Sea ice once protected the island on which the village of Kivalina, in Alaska, stands. Now that the ice is melting, the sea is slowly erasing it from the map. But its inhabitants hold on, and with them their traditions.
Breathe in deeply. Your lungs expand, filling with icy air. So cold it makes your head spin. But Jennifer's breath is warm; the fur-trimmed hood frames her face. Like the other inhabitants of Kivalina, she has no wish to abandon this remote village in Alaska — probably the most inhospitable region in the United States — roughly a hundred kilometres from the Arctic Circle. Even though it has become a symbol of a changing climate.
Climate change is happening right before our eyes. I fear that one day Kivalina will be gone. But we are fighting to prevent that. So that our traditions stay alive.Alexis Awley, resident of Kivalina
The village of Kivalina sits at the tip of a barrier reef that stretches for about twelve kilometres between a lagoon and the Chukchi Sea, with no roads connecting it to the mainland. It was once protected by sea ice, but that ice is shrinking ever further due to global warming, leaving the coastline at the mercy of extreme weather events and the constant erosion caused by waves. Not to mention that sea levels rise year on year, precisely because of increasing temperatures and melting ice. If nothing is done to intervene, the island is projected to be swallowed by the ocean in 2025.
It was for this reason that in 2008 the inhabitants of Kivalina brought the United States' first global warming lawsuit, accusing Exxonmobil and other oil companies — which extract oil, zinc and iron on the island with evident environmental consequences — of having emitted the greenhouse gases responsible for the climate change that is bringing the community to its knees. They sought 400 million dollars (approximately 360 million euros) in compensation from the companies, a sum that would be needed to relocate the village to another site — a move that the residents would nonetheless rather not make. In 2009, however, the district court to which the case was submitted ruled that the matter was political in nature rather than legal, and could therefore not be resolved in court.
In Kivalina, spread across around ninety houses, live approximately 400 people of Iñupiat heritage. The federal government has tried to infiltrate their culture, without success. "I speak English, I went to school, I wear American-style clothes, I eat some of their food. But I am still Iñupiat from head to toe," says Enoch Adams, a whale hunter. His people's livelihood is based on hunting and fishing, but these activities have become less productive as the distribution of fish species and the migratory habits of caribou, seals and whales have changed with rising temperatures. The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the planet, according to scientists at the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Cnr). Alaska, in particular, is warming twice as fast as the rest of the United States, to the point that permafrost is no longer permanently frozen ground.
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"Normally, national policies address a disaster after it has already happened," researcher Christine Shearer, author of the volume Kivalina: a climate change story, told the Washington Post. "But in the case of climate disruption, acting beforehand is imperative." The indigenous population holds on, but is sending an appeal to the international community: the course must be reversed. It is the only way to save Jennifer, Enoch, Harold and his granddaughter, Russell and Rhonda. People we have told you about, faces you can admire in the shots of photographer Joe Raedle. Human beings who over the years have learned to live in a harsh place, coming to know it like the back of their hand, but who now risk losing it for ever. A treasure chest of traditions that must not end up at the bottom of the sea.