All change in Alaska

According to this piece from Sunday's Observer, the Yup'ik Eskimos 0f southern Alaska are amongst the planet's first climate change refugees. (There ARE others though, such as Kiribati's inhabitants.)

A fascinating article about how climate change is having really huge impacts on native Eskimo communities highlights how one village is moving location some nine miles to an island where the melting permafrost will not have quite the same effect that it is having on their current village's location.

Some fascinating insights into subsistence living in one of the planet's harshest, and, it seems, rapidly changing, environments. Well worth a read.

n.b. Just love the quote about Sarah Palin - "Alaska's new lipstick-wearing pitbull megastar, Sarah Palin, is intellectually challenged when it comes to global warming. [Ouch!!] Soon after she was thrown into the spotlight as John McCain's presidential running mate she said: 'A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made.' A few days later she tried to retract her statement, but her sentiments as a global-warming denier were crystal clear."

Arctic ice loss hits the Walrus

This article from the International Herald Tribune details how thousands of Walruses have migrated to Alaska's rocky shores as their usual summer home, the ice pack, has receded way too far north.

The remaining ice pack was way north of the edge of the continental shelf, which is where their staple diet lives. The ice pack was over water too deep for them to dive for food, so the poor Walruses have had to find other locations to lay around on whilst bringing up their pups.

This raises the distinct possibility of mass starvation, as too many walruses migrating to the rocky coastline consume a diminishing supply of clams, snails etc. closer to the shore.

This is just another in the long line of indicators of what climate change just might do to various life forms on this planet. The thing is, Walruses will simply starve, pretty much until the population has dropped low enough to survive on the remaining food supply. Were a similar scenario to occur where humans are involved, the consequences will inevitably be much nastier, as we've learned to create, cherish, and use, to devastating effect, all manner of lethal weapons.