Rising seas threaten Eskimo island villages
The Eskimo village of Shishmaref was feeling the effects of “baked Alaska” as the rising sea swallowed up at an average 3 metres of shoreline a year, reported CBS News on 22 August.
Shishmaref, a barrier island town of 600 on Alaska’s west coast, became the winter home of the Inupiat when they adopted Western ways with permanent housing.
Deborah Williams, of Alaska Conservation Solutions, illustrated the plight of the town when she said: "I used to bring people to this spot to see the glacier; now I bring people here to not see the glacier.”
Too warm for too long: The protective sea ice that used to buffer the village against storms was no longer as massive or long-lasting now – the weather has been too warm for too long. That makes the shoreline vulnerable to erosion.
$180 million to move town to higher ground inland: The villagers want to move Shishmaref as a whole – power plant, new school and every house on the island at an estimated cost of $180 million – 16 kilometres across a lagoon and 3 more kilometres to higher ground inland.
$5 million received so far: The village has received $5 million to start the move, but Shishmaref’s leaders doubt they will get the full $180 million. Legislation has stalled and the clock is running out: Scientists estimated that in 15 years this island will be lost to the sea.
180 other villages have same problem: The problem was not uncommon in Alaska. Scientists said there were 180 more villages that needed to be moved or they would also be lost.
Cost of saving them to run into billions: The price of moving these Alaskan villages would run into the billions, This raised the issue of what would be the cost of saving Miami, and America’s other coastal metropolitan areas, if global warming forecasters were correct in predictions that seas would rise 1 to 7 metres by century’s end.
Reference: Digest of latest news reported on website of Climate Change Secretariat of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). 22 August 2006. Address: PO Box 260 124, D-53153 Bonn. Germany. Phone: : (49-228) 815-1005, Fax: (49-228) 815-1999. Email: press@unfccc.int
http://www.unfccc.int
Erisk Net, 28/8/2006