Sheila Watt-Cloutier: Our stark and dangerous reality

We Inuit have lived in the Arctic for millennia. Our culture and economy reflect the land and all that it gives. We are connected to the land. Our understanding of who we are - our age-old knowledge and wisdom - comes from the land. It is our struggle to thrive in the harshest environment that has given us the answers we need to survive in the modern world. That outlook, a respectful human outlook that sees connection to everything, should inform the debate on climate change as these monumental changes threaten the memory of where we were, who we are and all that we wish to be.

Discussion of climate change often tends to focus on political, economic and technical issues rather than human impacts and consequences. But Inuit and other northerners are already experiencing the direct impact of human-induced climate change, and we face dramatic problems with possible social and cultural dislocation in coming years.

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For many generations, we Inuit have closely observed the environment, and have accurately predicted weather, enabling us to travel safely on the sea-ice to hunt our marine mammals, walrus and polar bears. Nowhere else in the world does ice and snow represent mobility as it does for us in the Arctic. Ice and snow are our highways that lead us to our supermarkets, the environment, and link us to other communities.

Several Inuit villages in the circumpolar world have already been so damaged by global warming that relocation, at the cost of millions of dollars, is now the only option. Plans are well under way to relocate communities, especially in Alaska. Climate change is not just a theory to inhabitants of the Arctic, it is a stark and dangerous reality. Human-induced climate change is undermining the ecosystem on which we Inuit depend for physical and cultural survival.

The Arctic is now considered the early warning, the health barometer for the planet and whatever happens in the world happens first in the Arctic. I have said many times in my talks around the world that if you wish to see how healthy the planet is, come and take its pulse in the Arctic.

Today we are told that as it is already too late to make effective change so we must just try to adapt. And adapt we will as best we can, but I am a strong believer, as are many others well versed on this issue, that there is still a window of opportunity in the next 10 to 15 years to make effective changes to how we live in the global community. Indeed, there is still time to prevent the stark predictions of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment from unfolding fully as it relates to the loss of our hunting culture in my grandson's lifetime.