Mark Brzezinski

Jose Kusugak, a leader of the Arctic Native Inuit community, wrote this in a book on Arctic climate entitled “The Earth is Faster Now”:“Finding examples of the effects of climate change is easy and endless.  I know Inuit, old and young, want to be informed of outside influences of global warming.  Like acupuncture, they know the pain is much in their homelands but the needles have to be inserted in the south since that is where the disease really is.”

Kusugak’s words capture the essence of the increasingly ominous impact global warming is having in the Arctic region.  The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on earth.  We’ve underestimated the acceleration of that change, which has profound consequences for communities, economies and ecosystems of the region and also around the world.  Sea ice near some Alaskan villages that rely on it for subsistence hunting has vanished.  With warming temperatures, parasites like ticks never before seen in certain areas of the Arctic have arrived, and ticks are disease vectors that affect not just animals.  Thanks to coastal erosion and sea level rise, literally the outer limits of some coastal towns in the Arctic are contracting, forcing relocation.

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