http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0920-06.htm
Published on Friday,
September 20, 2002 in the lndependent/UK
Global Warming Forces Inuits to Abandon
Swamped Homes
by Joseph Verrengia in Shishmaref, Alaska
Stripped to his shirt sleeves on a desolate Arctic beach,
the hunter gazes over his disappearing world.
The sun glitters on
waves surrounding his island village.
The town sits amid the ruins of dugouts his ancestors chipped
from the permafrost when Pharaohs were building pyramids
in the hot sands of Egypt.
Thousands of years
ago, nomads chased caribou here across
a now-lost land connection from Siberia, 100 miles away.
Scientists believe those nomads became the first Americans.
Now their descendants are about to become global warming
refugees. The village is being swallowed by the sea.
"We have no room
left here," says 43-year-old Tony Weyiouanna.
"I have to think about my grandchildren. We need to move."
Weather dictates survival
in the Arctic and native Alaskans
are alarmed by a noticeable warming trend. Average temperatures
have risen more than 4F (2.2C) since 1971.
This is still a very
rustic village. Its forlorn breakwater
of sandbags and rusting vehicles is often breached by storms.
Recently, four homes tumbled into the sea while villagers
huddled in the Lutheran church.
Fuel and water tanks
teeter just a few strides from the brink.
Another gale or two and the entire island - a half-mile at
its widest, 10ft (3m) at its highest - could be inundated.
Mr Weyiouanna's ancestors
simply would have loaded their
dogsleds and mushed inland. But, in modern times, moving
a town means Shishmaref's 600 residents must vote.
The US Army Corps of
Engineers says the cost of moving
will be at least $100m (£70m). Residents hope the government
will pay, although state and federal officials say no relocation
fund exists.
And it is an upheaval
many Americans might face in coming
decades. In June, the Bush administration submitted a report
to the UN acknowledging for the first time that climate change
is real and unavoidable. In Alaska, signs of warming are
everywhere. Sea ice volume has declined 15 per cent and
thinned from 10ft to 6ft in places. When ice disappears,
so do the staple foods - whale, walrus, seal and waterfowl,
even polar bear. Glaciers are retreating by 15 per cent and
losing half their thickness every decade. Alaskan meltwater
accounts for half of the worldwide sea level rise of 7.8in
(19.8cm) in the past 100 years.
In nearby Barrow, one
morning, rumors of seal and walrus
sightings ricochet through town. Men hustle from offices
to haul boats to the water's edge. Schoolchildren cycle
along the beach, cradling rifles. Offshore, the concussion
of what locals call "combat hunting" thumps for hours
as
the ghostly shadows of outboard launches swerve between
glistening icebergs. Then the real work has to begin.
In his gravel yard,
Eugene Brower unfolds a table padded
with layers of grease-soaked cardboard and duct tape.
He is surrounded by four walrus shot that morning, their
whiskered heads still sporting ivory tusks. He carves
out slabs of purple meat.
Then he saws the glistening
tan blubber. Each fist-sized
chunk - fat, skin and brown furry hide - is tossed into
plastic pails for rendering.
"In this heat
it should go fast," Mr Brower explains,
his knife never pausing. "We eat it all. It's good for you.
I've got 11 grandkids. I need to put meat on their tables."
Mr Brower, 56, mops
his round face and bristly moustache
with his T-shirt. "When it hit 70 this week, my neighbor
bought a fan," he chortles.
His three-year-old
adopted son, Andrew, frolics next to a
boat Mr Brower made with sealskins. The skin boat, called
an umiaq, should be seaworthy for a decade. In this heat,
it may not last until Andrew's first hunt in five years' time.
The wisdom the old
man shares with Andrew will be different
from what he taught his older sons. "The ice is thinner.
The air is warmer," Mr Brower said. "When you are out
on
the ice, you can see the steam rising. And that's something
you don't want to see."
Back in Shishmaref,
three village women open the Bingo Hall
and stretch the Stars and Stripes across the wall. They tack
a sample ballot to the door.
It reads: "Do
you want to relocate the Community of Shishmaref?"
To vote, "Mark an X to the right of Yes or No."
No hanging chads here.
An hour ticks by. Winfred
Obruk wanders in. He drops his
ballot into the locked box, tapping the lid twice for emphasis.
At 63, he says he is ready to abandon the only home he's known.
"There's nothing else we can do," he said. "The
storms make you
feel kind of small. It feels odd to move, but that's nature."
For a valid referendum,
Shishmaref needs 40 per cent of
its 341 registered voters to cast ballots. The village's
median age is about 20. Most youths stay up late hunting,
playing video games or cruising the beach on ATVs.
By mid-afternoon, some were rousted to vote. They want
to go anywhere, it seems.
"I went to school
on the mainland," said Leona Goodhope,
19, "and when I came back, my house was gone. They moved
it
to the other side of the village, or it would've fallen in."
A new village probably
would have indoor plumbing, refuse
collection and upgraded telecommunications for better e-mail
and television but not everyone is eager. Clifford Weyiouanna,
60, pointed to recent improvements - a school extensions,
a tannery, an automated laundry. And what about the cemetery?
"My mother and
grandmother are in there," he said.
"This is where they were born and lived. I think maybe
they should stay here."
At 8pm, the election
judges hand-count the ballots.
Outside, a slightly impatient crowd is gathered for bingo.
The vote: 161-20. Shishmaref
will move. Nobody cheered,
nobody smiled.
The island still could
be used as a summer fishing camp,
said Tony Weyiouanna. He will co-ordinate relocation.
"We will be putting
money into the move," he said,
"and not pouring it into the sea."
The vote means the
release of $1m in federal funds to
examine the relocation's impact on potential mainland sites.
And where is the favored
spot for the expensive and
heart-rending move?
Five miles east.
© 2002 lndependent
Digital (UK) Ltd
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