The Alaskan village set to disappear under water in a decade
POSTED BY: Niki2
UPDATED: Tuesday, June 20, 2023 05:38
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Almost no one in America has heard of the Alaskan village of Kivalina. It clings to a narrow spit of sand on the edge of the Bering Sea, far too small to feature on maps of Alaska, never mind the United States.
Which is perhaps just as well, because within a decade Kivalina is likely to be under water. Gone, forever. Remembered - if at all - as the birthplace of America's first climate change refugees.
Four hundred indigenous Inuit people currently live in Kivalina's collection of single-storey cabins. Their livelihoods depend on hunting and fishing.
The sea has sustained them for countless generations but in the last two decades the dramatic retreat of the Arctic ice has left them desperately vulnerable to coastal erosion. No longer does thick ice protect their shoreline from the destructive power of autumn and winter storms. Kivalina's spit of sand has been dramatically narrowed.
The US Army Corps of Engineers built a defensive wall along the beach in 2008, but it was never more than a stop-gap measure.
A ferocious storm two years ago forced residents into an emergency evacuation. Now the engineers predict Kivalina will be uninhabitable by 2025.
Kivalina's story is not unique. Temperature records show the Arctic region of Alaska is warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States.
Retreating ice, slowly rising sea levels and increased coastal erosion have left three Inuit settlements facing imminent destruction, and at least eight more at serious risk.
The problem comes with a significant price tag. The US Government believes it could cost up to $400m (£265m) to relocate Kivalina's inhabitants to higher ground - building a road, houses, and a school does not come cheap in such an inaccessible place. And there is no sign the money will be forthcoming from public funds.
Kivalina council leader, Colleen Swan, says Alaska's indigenous tribes are paying the price for a problem they did nothing to create.
North of Kivalina there are no roads, just the vast expanse of Alaska's Arctic tundra. And at the most northerly tip of US territory lies the town of Barrow - much closer to the North Pole than to Washington DC. America's very own climate change frontline.
Barrow's residents are predominantly from the Inupiat tribe - they hunt bowhead whale and seal. But this year has been fraught with problems.
The sea ice started to melt and break up as early as March. Then it refroze, but it was so thin and unstable the whale and seal hunters were unable to pull their boats across it. Their hunting season was ruined.
For the first time in decades not a single bowhead whale was caught from Barrow. One of the town's most experienced whaling captains, Herman Ahsoak, says the ice used to be 3m (9ft) thick in winter, now it is little more than a metre.
Barrow is known as the Arctic's "science city". In summer it hosts dozens of international researchers monitoring the shrinking of the Arctic ice and - no less important - the rapid thawing of the tundra's permafrost layer.
But it is the anecdotes that are as striking as the columns of data. I join a team of scientists taking samples of the ice off Barrow Point.
We motor across the offshore ice on all terrain vehicles, but we are not alone. "You'll be escorted by armed bear guards," my local guide, Brower Frantz, says before we set out.
"The ice is too thin for the polar bears to hunt on so they're stuck onshore searching for food. You don't want to be on your own when you meet a hungry bear," he adds.
Alaska's role in the climate story is about cause as well as effect. As America's Arctic territory warms it continues to be a vital source of the carbon-based fossil fuels seen by most scientists as a key driver of climate change.
Alaska's North Slope is the US's biggest oil field and the Trans Alaska pipeline is a key featuNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Scare tactics ... Yawn
Erosion is a part of the natural earth process.
They can just move off the little barrier isle to the mainland, if need be. Far from any " crisis ".
Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen
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" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall
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Based on where they are, they really would not be able to rebuild further inland if erosion or rising water does claim the town.
They're far away from any road (they probably actually can't BUILD roads because of the permafrost), and they're on tundra above the treeline (as in, no trees for hundreds of miles). I also suspect that for nine months of the year they're unable to get air service (the only way anything gets moved around Alaska) because of the icy conditions.
They could relocate to other towns, yes. I imagine they would be welcomed by the inhabitants of wherever they might go along the north coast due to the way their tribal system works, and that perhaps, no, it is not really an immediately life or death situation. But it is unfortunate.
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The mainland is right there. Not 1, 10's or 100's of miles away. Spare us the tale of woe. Roads don't build themselves. Never have. Mt Vesuvius blew its top, and what did the people do? Built right back on the same piece of ground.
That's life on the living planet. This isn't some ruttin' pre - fabbed Matrix.
Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen
Resident USA Freedom Fundie
" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall
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Yes, the mainland is right there but they LACK MATERIALS WITH WHICH TO BUILD. I did not say the mainland was hundreds of miles away, I said that TREES were hundreds of miles away.
I suppose they could disassemble their own town for base materials... But seriously, AU. These are people who live somewhere where there is NOTHING and who themselves have almost NOTHING. They live a harder scramble existence than even the fictional crew of our Firefly.
You might not think it's a big deal because where you live, it's easy to build. For them, it's not easy to build, and this is probably devastating. Roads don't build themselves, but here there ARE NO ROADS because the permafrost destroys any road they might try to build. It's not even that easy for them to EVACUATE.
Not that you have to care, but the reality of their situation must be fully understood before they can just be dismissed.
Ultimately they probably will have to leave and go to various other villages along the north coast. Which does technically make them refugees.
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Originally posted by Niki2:
Which is perhaps just as well, because within a decade Kivalina is likely to be under water. Gone, forever. Remembered - if at all - as the birthplace of America's first climate change refugees.
Not really.
10,000 years or so ago, people lived along the banks of Lake Toiyabe and Lake Tonopah in central Nevada. They left carvings at what is now the Hickison Petroglyph Recreation Area. The climate changed, the lakes dried up, and they left. I've been there. It's a beautiful, eerie, place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hickison_Petroglyph_Recreation_Area
"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."
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Glacier Bay used to be above water and inhabited.
Then the eponymous glaciers came through.
Local legends suggest that the glaciers moved surprisingly fast, 30 miles in a day. A bit faster than a person's walking speed. Evidence suggests the villagers managed to escape (how else would there be an oral history?), but they pretty much lost everything.
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Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Yes, the mainland is right there but they LACK MATERIALS WITH WHICH TO BUILD. I did not say the mainland was hundreds of miles away, I said that TREES were hundreds of miles away.
How'd they build the town they have now ? I suspect most of it was all shipped in. I never said you said the mainland was hundreds of miles away. I just said that as a matter of fact. They're not some isolated group in the middle of the Pacific. They're Inuit. They adapt to their world. So adapt already.
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I suppose they could disassemble their own town for base materials... But seriously, AU. These are people who live somewhere where there is NOTHING and who themselves have almost NOTHING. They live a harder scramble existence than even the fictional crew of our Firefly.
I missed the part where that's my problem. Seriously, this is their world, as they chose to live it. That's not being cold, uncaring or callous. That's merely seeing things as they are.
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You might not think it's a big deal because where you live, it's easy to build. For them, it's not easy to build, and this is probably devastating. Roads don't build themselves, but here there ARE NO ROADS because the permafrost destroys any road they might try to build. It's not even that easy for them to EVACUATE.
It's sure a bad day for them, if moving is what they have to do, but they're getting fair warning. If the roads are so bad, why live there ? And how'd they make their little community in the first place ? If they want to be smart about it, start migrating to parts less vulnerable to erosion. Pretty simple concept, actually.
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Not that you have to care, but the reality of their situation must be fully understood before they can just be dismissed.
Oh, i get it. It sucks to be them and all. But so what ? I'm not gonna grip over the fact they've put themselves in harms way, and now have to move. Guess what ? They have the ability and resources TO move. And they have to time to do so.
It's a bit like living in New Orleans, when Katrina was still off the coast of FL. Things might get real bad, or they might not. But you've got time to get up and move, before things get real bad.
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Ultimately they probably will have to leave and go to various other villages along the north coast. Which does technically make them refugees.
Please. 'Refugee' is stretching the limits of that word's definition. I know how folks love to invent new words or new meanings for old words, to give them some sort of credibility, but lets be real here.
Fathom the hypocrisy of a government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured... but not everyone must prove they are a citizen
Resident USA Freedom Fundie
" AU, that was great, LOL!! " - Chrisisall
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They will drill for Oil under the north pole soon enough
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How'd they build the town they have now ? I suspect most of it was all shipped in.
Yes.
And they asked for help for people to ship more materials in to rebuild further inland.
They've been ignored.
So they will have to relocate to other towns because their town will be flooded and they can't rebuild nearby.
When Katrina flooded New Orleans, do you consider the people who were misplaced... "Refugees?"
How about people in Africa when there's a drought and a famine and they relocate to "refugee camps?"
The definition of refugee is someone who takes refuge. As in someone who leaves their home and goes somewhere safer because of a problem, be it a natural disaster, war, scarce resources, political upheaval, and so on.
It's not a new definition or a stretch to call them that.
While I agree it's not necessarily life or death, and they do have ample warning, it's also a misfortune.
Ultimately I think we actually agree that it's sad for these people, but you're getting sidetracked about the term refugee.
And you're also getting defensive for some reason. I've said already it doesn't matter if you care about this or not. I never once said anything about callousness or any of the things you wrote in your post.
I was just trying to clarify the situation for you. Things in Alaska kinda work different from the rest of the world.
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