Imagine if the entire population of New York City was displaced due to a natural disaster or flooding from rising sea levels. Where would the people move? Would they be able to find new homes and new communities where they belonged? It would be mass chaos. Unfortunately, according to the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, between 50 to 200 million people will be displaced by 2050 if climate change keeps happening at the current rate (qtd. in Davenport and Robertson). This is the population of between 6 to 23 New York Cities. To the average American, these numbers can seem a bit far off. It is easy to ignore the earth’s warming temperature when you can head inside and turn up the air conditioning. However, it is places like New York City, which emits 1.72 tons of carbon dioxide per second, that create the cause but do not see the effects (“New York’s Carbon”). And it is populations like the indigenous people, whose livelihoods depend intimately on the natural world, who are affected the most. Because of their close relationship with the environment, indigenous people are among the first affected by climate change. We need to listen to indigenous desires to prevent and adapt to climate change because they are speaking up not only for their own rights, but also for the future of humanity.
Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that global warming is a problem that is caused by recent human activities (United States). However, a few disagree, noting that there have been trends of normal heating and cooling on the earth. According to NASA, this thought has some truth since in the past 650,000 years there have been seven cycles of glacial advance and retreat, with the last ice age ending 7,000 years ago. Most of this variance was caused by small changes in the
earth’s orbit. However, warming in the current modern climate era is happening ten times faster than warming after the other ice ages (United States). This evidence shows that something is different than before. This difference comes from the large amount of greenhouse gases humans are now releasing into the air. NASA shows the devastating effects of this warming in their article called “Climate Change: How Do We Know?” They report that temperatures have been rising due to humans’ increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases. Since the late 19th century, the earth’s surface temperature has increased by 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit. The oceans are also main absorbers of this heat, with the top 700 meters of water warming more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. The ocean also absorbs a large amount of carbon dioxide, causing it to become more acidic. Since the Industrial Revolution, surface acidity has increased by about 30 percent. Global
warming is also causing shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels. Greenland has lost an average of 281 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016. Antarctica lost 119 billion tons during that same time frame, and its rate of ice loss has tripled in the past decade. This melting ice has caused the sea level to rise eight inches in the past century (United States). Global warming is the cause of these significant changes to the earth. These damaging effects, while experienced by the entire world, hurt those who live in an intimate relationship with nature the most.
This close relationship with the environment can be seen in the 370 million indigenous people living in 90 countries scattered around the world. These people represent 5,000 different cultures and speak a majority of the world’s 7,000 languages (United Nations). However, a common tie between indigenous people is their strong relationship with the natural environment. Not only do they worship and reap benefits from the land, but the land benefits from them. Facts from the
United Nations Development Program show this two-sided relationship. On one hand, nearly 70 million indigenous people depend on forests for their livelihood worldwide, and many others depend on hunting, fishing, and gathering plants for food. On the other hand, indigenous forests store 55 trillion metrics tons, or one fourth of all above ground tropical forest carbon. This is four times the amount of carbon emitted in 2014 (United Nations). In other words, these forests store four years of global carbon emissions. In this way, the environment helps the indigenous people survive, and in turn the indigenous people take care of the land. The indigenous people also care for the earth’s biodiversity. According to Luis Duchicela, Senior Advisor for Indigenous Peoples at World Bank, and Maninder Gill, Director of Global Resilience Practice, while indigenous people only occupy a quarter of the earth’s land, they safeguard 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity
( Duchicela and Gill ). The earth, animals, and all other humans depend heavily on indigenous populations for survival. This interdependence between indigenous people and the environment has been serving the world since time immemorial. However, this tight connection is extremely vulnerable to the effects of global warming.
Indigenous people are also extremely susceptible to the effects of global warming since they represent an already disadvantaged people group. According to the United Nations Development Program, while indigenous people make up only five percent of the population, they consist of fifteen percent of the poorest populations (United Nations). Indigenous people are already more likely to lack sufficient economic resources. When we add the effects of global warming to their
main source of livelihood, the effects are devastating.
These effects are evident in the indigenous populations living the the Northwest Arctic region. Michael Brubaker, an associate professor at the University of Cincinnati, along with three other scholars, explain their research on this population in an article about the relationship between climate change and health effects in the Northwest Arctic Region. This region is a 63,000 square kilometer area in Northern Alaska. The largest community is the Kotzebue, with 8,000 residents. 85 percent of people in this Northwest Arctic Region are Inupiat Eskimos. They hunt and gather caribou, whales, fish, birds, and berries. The communities have no connecting roads between each other or to the rest of the state (2). Some of the biggest concerns for these people are unpredictable
weather and changing ice conditions, which are increasing injuries. As thick sea ice is being replaced by thin first-year ice, a main concern is falling through that ice. River ice is also decreasing. This causes problems as rivers are used as ice roads for traveling between communities to hunt and transport supplies (2). Just as these warmer temperatures make it harder to gather food, it also becomes harder to store. Underground food cellars, which used to be frozen year round, now thaw
in the summer. This causes stored bowhead and beluga whale to spoil (3). Joe Towksjhea, a retired whaling captain, compares how “we used to have frozen whale meat and maktak all year round, winter and summer time too. But it is not frozen anymore” (qtd. in Brubaker et al. 3). Warmer temperatures also delayed the development of shore ice in October 2004. Shore ice acts as a buffer for powerful storm waves. Storms during that month caused coastal erosion and damage to
washeteria, the only public toilet, shower and laundry facility in the community of Kivalina. Washeteria was closed for five months (Brubaker et al. 3). The thinning ice directly affects indigenous culture and means of livelihood by making it harder to hunt, store food, and be safe.
Even indigenous populations that do not touch the ocean can and do feel the effects of global warming. John Doyle, Margaret Redsteer, and Margaret Eggers conducted field research to gain information about the effects of global warming on the Northern Plains Tribal communities. They looked specifically into the Crow Reservation, which spreads 2.3 million acres over three mountain ranges in the southern part of Montana. 8,000 of the 11,000 members of the tribe live on the reservation, and they continue to practice many of their cultural traditions today (643). The research gathered included observations made by tribal elders, which were checked against the United States Geological Survey and the National Weather Service. The elders noted declining snowfall, mountain springs moving downslope due to a receding water table, and changed timing of fruit ripening. The elders have also noted rising temperature during the annual sun dances, which are
held in May and June (645). This is backed by statistics from the local weather station. The average annual temperature in the 1950s was 45.6 degrees fahrenheit, while in the 2000s it is 50.1 degrees fahrenheit (648). The rising temperatures negatively impact participants of the sun dance, since the festival takes place outside and many fast. One elder remembered the cattails used to be six feet tall
and would provide shade. Now they are only three feet in height, due to increasing soil dryness. Also because of the heat, brown trout have moved 35 miles upstream from the tributary mouth of the Little Bighorn River. Other changes in fish location, along with river contamination, have caused some families to give up sustenance fishing (645). Even while this indigenous population is not in a life threatening situation, they still feel the effects of global warming more than their non-indigenous counterparts because of their close relationship with the environment. These small changes to the environment are deeply affecting their culture and way of life.
Another devastating effect of global warming is the creation of climate refugees. This new term is defined by Nikita Perumal, a graduate from Columbia University, as “a person forced across borders from their homeland as a result of climate change impacts” (Perumal 45-6). Already in America, we have had our first examples of this new type of refugee on the Isle of Jean Charles, a narrow ridge of land situated off of Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. For many years, it has been the
homeland and burial grounds of two indigenous cultures: the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw and United Houma Nation. However, this island is facing the direct effects of climate change as much of its land is washing away, and the remaining land is becoming saturated with salty ocean water, which has caused both fruit trees and animals to die. An article from the New York Times states that more than 90% of the island’s original land has disappeared since 1955 due to erosion from channels cut by logging companies, flooding, and rising sea levels (Davenport and Robertson). Because of these problems, the first American effort to relocate people affected by climate change is happening on the Isle of Jean Charles. The Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a 48 million dollar climate resilience grant to move the 60 residents of the island by 2022 (Davenport and
Robertson). Mark Davis, the director of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy notes that the relatively small effort on Isle of Jean Charles has been extremely difficult to pull off. They are facing challenges such as where to send people and how to help them assimilate to a new culture ( qtd. in Davenport and Robertson). With the challenges this small group faces, it is hard to imagine moving the possible millions of future climate refugees.
Articles written about these climate refugees in the media portray climate migration as a crisis–and it is–but they portray it on the basis that there are too many people to move, it costs a lot, and it is hard to organize. Walter Kaelin, head of the Nansen Initiative, a research organization partnering with the United Nations, agrees with this thought, explaining “you don’t want to wait until people have lost their homes, until they flee and become refugees…. The idea is to plan ahead and provide people with some measure of choice” (qtd. in Davenport and Robertson). I agree that we need to plan ahead so that we are not faced with a crisis of millions of homeless refugees. However, focusing solely on the logistical issues of climate refugees fails to analyze the big underlying problem, global warming.
More importantly, most indigenous people do not want to leave, whether they get to choose where they will move or not. They are attached to the land where their ancestors lived and now are buried. Edison Darder, a 66 year old Native American living on the Isle of Jean Charles exclaims that “Ain’t nobody I talk to wants to move.” He even put up a handwritten sign at the entrance of the island that read “I don’t know who’s in charge of all this” (Davenport and Robertson). Many natives all over the world share the same perspective as Darder. They do not want to leave their home because of reasons such as attachment to the land, feeling close to their ancestors, and preserving traditions and culture. Chief Albert Naquin from the Isle of Jean Charles laments that while resettling “we’re going to lose all our heritage, all our culture… It’s all going to be history” (Davenport and Robertson). Many indigenous people are also choosing to stay put despite the risks. Carol Farbotko, a human geographer for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation , explains that while most indigenous people have a good understanding of the risks of climate change, they still decide to remain on their homeland because of cultural and spiritual reasons. She even states that “in some cases, they say they are prepared to die rather than relocate” (81). Brubaker et al. explain that protective actions against the risks of climate change can include
either reducing our greenhouse gas emissions or responding to the impacts of climate change through adaptation (1). I believe if we are going to make a difference we will need to use both strategies.
The first action that needs to be taken is reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It is the 1.76 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per second in New York City, and all other cities around the world, that are creating this problem. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions requires both personal and systematic changes. A large part of the advocacy for systematic changes has come from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Smriti Sabbarwal, an educator in International Affairs at the Shiv Nadar School in Delhi, India, explains how starting in the 1990s, NGOs have played an
important role in highlighting the struggles of indigenous populations at the international level. Partnerships between local and international NGOs provide for a bottoms-up rather than a tops-down approach (35-6). This type of partnership allows the indigenous populations to contribute valuable insight from their own experiences. Recently the indigenous people were recognized in the United Nations Environment Program as having a role in biodiversity conservation. This was granted through the lobbying and advocacy of NGOs (34). Of course, while
NGOs have a past history of helping indigenous populations, they can’t be expected to halt global warming single-handedly. We take responsibility in reducing emissions by who we elect to be our leaders, which companies we chose to support, and how we use our voice through platforms like social media.
Since much of the damage already done by global warming cannot be reversed, measures also need to be taken for adaptation inside indigenous populations. Adaptations could include equipping and training farmers to face drought, raising homes out of floodable areas, public education for disaster preparedness, and implementing extreme weather warning systems. Current adaptation measures in Northwestern Alaska include satellite technology that helps locate injured
individuals and improved walls along the shoreline to prevent coastal erosion (Brubaker et al. 4). These climate adaptation programs can reduce the number of people displaced and the amount of money spent on recovering from natural disasters.
Indigenous people also advocate directly for these strategies of adaptation and prevention. They do this because they personally know the devastating effects of climate change, and they desire to stop this problem before it hurts more humans. Indigenous people also have the wisdom of how to live in harmony with nature. Tarcila Rivera, a Quechuan activist working with the Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru, speaks for her indigenous counterparts as she says “We, as indigenous women and indigenous peoples, believe it’s vital to take into account our knowledge to prevent and adapt to climate change” (qtd. in “8 Quotes”). Miriam Miranda, a leader of the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras, which defends indigenous resources and land rights, says that she fights “so that future generations will have the resources and assets they need to survive on a planet that’s being destroyed every day” (qtd. in “8 Quotes”).
Indigenous populations are among the most affected by global warming because of their geographical location, economic instability, and their close relationship with the environment. Their health, safety, and culture are all at risk. However, indigenous populations are like a canary in a coal mine. They are the ones who experience global warming first, but it is only a matter of time before all people begin to feel the effects. In fact, this problem is closer to home than we often imagine. According to CNN, four or five of the districts in New York will be underwater by 2100 if the sea keeps rising at the current pace (Gray). However, the purpose of a canary is to warn the miners of the danger ahead. Indigenous people play this same role when they speak up about the effects of global warming. They are not only fighting for their rights, but also looking out for the well-being of all humankind. However, unlike canaries, the indigenous culture does not need to die before we realize there is a problem and fix it. Indigenous people are already speaking up about what needs to happen. We owe it to the indigenous people, this beautiful earth, and all the creatures on it to change our behavior in order to preserve this world we call home.
Works Cited
Brubaker, Michael, et al. “Climate Change and Health Effects in Northwest Alaska.” Global Health Action , vol. 4, Jan. 2011, pp. 1–5. Academic Search Premier , doi:10.3402/gha.v4i0.8445.
Davenport, Coral, and Campbell Robertson. “Resettling the First American ‘Climate Refugees’.” The New York Times , 3 May 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/us/resettling-the-first-american-climate-refugees.html.
Doyle, John, et al. “Exploring Effects of Climate Change on Northern Plains American Indian Health.” Climatic Change , vol. 120, no. 3, Oct. 2013, pp. 643–55 . Academic Search Premier, doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0799-z.
Duchicela, Luis, and Maninder Gill. “Three Reasons Why We Should All Care about Indigenous Peoples.” The World Bank , 9 Aug. 2017,
blogs.worldbank.org/voices/three-reasons-why-we-should-all-care-about-indigenous-peoples.
“8 Quotes to Celebrate Women Land Defenders for Earth Day.” Global Fund for Women , June 2018, www.globalfundforwomen.org/8-quotes-women-land-defenders-earth-day/#.XAF83mhKhPZ.
Farbotko, Carol. “Voluntary Immobility: Indigenous Voices in the Pacific.” Forced Migration Review, no. 57, Feb. 2018, pp. 81–3. Academic Search Premier ,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=aph&AN=128608273&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Gray, Jennifer. “Higher Seas to Flood Dozens of US Cities, Study Says.” CNN , Cable News Network, 31 July 2017,
www.cnn.com/2017/07/12/us/weather-cities-inundated-climate-change/index.html.
McDonnell, Tim. “The Refugees The World Barely Pays Attention To.” NPR , June 2018, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/20/621782275/the-refugees-that-the-worldbarely-pays-attention-to.
“New York’s Carbon Emissions – in Real Time.” Carbon Visuals , July 2014,
www.carbonvisuals.com/projects/new-yorks-carbon-emissions-in-real-time.
Perumal, Nikita. “‘The Place Where I Live Is Where I Belong’: Community Perspectives on Climate Change and Climate-Related Migration in the Pacific Island Nation of Vanuatu.” Island Studies Journal , vol. 13, no. 1, May 2018, pp. 45–64. Academic Search Premier, doi:10.24043/isj.50.
Sabbarwal, Smriti. “Indigenous Peoples’ Concerns for Environment: Examining the Role of Non-Governmental Organizations.” Fourth World Journal , vol. 15, no. 2, Winter 2017, pp. 27–39. Academic Search Premier, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=121397039&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
United Nations, United Nations Development Programme. “10 Things We All Should Know about Indigenous Peoples .” United Nations Development Programme , Aug. 2017, stories.undp.org/10-things-we-all-should-know-about-indigenous-people.
United States, NASA. “Climate Change Evidence: How Do We Know?” NASA Global Climate Change, Sept. 2018, climate.nasa.gov/evidence/.