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Hot issues |
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Human populations of the Arctic have
evolved both physically and culturally in relation to extreme climatic
conditions. To the peoples living in the North, normal seasonal
variation has always been considerable, commonly demanding or enabling
routine changes of settlement area, social grouping, house form,
subsistence activity, mode of transportation, and diet. |
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It is a difficult balance to weigh
risks of diminishing certainty with appropriate action and concern
so as to make a meaningful and positive difference. Currently most
predictions on climate change keep to a 50-100 year frame. Within
this time span, climatic change may not be so great as to overwhelm
the temperature extremes between natural, annual seasonal fluctuations,
but it will surely shift, stretch or compress the seasons considerably,
to bring about spiraling accumulative changes such as in the thawing
of permafrost, northward shift of biotope zones, and radical alterations
of ice formation. These changes in turn will greatly effect breeding
patterns and migratory behavior of species central to indigenous
livelihoods and cultural traditions. While I habitually address
indigenous issues, much of what I say here applies equally to non-indigenous
Arctic residents. |
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Arctic ecological subsystems can be
usefully categorized according to a tripartite division: marine,
freshwater and terrestrial. All of these share the feature that
they are relatively young, since only approximately 10,000 years
have passed since the retreat of the continental ice sheets. Relatively
few species have had the time to adapt to life in the Arctic, but
the members of these few species can be in great supply, forming
a so called specialized ecosystem. Besides the youth of the Arctic
ecosystem, its soil is relatively infertile, precipitation low,
growing season short, and wind speed high. As the vegetation is
quite uniform, there is also low diversity of animal habitats, and
because of its low biological diversity, the Arctic ecosystem can
be quite unstable, being in short supply of the checks and balances
provided by the systemic integration of many species. Particularly
in the terrestrial subsystem this is evident in the widely fluctuating
population levels of dominant species. |
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Marine mammals: whales, walrus, polar
bear and seals of various species, are major elements of the marine
ecosystem and of major importance to human subsistence and cultural
maintenance. Although the polar seas can team with large standing
crops of certain species at certain seasons, this is by no means
a general or constant condition. High productivity is actually more
common in the subpolar seas or where waters from different sources
merge and cause the upwelling of nutrients. Moreover, the life which
seems abundant is largely composed of seasonal migrants to specific
feeding grounds where food production can be intense but short.
This implies, for example, that even if climate change does not
cause the reduction of the world's stock of ringed seals, it might
indeed cause them to migrate in new paths, thereby dramatically
affecting subsistence harvesting and hence human settlement patterns. |
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Food chains are also short. Growth
and rates of reproduction for most species are low. Species abundance
is not solely regulated by abundance or scarcity further down the
feeding chain, however. The population density of breeding seals,
for example, is positively correlated with the distribution and
condition of coastal sea ice. Inuit hunters know the usual types
of ice formation at different places and therefore know where seal
breathing holes are most likely to be found. Inuit hunting strategies
are the result of the interplay of complex variables such as the
distribution of numerous game species, dietary needs, transportation
possibilities, and energy expenditures of different hunting forms.
The separate and combined effects of the warming of land and water
temperatures along different scales as well as changes in precipitation
will most assuredly effect ice formation and thereby both the distribution
and breeding of game animals. This in turn may cause current settlement
locations, originally determined solely by subsistence criteria
but often later endowed with an imported infrastructure, to be misplaced--or
rather, their viability will be increasingly dependent upon externally
derived funds, services and employment instead of the harvesting
of subsistence resources. |
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Especially for the northern peoples
of Fennoscandia and the Eurasian continent, fish, notably salmon
and char, are dietary staples, mainly in the summer months. Even
in North America, freshwater fishing is by no means insignificant.
Freeman mentions that there are about 60 species of freshwater Arctic
fish, although only about 10 of these are utilized by man. Rivers
generally provide the best nutrient base for fish and therefore
estuaries and deltas prove most attractive to fish predators. Humans
are attracted to these areas for the fish, for the accompanying
wildfowl, and for the fur provided by the furbearers drawn to the
same areas. |
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Obviously increased precipitation
and C02 concentrations with global warming will affect vegetation
growth (type and spread) and the composition and reach of forests.
With an average projected temperature increase of 10-60 times as
fast as that which has occurred from the end of the last Ice Age
to the present, some scientists predict a state of non-equilibrium
between the atmosphere and other highly determinative climatic variables.
For example, the deep oceans will warm at a rate much slower than
that of the surface water, and forests will spread north at rates
which lag far behind what the rate of widening habitat due to warming
would make possible. It is also quite possible that a number of
feedback spirals will be created. For example temperature rise affects
a considerable decrease in global ice coverage which will cause
greater heat exchange between ocean and atmosphere, causing even
less ice formation, etc. Moreover, less ice means better ocean-going
transportation possibilities for longer periods and probably increased
oil and gas exploration and eventual exploitation. The expected
15-95 cm rise of the sea level during the next 100 years can displace
vast numbers of people to the south and can also render many Arctic
settlements uninhabitable. Land erosion will also increase dramatically
with the rise of the sea level. Seasonal shifts, precipitation,
ice quantity and quality, and snow conditions are but some of the
variables that will surely affect the means of northern transportation,
hence hunting strategies and settlement. |
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With regard to the terrestrial subsystem,
snow cover is of utmost importance both to vegetative cover, but
also to the herbivores (reindeer/caribou, moose, musk-ox) dependent
upon grazing resources. Winter snowfall is a main source of water
to plants, but if snows are too deep or too crusted the access of
herbivores to their necessary grazing resource is cut off, resulting
in mass starvation. Should periods of cold weather alternate with
periods of mild weather, ice can form on plants so as to make them
useless for grazing animals. The wild reindeer of Eurasia or caribou
of North America have been essential to the survival of many northern
hunters. In Fennoscandia and Eurasia domestic reindeer herding is
a major livelihood among indigenous pastoralists, an important food
resource, source of employment, and a foundation of their cultural
heritage. Changes to the reindeer herding livelihood occasioned
by increased precipitation and warmth are difficult to foresee.
However, it must be noted that northern lands are far from the unexploited
wildernesses that many believe them to be. The herding livelihood
is in serious competition for land resources with a number of exploitive
industries, for example hydro-electric power, mining, and timber.
Were vegetative conditions to alter so that reindeer ranges could
expand or have a greater carrying capacity, this does not at all
mean that the herding livelihood will expand. |
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Degradation of permafrost, and thermokarst
erosion will affect surface water runoff and introduce more nutrients
into the soil. Warmer soils will lead to greater decomposition of
organic matter, more nutrients for plants, therefore population
increases and migratory shifts of grazing herbivores hunted or herded
by indigenous peoples. |
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Wage employment is vital to most northern
dwellers, indigenous and non-indigenous, and many impacts on urban
markets even far to the south will certainly effect people in the
North. Few northern communities are isolated from modern industrial
centers, and a good number of them are grossly dependent upon government
subsidies and programs. Should one follow all the possible repercussions
of climatic change, few if any aspects of life would not be impacted
in some way or other. Northern social impact ricocheting off altered
climatic determinants of southern populations may be great, especially
and maybe hopefully with respect to the attention directed to the
north by well-endowed research. The mesh of causal loops is wonderfully
intricate, making our ability to predict the repercussions of variable
change hopelessly crude. If we are to reverse negative trends or
even to react to them in the best way, it is essential to grasp
the causal paths binding human behavior (such as pollution emissions)
with climatic effects and how these loop back to human impacts.
Unfortunately it is often only once we have suffered the negative
impact that we see the arcs of our actions turn into loops. |
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