It’s not just the Titanic and polar bears which are being negatively affected by breaking ice sheets. Inuit communities in Northern Canada say the impact of climate change is already so significant that it’s violating their human rights. The case was made before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the territory the Inuit are so dependent on for survival is melting away in part by the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the United States. Legal assistance has come in the form of California-based Earthjustice, the leading nonprofit environmental law firm which was founded in 1971 out of a Sierra Club campaign against Walt Disney Productions.
The Inuit community has put forth a petition to the 34-nation commission, asking for relief. Activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier said climate change is "destroying the right (of the Inuit) to life, health, property, and means of subsistence.” She stated that detaching ice formations, which will increase in frequency with rising temperatures, are also likely to carry unsuspecting Inuit hunters out to sea. Watt-Cloutier added, “States that do not recognise these impacts and take action violate our human rights."
In a UN report last month, the world's top climate scientists said that "average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years". Scientists say that indigenous cultures in the Arctic, along with wildlife, may be canaries in the mineshaft, as they become increasingly threatened by receding ice. By 2100 it is projected that Arctic sea ice may disappear completely in the summer, though as dark ocean water absorbs more sunlight than white ice caps, it is possible that the Arctic may be ice-free as early as 2040.
Although the reality of the situation looks grim, there is a silver lining to this melting glacier. The hearing was held just two months after the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights rejected a petition filed by Watt-Cloutier and 65 other Inuit in 2005. Paul Crowley, representing the Inuit group, remarked over the about-face of the commission, "They're definitely expressing an interest in the connection between global warming, climate change, and human rights, and Inuit being some of the more impacted by the climate change."
Video of the testimony can be found on the Earthjustice website here.
[Photo by Loredo Rucchin]
