Sea Change
by Robert Knoth
“When it storms I don’t feel safe” - Arda Weyouanna
The Eskimo village of Shismaref on the western coast of Alaska faces a daily struggle against climate change. A combination of melting permafrost, increasing storms and severe erosion threatens the island’s 600 residents. Dozens of communities could be facing the same question within the next few years. The recorded rise in temperature of 2.6 degrees Celsius over the past 30 years is at double the rate in the rest of the world.
Shismaref has already lost 18 houses to the sea. The island, only half a kilometer wide and five kilometers long, is losing 6 to 15 meters of land per year. Its inhabitants are getting desperate. Water birds and other animals have moved away. Hunters and fishermen complain the changing climate has made it more difficult to earn a living. “We have to keep going further to find animals,” says Tony Weyouanna.
Already haunted by a decline of their traditional culture and facing unemployment and poverty, the necessary funds to relocate the entire community are nowhere to be found. The federal government refuses to pay the necessary 180 million US dollars for the relocation to the mainland. The community is divided, some want to leave, others want to stay.
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