Unreserved53:59Shrinking marine ice and the Inuit response to a climate crisis
For more than 30 years, Reuben Flowers has been documenting the changes that are developed in the north.
The Hopepedale Inuk’s life skills master has spent decades, writing down daily observations of climatic conditions and ice levels in the capital of Nunatsiavut.
And his newspapers are evidence that the weather is changing.
“Ice is definitely thinning,” said Flowers, 57 years old Unreserved Host Rosanna Deerchild. “When I was a child, it was much thicker then.”
For many communities in the north, Ice is present for six to nine months a yearAnd it is an integral part of the landscape.
During the winter, when the ferry stops and flights could be affected, ice connects communities. They become roads so that people cross and look for food and materials such as Arctic coal, seal and firewood.
Climate change, says Flores, interrupts the earth and ice that have sustained people’s physical, emotional and mentally and mentally since the time immemorial.
“We are Sikumiut,” said Flowers. “It means ice people.”
As the ice continues to deteriorate, Nunatsiavut residents, such as flowers, are forced to adapt to a new reality.
Adapt to climate change
Rex Holwell, a Nain Inuk, the northernmost community in Nunatsiavut, is addressing the front problem.
It is the Smartice Operations Manager in Nunatsiavut, a company that combines traditional knowledge with modern technology to monitor the north ice conditions. He says that the growing demand for his technology is bittersweet.
“[It’s] Bad in the sense that everyone sees the climate change that we really don’t want [see]”Holwell said.
In the past, Inuit was based on traditional knowledge transmitted through generations to evaluate ice conditions. For security purposes, the elderly taught the younger generations how to determine their thickness, strength and snow cover.
But the meteorological trends used to predict ice levels are no longer the same that had been used in their traditional knowledge, according to Holwell. The extended periods of rain and warmer temperatures in NAIN are “things that [they’ve] never [seen] Before, “he said.
In response, Smartice works with communities to make more informed decisions before traveling to ice recovering and providing data on the ice conditions of an area.
One of the smartex tools, the “smart buoy”, is a high sensor, similar to the tube, lowered on the ice that can measure ice thickness. Another device, the “Smart Qamutik”, is a mobile sensor attached to a snow motorcycle that travels through the ice, collecting data on the ice condition as it moves.
Establish climate resistant infrastructure
Robert Way analyzes the weight loss of the world in all its forms, such as glaciers and permafrost. Way is an associate professor and research president at Queen’s University, and is Kallunângajuk (Nunatsiavummiut) of the Labrador center.
He is concerned about the livelihoods of people living in the communities of the North.
Recognizing the types of disruptive changes he has seen in the Arctic as a climate scientist, he says that communities are not only under the danger of climate change. He Ongoing housing situation in Nunatsiavutthat a violation of human rights has been called, is exacerbated by melted ice.
“When you are doing this type of work, you are trying to understand climate change, [but] All this is happening in the context of other problems that are also at the forefront, “he said.
Nunatsiavut residents describe the marine ice that is delayed, and the cost is taking in their communities
One of the current Way initiatives is to generate maps for the Nain community that help identify areas that can be insecure to build due to the changing permafrost conditions.
“When you have a growing community that has all kinds of additional housing needs … you don’t want to have to spend additional cost [and] time … deal with problems associated with [safety] dangers “.
‘It simply makes everything worth it’
Flowers continues to transmit the knowledge that has gathered the next generation. He says he takes out his students to the earth, teaching them to observe and measure the ice, while transmitting traditional knowledge about how to survive in the desert.
“It’s a large part of our identity,” he said.
Holwell also undertakes to transmit knowledge.
Through smartice, Holwell frequently travels to different communities to train the premises on how to use and keep the equipment. He says that the most rewarding aspect of his work is to interact with the elderly.
“When the elders tell me: ‘Rex, thanks for coming and thanks for reaching the people of my community on how to do this to keep people in their safe community,’ it makes it worth it,” he said.
“In the center, we are doing what Inuit or indigenous peoples [have] Really done with anything we have seen in life: we simply adapt to it and learn to live with the situation we are. ”
