Alaska Beat

Climate change costing dearly

According to The Canadian Press (via CBC News), a new study by a geographer at Canada's McGill University says that Arctic peoples are already bearing high costs due to climate change and that those least able to pay are bearing the highest. The study backs recent demands by Canada's Inuit leaders to receive a share of global funds proposed at the Copenhagen conference to help threatened people adapt to the changing climate. The study explains that climate change is making life in the North much more dangerous for families that depend on subsistence practices, families which are also the ones least likely to be sufficiently engaged in the wage economy to pay for things necessary to adapt to shifting traditional food sources. The study recommends that governments shift funding to programs designed help Arctic people meld new technology and traditional knowledge to ease adaptation. Read much more here. Unfortunately, all this isn't news to many people in rural Alaska. Now that an Anglo scientist has said it, hopefully governments will listen.

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