[Vision2020] Human Rights:Nobel Prize Nominee Testifies On Global Warming

[Ted Moffett]

All-

I already posted this content to the list, but thought this statement so
important that posting it again under a specific subject heading devoted
exclusively to these comments was warranted. Statement below from this web
link:

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/nobel-prize-nominee-testifies-about-global-warming.html

My Name is Sheila Watt-Cloutier. I was born in Kuujjuaq in Arctic Canada
where I lived traditionally, travelling only by dogteam, for the first ten
years of my life. I now live in Iqaluit, the Capital of the Northern
Canadian Territory of Nunavut.

I am here today to talk to you about how global warming and climate change
are affecting the basic survival in many vulnerable regions and, in
particular, of indigenous cultures throughout the Americas.

Of course, what I know best is from my own region -- the Arctic, which
happens to be the hardest hit by climate change. As such, many of the
impacts that I will refer to will come from my own homelands. However, you
can consider similar impacts on most indigenous peoples who remain
integrated with their ecosystems. Inuit and other indigenous peoples
continue to be an integral part, and not separate, from the ecosystems in
which we live. Climate change brings into question the basic survival of
indigenous people and indigenous cultures throughout the Americas.

To borrow and quote the words of the Hon. Julian Hunte, Ambassador and
permanent representative of Saint Lucia to the United Nations: "[…]the
adverse impacts of climate change are real, immediate and devastating."

While time is short, I will give some insight into the impacts of global
warming and climate change on indigenous peoples within the Hemisphere.

*Extreme weather events*

In our region, Elders say that the weather is Uggianaqtuq -- meaning it
behaves unexpectedly, or in an unfamiliar way. Last month, we had record
breaking winds in Iqaluit that tore roofs off buildings and homes.

In the Caribbean, Venezuela, Central America and the United States the
adverse effects of climate change and the associated phenomena of sea-level
rise have contributed to the increase in the intensity and frequency of
hurricanes threatening the lives of many. In 2004, over 3000 persons were
killed in Haiti as a result of Tropical Storm Jeanne. That same year
Hurricane Ivan destroyed or damaged over 90% of the houses in Grenada and
caused over US $815 million in damages or twice the GDP of that country.

*Changes to the oceans*

Global warming is impacting Inuit and many indigenous communities who are
coastal, sea-going peoples. Inuit happen to journey on a frozen ocean for
much of the year.

For Inuit, sea ice allows for safe travel on the perilous Arctic waters and
provides a stable platform from which to hunt its bounty. The ice is not
only our 'roads' but also our 'supermarket.' Deteriorating ice conditions
imperil Inuit in many ways. Ice pans used for hunting at the floe edge are
more likely to detach from the land fast ice and take hunters away. As the
ice is melting from below, hunters can no longer be certain of its thickness
and how safe it is to travel upon. Many hunters have been killed or
seriously injured after falling through ice that was traditionally known to
be safe. Thinner ice also means much shorter hunting seasons as the ice
forms up later and melts sooner. In turn, some ice dependent species such as
ringed seals, walrus and polar bears are experiencing impacts and the Arctic
Climate Impact Assessment projects that these species will likely be pushed
to extinction by the end of this century. Inuit have relied on ringed seal
for food and clothing for millennia. The lack of ice also has profound
impacts on our communities. As the land fast ice and pack ice disappears,
the coastline, where most Inuit live, is exposed to fierce storms -- whole
communities, such as Shishmaref in Alaska, are having to move altogether,
because the storms are eroding the land out from under them.

These impacts are destroying our rights to life, health, property and means
of subsistence. States that do not recognize these impacts and take action
violate our human rights.

Similarly, in the South, corral reefs are dying under the rising ocean
temperatures leaving costal communities equally vulnerable to storm surges
and coastal erosion.

In the Caribbean, Central America, Venezuela and Uruguay, sea level rise
leads to the loss of land and the intrusion of salt-water into freshwater
resources, impacting the ability of local communities to farm and to have
sufficient freshwater for basic needs.

As little as one meter of sea-level rise could displace up to 8 million
people in the Caribbean and Latin America. The impact of a one meter rise on
Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, and the Bahamas would be catastrophic,
displacing as much as seven percent of their national populations.  The
current atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is sufficient to raise
sea levels substantially more than one meter.

*Changes to the land*

Of course, the land is not resistant to the changes brought on by global
warming.

Increased temperatures have affected subsistence agricultural practices
throughout the Americas, many of which are directly tied to the survival of
indigenous cultures.  Indigenous communities in Ecuador and elsewhere are
unable to farm in the manner and locations where they have for generations,
and must choose between subsistence farming and maintaining their cultural
ties to land they have lived on and cultivated for generations. These
changes thus undermine the realization of their rights to culture, life,
health and means of subsistence.

In North America, in the Great Lakes Region, climate change is disrupting
traditional foods of wild rice and berries and early and rapid winter
snowmelt is causing flooding and endangering peoples lives and property and
the dramatic fluctuations in water levels and warmer lake waters is
negatively affecting fish populations and allowing for severe infestations
of disease spreading insects such as mosquitoes.

While Inuit are not an agricultural people, we depend on the bounty of the
land for our survival. The traditional Inuit diet is being eroded as animals
are less plentiful, less healthy and more difficult to harvest. Further, as
the planet warms more persistent organic pollutants, of which Inuit are the
net highest recipients on the planet, find their way to our homeland through
the additional run-off from watersheds that empty in the Arctic. We can no
longer rely on the traditional practice of food caching as food rots and
insects invade caches. Often our access to our traditional hunting is
cut-off as sea-ice is depleted and permafrost slumps or melts. These changes
undermine the realization of our rights to culture, life, health and means
of subsistence.

In the Arctic and elsewhere glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates
turning streams into dangerous torrents in the summer. Glaciers are melting
rapidly in all Andean countries, from Venezuela and Columbia to Chile. Many
of the large cities in the Andes, including Quito, Ecuador and La Paz,
Bolivia -- one of the poorest cities in Latin America -- are dependent on
melting glacier ice for drinking water.  The Altiplano of Ecuador, Peru and
Bolivia is home to large numbers of indigenous peoples who could be
devastated by loss of water from glaciers. The rapid melting of these
glaciers may cause flooding in the near term and the complete loss of fresh
water in some communities in the longer term.

*Health Impacts*

Human health will be affected by changing disease vectors, extreme heat, and
reduction of air-quality. Mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue
fever, and possibly avian flu are spreading to higher elevations and newly
warming regions. For the first time in my history, my hometown had to start
to use air conditioners. Imagine, air conditioners in the Arctic. It's
almost unbelievable. And our homes are not meant to be breathing because of
the cold, and so it becomes very difficult even in our homes. So all of
these things are starting to affect, of course, the vulnerable members of
society:  the elderly, young children, those that suffer from respiratory
diseases -- such as asthma and emphysema -- and the poor, who lack access to
air-conditioning and adequate health care. Areas already suffering poor air
quality will be hardest hit.

Native housing is typically sensitive to prevailing climatic conditions.
Air-conditioning is often not as available to address increasingly hot and
dry conditions. Increased dust and wildfire smoke could well aggravate
respiratory conditions. Health care options for indigenous communities are
limited, and extreme weather events are likely to cause significant
interruptions in access.

*Culture*

Culture is well beyond what many people understand it to be. Culture is not
only folklore, legends and songs although those in and of themselves are
important and powerful. For instance, the hunting culture that I come from
is not only about the pursuit of animals and the technical aspect of a hunt.
Hunting is, in reality, a powerful process where we prepare our young for
the challenges and opportunities not only for survival on the land and ice
but for life itself. The character skills learned on the hunt of patience,
boldness, tenacity, focus, courage, sound judgement and wisdom are very
transferable to the modern world that has come so quickly to the Arctic
world. We are seeing this powerful training ground on the land and ice being
destroyed before our very eyes. Not only are our livelihoods being
threatened, we are losing lives as a result of these dramatic changes as the
sea ice depletes and creates precarious situations for our hunters and their
families.

It is within this context or similar ones that indigenous peoples are
experiencing and will increasingly be subjected to devastating impacts of
climate change. Global warming and climate change touches on almost every
aspect of an indigenous person's life. When viewed in the context of the
cumulative impacts of all the other cultural, economic and environmental
degradation that indigenous peoples face, climate change threatens our very
survival as peoples.

The non-physical impacts of climate change are sometimes more difficult to
measure but, nonetheless, just as devastating. The impacts on the Inuit
culture are already happening. One hunter, in Barrow, Alaska summed up the
impact climate change is having this way:

"There's a lot of anxieties and angers that are being felt by some of the
hunters that no longer can go and hunt. We see the change, but we can't stop
it, we can't explain why it's changing it… our way of life is changing up
here, our ocean is changing."

*Conclusion*

As I sit here today at this hearing of the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights, I fully understand the challenge of connecting of climate
change and human rights. I appreciate fully the opportunity you have given
me to speak to these urgent matters.

The individual rights of many are at stake. The collective rights of many
peoples to their culture is also at stake. I encourage the Commission to
continue its work in protecting human rights. In so doing, you will protect
the sentinels of climate change -- the indigenous people. By protecting the
rights of those living sustainably in the Amazon Basin or the rights of the
Inuit hunter on the snow and ice, this commission will also be preserving
the world's environmental early-warning system.

Thank you.

*Contact:*

Brian Smith, Earthjustice, (415) 320-9384

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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