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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 11564
[Culture]
Date Posted:
11/19/2004
2:35:45 pm EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 10,256
RSS: 2,474
Comments: 5
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As Ice Thaws, Arctic Peoples At Loss For Words
Author: Alister Doyle, Reuters Source: Yahoo
Title: AS ICE THAWS, ARCTIC PEOPLES AT LOSS FOR WORDS
What are the words used by indigenous peoples in the Arctic for "hornet," "robin," "elk," "barn owl" or "salmon?"
If you don't know, you're not alone.
Many indigenous languages have no words for legions of new animals, insects and plants advancing north as global warming thaws the polar ice and lets forests creep over tundra.
"We can't even describe what we're seeing," said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference which says it represents 155,000 people in Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia.
An eight-nation report this month says the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet and that the North Pole could be ice-free in northern hemisphere summer by 2100, threatening indigenous cultures and perhaps wiping out creatures like polar bears.
Submitted by and Thanks to: Trillium
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Community Thoughts: There are 5 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Just Another Frontier? | Nov 20th. at 9:02:40 pm EST |
by Saffron (Eastern Passage, N.S. Canada) - wc_xemail
This alarming article reminds me of a conversation I had years ago at a conference in Iowa that illustrated to me how differently we can all interpret something. To some, the melting ice cap is an opportunity. To others, it's an environmental disaster.
Anyway, back to the conversation. Myself and a guy named Georges from Quebec were the only two Canadians at this agricultural conference, so we were kind of like celebrities.
One person was asking me where I lived (near Toronto at the time) and I had to draw a map of Canada to show her where that was in relation to Iowa. As the conversation unfolded, she wanted to know where the biggest cities are located in our country, where most of the people live etc.
When I pointed out that most of the population hugs the border just above the United States, she looked at me in awe.
"What's above that?" she asked, pointing to the arctic areas.
"Um, not much, " I replied. "Snow, ice, tundra, caribou, and a smattering of Inuit in a few small communities..."
Her reply was a curious one to me, "Oh, I didn't know Canada still had a frontier!"
I looked at her, puzzled, because I had NEVER heard of the far north described that way before. To most Canadians, the farther north you go, the more bugs there are, but the fishing gets better because of all the lakes. Then when you go farther, the trees get smaller, disappear, and it gets really, REALLY cold and your food has to be flown in.
To us, it's called a wilderness, and the Iowan woman's remarks reminded me of how differently two people can view a thing.
As for the melting north, yes there's lots of oil that can be tapped (whether you get it across the Northwest Passage or not remains to be seen if our Coast Guard has anything to do with it) . But for a lot of people, it is a pristeen and relatively untouched part of our world that is best left alone to the indigenous people who know how to handle it.
We've fiddled about with it enough already. Well-meaning Canadian governments in the past have encouragied nomadic Inuit families to settle in towns and recruited their kids into schools where they're losing their language. And now , thanks to the world's cavalier use of fossil fuels, the ice is melting and there are no words for new experiences.
Trust me, I can think of a few.
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| Read This Book Now! | Nov 20th. at 4:00:23 pm EST |
by Craig Stehr (Berkeley, California) - wc_xemail
Feeling the Heat: Dispatches from the Frontlines of Climate Change, from the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine, Edited by Jim Motavalli. Published 2004 by Routledge. ISBN 0-415-94656-5
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| Yikes! | Nov 19th. at 5:49:44 pm EST |
by maggie (montreal, qc, canada) - wc_xemail
What's really frightnening is that the easier access to oil, as well as other minerals and gold, will make it easier to for those in denial to burn yet more non-renewables and create yet more greenhouse gases. Only able to see the planet as a bunch of for-profit parts, instead of an interconnected whole, they don't even acknowledge that unpredicable severe weather events will continue to increase as a result of warming and melting ice cover worldwide.. Oy vey! I don't have words either. Very frightening. And we (well, some of us) have known about this coming for at least 20 years. To know and not do anything is just disgusting.
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| The Good News, | Nov 19th. at 4:12:55 pm EST |
by David (Colorado) - wc_xemail
according to the Bushians, is that without all that pesky polar ice we can drill for a lot more oil and tanker it across the polar route with greater ease. All those Northern folks can get jobs on the oil rigs and tanker terminals.
It's a win / win situation!
Idiots ...
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| There Is No Global Warming | Nov 19th. at 2:42:24 pm EST |
by Rowan Foxfyre (Indianapolis, In) - wc_xemail
George W and a few Posts on here tell us so.......
Oh I did find a few evil tshirts that some would like that have nothing to do with this at all but they are so wicked/cool/funny I loved them Find More info -- HERE
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