey to the U.S. by Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish advocate of taking action against climate change, has been widely covered by the major news media. In addition to being a leading actor in the youth climate activists’ movement, Ms. Thunberg evidently delights in catching the attention of people by making startling comments. She […]
Climate Change Affects Ladakh
A news report on The Weather Channel website last week summarized evidence showing that global climate change is starting to destroy the cultural heritage of Ladakh. Though not all Ladakhis agree with the causes of the destruction, historic structures are being weakened and destroyed by the changing weather conditions. In order to cope with increasingly […]
Mbuti Struggle and Survive
According to the closing credits of a six-minute video posted to YouTube last week, the marvelous footage of an Mbuti community suffering from discrimination in the Eastern Congo was prepared by the Survival Media Agency. The beauty of the scenery—and of the Mbuti people themselves—recommends the production but it is worth summarizing its factual points […]
Warming Sea Distresses Inuit
The sea around the coast of Labrador is warming rapidly and the loss of winter ice threatens the culture and way of life of the Inuit in Rigolet. According to a report in The Guardian last week, Rigolet, located on the north shore of the Hamilton Inlet, is the southernmost Inuit village in Canada. The […]
Flooding in Ladakh
The Siachen River has been acting very strangely over the past 20 years, threatening the 28 villages in the Nubra Valley of Ladakh that it flows through. The cause of its erratic behavior is global climate change. According to an article in Al Jazeera last week, the rapid melting of the Siachen Glacier is causing […]
EU Climate Change Grant for the San Has Ended
In 2014, the European Union granted the Nyae Nyae Development Foundation of Namibia 649,390 euros to help the Ju/’hoansi and the !Kung devise ways of mitigating climate change. Several African news services reported during April that, after four years of successes, the grant program has ended. The Namibia Economist published a story on April 13 […]
Smartphones in an Inuit Community
An app is being developed that will allow the Inuit in a remote town to share information about local climate issues on their phones, despite the lack of good internet connections. The inhabitants of Rigolet, a small town of 300 people on the Hamilton Inlet near the coast of Labrador, are working with a team […]
Climate Change and Peacefulness [journal article review]
Over the past ten years, policies related to climate change in the Arctic have increasingly focused on approaches that might help the Inuit adapt to the inevitability of change. Instead, some scholars have recently argued, everyone might be better off if the traditional Inuit concepts that foster peacefulness—their firm beliefs in restoring harmony and promoting […]
