By Joshua Frank, Socialist Worker, October 11, 2011
Kivalina, Alaska, photo by Christine Shearer |
Christine Shearer is a
scholar at the University of California (UC)-Santa Barbara; a researcher for
CoalSwarm, part of SourceWatch; and author of the newly released Kivalina: A Climate Change Story. Recently, Joshua Frank interviewed Shearer about her book, which details
the plight of an Alaska Native Eskimo community struggling to save their land
that is disappearing as a result of climate change.
* * *
CHRISTINE, WHAT prompted you to investigate what is
happening to the people of Kivalina?
A FEW things. In 2007, I was part of this interdisciplinary research
project at UC-Santa Barbara, assessing the biggest "human impacts" to
marine ecosystems. To do this, we collected data from over a hundred
scientists. And it really started to hit me how severe climate change is,
particularly how quickly it is happening.
Also, I recently remembered this: We also went to get data from
indigenous fishers to include their traditional knowledge. So I went to a
Native American reservation in the state of Washington and handed one of the
fishers there this really complicated survey tool we had developed, and he was
just kind of like, "What is this?" And rather than fill it out, he
walked me to the shoreline and showed me how the water was lapping at one of
their buildings and said, "This is the biggest problem." He was
talking about sea level rise.
And so one night, I was in an environmental law class, and the teacher
read a news headline about this lawsuit, this tiny Alaska Native village suing
fossil fuel companies for damaging their homeland and creating a false debate
about climate change, and I just knew I had to write about it.
SO YOU traveled up to visit these people? Can you
tell us a little about their culture and history?
THEY ARE Inupiat, tracing their ancestry to the northwest Arctic back
thousands of years. They are fishers and whalers and live mainly off
subsistence, and are pretty cued into the land and its rhythms, because they
rely on it for their needs. So the changes in the Arctic have been pretty hard
on them--making traveling and hunting more dangerous because the ice is
thinning--let alone now that the small barrier island they are located on is
eroding away.
I didn't know much about the area before going, so I did a lot of
reading in the Kivalina school library of their oral histories while there, and
also asked questions. I was probably annoying, but they were always incredibly
open and friendly, inviting me into their homes, happy to talk and share. When
you think about how they live and have lived, it's pretty amazing, and you can
see how the strong social and community bonds would help them survive. The
Arctic is not for wimps.
YOU WRITE about Kivalina's grievances against
ExxonMobil. What prompted it and where does the fight currently stand?
THE REASON the island is eroding is because of warming Arctic
temperatures--sea ice now forms later and later in the year, leaving the
shoreline vulnerable to erosion from storms. In 1992, Kivalina residents voted
to move, and in 2003 and 2006, U.S. government reports said Kivalina had to be
relocated within the next 10 to 15 years, due to erosion from warming
temperatures.
Around the time of the government reports, an environmental justice
lawyer, Luke Cole, was working with Kivalina residents because their water was
being polluted by a nearby mine. And that began the conversation about filing
the climate change lawsuit, because Luke saw that the island was eroding, and
the people had been trying to relocate for over a decade with little success or
public attention.
So in 2008, Kivalina filed a public nuisance claim against ExxonMobil
and 23 other large fossil-fuel companies for their relocation costs. They also
charged a smaller subset with conspiracy and concert of action for creating a
false debate around climate change--Kivalina's representation includes some
lawyers that had been involved in both sides of the tobacco lawsuits.
In 2009, a judge dismissed Kivalina's claim as a "political
question" for the executive and legislative branches, and unsuitable for
the judicial branch. The judge also denied Kivalina legal standing to bring the
lawsuit. This meant that the secondary claims--which had to do with the climate
change misinformation campaign--were thrown out without being commented on. The
decision is being appealed, and Kivalina is waiting on that. In the meantime,
they are still trying to relocate themselves.
SO WHO is actually to blame for what's transpired in
Kivalina? With the lawsuit against ExxonMobil, will you explain why are they
being targeted here?
UNDER PUBLIC nuisance law, you can hold people or companies
accountable that make a "meaningful" or "substantial"
contribution to a harm. The 24 fossil fuel companies were chosen for being
among the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, while a smaller subset face
claims of conspiracy and concert of action for going--in Luke Cole's
words--"above and beyond" in their efforts to try and mislead people
about the science on climate change.
So following the logic of the lawsuit: The companies are substantial
contributors to the harm now facing Kivalina, and many of the companies knew of
the harm they were creating, and tried to deal with it not by cutting back on
emissions, but by misleading people to protect their business. Kivalina is
therefore seeking damages--the cost of their needed relocation.
WHO IS helping Kivalina relocate? What options do
they have at this time to preserve their culture and integrity?
THERE IS no formal relocation policy in the U.S., and no U.S.
government agency specifically tasked with helping communities relocate. So a
lot of the efforts involved in trying to relocate have fallen on the people of
Kivalina themselves, and they are working with different agencies at the
federal, state, borough, and tribal levels to try and coordinate a relocation.
Many government workers are doing what they can for Kivalina, like building a
seawall, but they can only act within their prescribed roles and boundaries,
which are becoming outdated with climate change.
The Government Accountability Office has recommended that a U.S.
government agency be tasked with relocation--I think that would help Kivalina
out immensely. But now you have Congressional representatives who don't
"believe" in climate change and are trying to cut funding for
adaptation and even disaster management, which is incredibly dangerous.
IS THE Kivalina situation an anomaly, or is this
something that is happening in other locations of the world as well, where
people may also be displaced as a consequence of global warming?
I THINK Kivalina is an anomaly in then sense that most of the
discussion around the biggest impacts of climate change are usually focused on
the Global South. Kivalina offers an example of how Alaska Natives in the U.S.
are being heavily impacted as well, and also face inadequate resources and
assistance.
But, yes, people around the world face displacement. There seems to be
two types of impacts from climate change. One is the steady threat of
displacement, like the people of Kivalina and other Alaska Natives facing
erosion and flooding, and the small island states--although I used to think of
the threat of erosion as slow, but now realize it can be quick and sudden,
putting people in danger. The other type of impact is the increase in the
number and severity of "extreme" weather events, like increased
droughts, fires, and flooding, which may also make previously inhabited places
unlivable, and cause migrations.
WHAT WOULD you tell those who want to get involved in
the issue? How can people reach out to the folks in Kivalina?
A REDUCTION on greenhouse gas emissions--mitigation--is still very
important, but communities like Kivalina show we also need to focus on
adaptation policies.
I think the most important thing for Kivalina is that a government
agency is tasked with relocation, and a relocation policy is put into place.
This will give the people of Kivalina a blueprint for what to do and what they
can do.
The groups Native American Rights Fund and Three Degrees Warmer are
trying to streamline the process of relocation, while human rights lawyer Robin
Bronen is trying to institute a relocation policy at the international level
grounded in human rights law--"climigration." There might be more
efforts out there. These groups could use help and support.
Also,
we need to communicate to our political representatives that cuts in disaster
management and adaptation--which are currently being debated--are unacceptable.
The answer is smart policy, not none at all. Climate change is here, and we
have to deal with it.
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