climate change
Inuit Perceptions of Climate Change: New Documentary Film
The Museum of the American Indian in Washington will host the first U.S. showing this weekend of the new documentary film “Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change.” The Inuktitut language production, with English subtitles, was developed by Zacharias Kunuk, the well-known director of the prize-winning film “Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner,” along with Ian Mauro, a scholar […]
No Harm to Ifaluk from the Tsunami
The familiar phrase “no news is good news,” first attributed to King James of England in 1616, certainly has applied to the Ifaluk Islanders over the past few weeks. Does the traditional, peaceful island even exist any longer? The massive earthquake in Japan on Friday, March 11, raised fears of a huge, devastating tsunami for […]
Pacific Island Atolls at Copenhagen, Part 2
Few were surprised last week by the failure of the Copenhagen climate conference, though plenty of diplomats and world leaders claimed they had made important strides. Hopes expressed early in the conference, that President Obama might somehow lead the developed nations in halting global warming, that he even might be sensitive to the plight of […]
Pacific Island Atolls at Copenhagen, Part 1
President Obama may well decide the fate of entire societies, such as the one on Ifaluk Island, when he attends the last day of the international climate change conference in Copenhagen tomorrow. The small island nations that will be submerged forever when global warming raises sea levels have been making a forceful case since the […]
Taro Crops Destroyed on Ifaluk
Friday’s dramatic announcement from the Obama administration—that carbon dioxide and five other gases pose a significant human health risk—shows that the American government is finally getting concerned about global climate change. Legislation to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and further U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations, are likely to follow in the near future, despite the protests […]
Inuit Views of Climate Change [journal article review]
The Inuktitut word Sila is often translated by Westerners as “weather” or “climate,” but to the Inuit the term suggests a much larger and more complex spiritual concept. Timothy B. Leduc explains the ways the Inuit view global climate change in a recent journal article. Sila is apparently an important aspect of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ), […]
Inuit Appeal for Human Rights Rejected
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has rejected a petition from the Inuit which alleges that the emission of greenhouse gasses poses a serious human rights threat to them. The idea for a petition to the IACHR was first announced by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in December 2004 at a major global climate change conference. […]
Inuit Lifestyle Supports Canadian Territorial Claims
The Canadian government has announced that the age-old practice of some Inuit peoples of living, at times, on the Arctic Ocean ice supports their claim that the maritime passage between the Arctic islands is Canadian territory. In fact, the Canadian military has renamed the Northwest Passage through the islands, recognized by most maritime countries as […]
Inuit Media Outreach at Climate Change Conference
Last week the global climate change meeting in Montreal wrapped up with a remarkable agreement to continue negotiating, but the threat to the Inuit also gained many headlines. The primary opponent to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, the United States, not only opposes the Kyoto approach to setting mandatory targets for cuts to […]
Arctic Warming Endangers Human Rights of Inuit
The rapid warming of the Arctic is more than an environmental catastrophe. The Inuit are beginning to see it as a human rights issue as well. Their views have been presented by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, an international organization representing the Inuit of Canada, Greenland, Alaska, and Russia, to a meeting on international climate change […]
