Inuit Life Threatened By Climate Change

(CBS)  Even in July, conditions near the top of the world can be harsh and unforgiving. When most of the snow and ice melt, a desert-like landscape remains.

Of the 229 or so people who live on Cornwallis Island, most are Inuit, native people transported from northern Quebec in the 1940s and 50s as part of a sovereign claim to the northern region. They've remained ever since. CBS News correspondent Daniel Sieberg reports from the town of Resolute in the arctic.

Before they arrived there was really nothing here but wildlife. Now it's a rudimentary existence: a school, a store, a church, a community center. But for these people, it's home.

Summer in the high arctic means 24 hours of daylight. Here in Resolute, one of the world's northernmost communities, it's just after midnight. And as for the winter months, well, residents here have become accustomed to 24 hours of darkness.

"The ice is starting to melt earlier, and quicker," says native resident Ludy Pudluk.

It's adapting to the changing climate in the north that has Inuit elders like Pudluk concerned.

"I'm worried. I'm worried for my future, the future generation," he says.

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Ludy and his family arrived in Resolute in 1953. He says within the last 10 years he's seen climate changes — specifically warming trends — affect everything from the amount of ice offshore to the animals they hunt.

"Our culture will no longer exist. It will be gone," says Ludy.

For Marty Bergmann, a veteran arctic scientist, these unfiltered comments about disappearing ice cut through the murky politics of global warming.

"We're all saying the same thing: There's less of it out there and it's gone earlier than normal," says Bergmann, who is assistant director of the International Polar Year.

Other arctic researchers, such as Eddy Carmack, agree. He's been meeting with the Inuit community for decades, listening to their accounts.

"We're hearing stories of ice being too thin or breaking away too early and stranding hunters on the ice," he says. "I think there's a wealth of knowledge to be gained by listening to the northern residents."

Today the challenge for scientists like Bergmann and Carmack is to gather data for climate change predictions and share the data with some of the people who need it most.

[octavianfdlr]

nggr, no matter what Exxon-Mobil did sixty years ago, claiming that Exxon-Mobil is paying people to make an argument does not make the argument false.

The ice ages are a fact. Claiming that Exxon-Mobil is paying people to state that the ice ages are a fact does not make the ice ages a lie. Claiming that Exxon-Mobil did something nasty sixty years ago also does not make the ice ages a lie. Making wild statements about "dumping millions upon billions of metric tons of hazardous waste into the atmosphere every day for the past 100 or so tears" does not make the ice ages a lie.

[nggr]

Exxon-Mobil just made that up a few months ago...)
Posted by octavianfdlr at 04:21 PM : Aug 20, 2007

and who wouldn''t defend exxon which used to be standard oil, which allowed the nazis to bomb london by selling them a fuel additive that the nazi bombers needed to fly.
i mean, if they wouldn''t have sold them this additive, the nazis wouldn''t have been able to drop millions of tons of bombs on london, and they wouldn''t have all those wonderful tales of struggle and heroism to talk about.
thank god for exxon

[nggr]

btw, the surgeon general for GWB the first 4 years was censored by bush and his administration.
if thats what you are talking about, random_radar.

[nggr]

oohh, look at the cute little people worried about their existance! they''re so CUTE! aww, i''ll support them until hannity and colmes comes on this evening. but thats all the sympathy i can spare for these cute little people and their strange but cute lttle society.

[octavianfdlr]

The real question, jimfinster, is

Who is supposing that we do not think?

[jimfinster]

Oops! Forgot! We''''re not supposed to think.)
Posted by octavianfdlr at 04:21 PM : Aug 20, 2007

Congratulations on reaching your goal.

[octavianfdlr]

Is it something about months that begin with A? Last April, we heard (from CBS) about some poor Inuit who had lost several fingers and/or toes to frostbite when his snowmobile fell through the ice. He blamed the frostbite on Global Warming. CBS noted that this was an example of how Global Warming was endangering a way of life (hunting from gasoline-powered snowmobiles?) that was thousands of years old.

Now, in August, we hear about how another ancient tradition (dating back to the 1940s and 1950s) is threatened by a reversal of the Global Cooling that had gripped the region. It seems somehow surprising that soil which has been covered with ice for decades has nothing growing in it when the ice melts! (Do you think, perhaps, that if the ice stays off for a while, the soil will look less desert-like? Oops! Forgot! We''re not supposed to think.)

Believe in Global Warming! A statement from thousands of politicians who claim to be scientists cannot be wrong! (And ignore all of that stuff and nonsense about ice ages. Exxon-Mobil just made that up a few months ago...)

[jimfinster]

No, not remarkable--typical. If you were a scientist, you would know that no one gets published who disagrees with the concensus position.
Posted by random_radar at 11:49 AM : Aug 20, 2007

Absolutely not true. Indeed, the very best way to get published is to challenge the status quo with solid data and argument. That has not happened in the case of global warming because the consensus at this point appears to be correct.

[jimfinster]

Science is not a search for truth. Scientists are paid to support the agenda of those who have money and power. Either you do as you are told or you find another career.
Posted by random_radar at 11:49 AM : Aug 20, 2007

Yes, that does sometimes happen. But most of the researchers in this field are working for govt organizations. At least in the US, undue influence on their work was not an issue until the Bush administration.

To make your point valid, 100% of scientists would have to be corrupt or scared. As a working scientist for the past 30 years, I can tell that is absolutely not true. Your statement shows an utter ignorance of how the scientific community operates...

[ianlou]

"Are the Inuits not human? Can they not adapt? Adaptation is why man has persisted throughout ALL the climate changes in his history... "
Posted by kaiyo4u at 11:32 AM : Aug 19, 2007

Exactly,
They have a lot of nerve thinking that they can choose to avoid the 8 to 5 mind numbing job with the one hour commute both ways into and outa one of our thriving cities.

They should get off their A$$es and start contributing to the gasses that are causing the meltdown of their home.