400 Alaskan villagers are set to be the first U.S. climate change refugees

Posted by Jeff on Aug 11, 2015 @ 12:47 am in Conservation | 0 comments | Last modified: August 10, 2015

Kivalina is a tiny, remote Alaskan village that sits on a barrier island some 83 miles above the Arctic circle, and the most recent estimates show the village—home to 400 people—will be entirely underwater by 2025. This is far from news for the island’s Iñupiat inhabitants; the village voted in favor of relocating way back in 1992. But as climate change thins the ice surrounding the island and causes erosion of Kivalina’s shores, questions remain as to where the village will relocate to, and how that move will be paid for.

Climate change is occurring at a notably faster pace in the Arctic, with the region warming at a rate twice the global average. That means the residents of Kivalina have been able to notice trends far earlier than in many other areas. Some 15 years ago they noticed their ice no longer freezes “8 to 10 feet thick, way out in the ocean,” as one community elder described, but rather sits thin—preventing whaling—and melts faster, which abruptly shortens the hunting seasons on which the villagers rely.

Furthermore, the thinner ice leaves the narrow island’s coastline more vulnerable to erosion. Simply put, Kivalina’s community knows they can no longer stay in their own home, as their ways of life, as well as land, disappear. But Kivalina is the first such case (and certainly not the last) in the United States, and the government simply isn’t equipped to address the situation. “A disaster declaration releases funding aimed at helping a community rebuild or relocate within the place the disaster occurred. But there are no policies in place to relocate an entire community, like Kivalina, prior to an actual disaster.”

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