when Quinn the Eskimo gets here, Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy?

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

Global warming is killing us too, say Inuit
Paul Brown in Milan
Thursday December 11, 2003
The Guardian

The Inuit people of Canada and Alaska are launching a human rights case
against the Bush administration claiming they face extinction because of
global warming.

By repudiating the Kyoto protocol and refusing to cut US carbon dioxide
emissions, which make up 25% of the world's total, Washington is
violating their human rights, the Inuit claim.

For their campaign they are inviting the Washington-based Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights to visit the Arctic circle to see the
devastation being caused by global warming.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar
Conference, which represents all 155,000 of her people inside the Arctic
circle, said: "We want to show that we are not powerless victims. These
are drastic times for our people and require drastic measures."

The human rights case was announced at the climate talks in Milan,
Italy, where 140 countries are trying to put the finishing touches to
the Kyoto protocol, the first international agreement to reduce
greenhouse gases. The backing of Russia, which is hesitating about
ratifying the agreement, is required to bring the protocol into force.
The US is trying to persuade the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, not
to sign the protocol.

The Inuit have no voice at the conference, since they are not a nation
state, but Mrs Watt-Cloutier said: "We are already bearing the brunt of
climate change - without our snow and ice our way of life goes. We have
lived in harmony with our surroundings for millennia, but that is being
taken away from us.

"People worry about the polar bear becoming extinct by 2070 because
there will be no ice from which they can hunt seals, but the Inuit face
extinction for the same reason and at the same time.

"This a David and Goliath story. Most people have lost contact with the
natural world. They even think global warming has benefits, like wearing
a T-shirt in November, but we know the planet is melting and with it our
vibrant culture, our way of life. We are an endangered species, too."

Mrs Watt-Cloutier comes from Pangirtung, north of Iqaluit, in Canada.
The entire area should already be ice-bound, and winter hunting would
normally have begun, but in Frobisher Bay, the home of both polar bears
and Inuit, the water is still clear. "We now have weeks of uncertainty
about when the ice will come," she said. "In the spring the ice melts
not at the end of June but weeks earlier. Sometimes the ice is so thin
hunters fall through.

"The ocean is too warm. Our elders, who instruct the young on the ways
of the winter and what to expect, are at a loss. Last Christmas after
the ice had formed the temperature rose to 4C [39F] and it rained. We'd
never known it before."

Among the problems the Inuit face is permafrost melting, which has
destroyed the foundations of houses, eroded the seashore and forced
people to move inland. Airport runways, roads and harbours are also
collapsing.

The Washington-based commission, which is the Americas' equivalent of
the European court of human rights, will be asked to rule against the US
government but has no power to enforce any action. However, the Inuit
believe the publicity the case will provide, particularly with hearings
in Washington, will embarrass George Bush's government and educate US
public opinion about the consequences of profligate ways of living.

"Europeans understand this issue but in America the public know little
or nothing and politicians are in denial," Mrs Watt-Cloutier said. "We
are hunters and we are trained to go for the heart. The heart of the
problem is in Washington."

She hoped that by winning the case Inuit would win a voice at climate
talks. "The Inuit people see me as one of the leaders, with the same
status as the ministers here. As a nation we are badly affected by
climate change, but in these negotiations we have no voice.

"We intend to get one so our representative can sit round the table with
other ministers and demand action to save our people."

--------------------
Arctic dwellers

* Inuit means "the people" and is the generic name given to indigenous
people of the Arctic. Though the word "eskimo", meaning "eaters of raw
meat", is still used to described Inuit, it is generally considered
derogatory.

* Inuit populations include Canadian Inuit, Alaska's Inupiat and Yupik
people, and the Russian Yupik.

* Inuit are descendants of the Thule people who arrived in Alaska about
AD500 and reached Canada in 1000. Alaskan Inuit now live mainly in the
North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits region.

* Inuit rely heavily on subsistence fishing and hunting whales, walruses
and seals.

* The arrival of Europeans damaged the traditional Inuit way of life and
since the 1970s their leaders have been campaigning for greater rights
and asserting their territorial claims.

* In more recent times Inuit have banded together to fight against
environmental damage to their homelands.

Alan Power

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Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine