About Climate Change and Ostrichism Only Means You Will Drown

The Inuits are the Eskimos who represent one of the world's most easily identifiable and unique cultures and they having a hell of a time from climate change.

The loss of land has been devastating to the Inupiat Eskimo village. Arctic Youth Ambassador Esau Sinnok wrote in a blog post for the Department of the Interior that the village has lost as many as 3,000 feet of land in the past 35 years.

“To put this in perspective: I was born in 1997, and since then, Shishmaref has lost about 100 feet,” he wrote. He has lived in 13 homes in 15 years because of erosion.  

(RT:  Impoverished Alaskan village to be relocated, if lucky)

Note:  obviously that arithmetic doesn't work but we're not here to quibble over trivia since the fact remains their village has lost quite a bit of ground and it's nearly wrecked by it.

Their village is largely destroyed and they have no alternative to staying so shall we ask them if they give any kind of a tinker's damn whether climate change takes place for natural or man-made reasons.  We could but why waste the words when you know the answer already.

They're advised to move it yourselves or drown but the beauty part is we can say the same thing when the water advances up Fifth Avenue in New York City.  You could have prepared but you argued about trivia and did nothing so now you're fucked.

Lack of preparation on their part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part.

(Ed:  why doesn't that apply to Eskimos?)

The New Yorkers know it's coming and do nothing.  The Eskimos got blindsided.  In any case, they couldn't have moved in 1985 any more easily than they can do it now.  They don't have the resources and no-one is willing to help.  You think Sarah Palin would have lifted a finger?  Get serious.  She's the one who wanted the bridge to nowhere because she got piles of Federal money but she never did it.

Note:  that may have changed in intervening years.

Update:  it didn't.  Palin continued throwing money at it even after the Feds had canceled it.  There's also a Road to Nowhere and she can stand up for that one.  Apparently it's rarely if ever used.  (WIKI:  Gravina Island Bridge, the Bridge to Nowhere)

Eskimos make up a large people and they're all over areas adjacent to the Arctic Sea in America, Canada, and Greenland.  They aren't some remote tribe of South Pacific islanders such as the Tasaday in the Philippines who are tiny but anthropologically quite important due to their lack of awareness of almost anything about modern culture.  (WIKI:  Intuit)

Note:  every Anthropology student learns about the Inuit at least in passing.  This is not just WIKI knowledge but deep reverence for an ancient people.  If you're interested, you may want to continue with the Kwakiutl since they're the ones noted for building totem poles which wasn't a common custom.  (WIKI:  Kwakwaka'wakw)

Eskimos keep an oral history so this gives great importance to their Elders and probably means their abilities with story telling on long cold nights is probably quite good.  People get exceptionally good at things when there's a cultural imperative to drive them and mostly that results in things which are deeply admirable although not all the time and we shall skip past the situations which do not in modern cultures.

Living by watching the world from behind steel and glass arrogance is no way to go through life, Wall Street Wanker.  Eskimos are not capable of putting vast resources behind a problem to solve it and nothing comes to them in just a snap.

Moving is estimated at $180 million and that sounds astronomical since the steps seem to be:

-  Build similar housing perhaps even with some improvements in an appropriate location considerably safer from rising waters.  They can't be moved too far from the Arctic Ocean or they lose a large part of their livelihoods.  It may be necessary to move them a significant distance from the water since there are no scientists predicting any lessening of the rise in this century, there are only Republicans who say it's nothing.

-  Determine the cost of moving the people and every aspect of personal kit they can bring.

-  Get it done.

It's hard to believe that could cost anywhere in the neighborhood of $180 million but people latch on to that number and remark, "It's not worth it.  Fuck 'em.  Indians have always moved so get on with it."

That's rubbish for multiple reasons and one of the most glaring is the example of Cahokia, an article about which popped up here a few days ago, and that city was the largest in North America until the 18th Century and it lasted for 450 years or more.  America hasn't lasted that long so, sure, all Indians move.  In fact, Cahokia is documented to have survived two major floods and they did not move.  For a flood to leave record which can be detected almost a thousand years later, it must have been a monster too.

The callous disregard for other humans is fundamentally despicable and isn't worth further comment but it eats the hearts of everyone infected with that kind of thinking until they spout false religion which relates in no way whatsoever to their amoral behavior.