A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change
October 6, 2014
In This engaging study, Wright, a professor of aboriginal studies at Vancouver's Langara College, takes a multi-pronged approach to explain how the effects of global warming, the history of the Inuit and Canada's desire for Arctic sovereignty present a microcosm of the ways people struggle to reconcile industrial society with environmental destruction. The Earth's climatic fate "will be ruled by what happens as the ice melts," and none recognize this fact more than the Inuit. Wright details the Inuit's near 7,000-year history and explains how Canadian sovereignty in the high Arctic may paradoxically hinge on that region's original inhabitants, whose lives are dependent on the now-vanishing ice. Alleviating Inuit poverty and establishing Canadian sovereignty necessitates the natural resource exploitation that is ultimately driving global warmingâa situation that mirrors the problems of the broader modern world. Wright's book is an academic study that is nonetheless deeply moving, clearly written, and suitable for general readers. It is essential reading for anyone wishing to learn about how "humans are inextricably connected to the chain of life on this planet." Tackling global warming rests on us recognizing this deceptively simple fact.
September 15, 2014
Rising temperature in the Arctic is causing gradual melting of the ice. For the Inuit who inhabit northern Canada, Greenland, Labrador, and Siberia and whose culture, economy, and social organization depend upon the ice cover, the very foundation of their way of life is disappearing. Wright (aboriginal studies, Langara Coll., Vancouver, BC) who lived in the Arctic for a year, examines the technology--snow houses; the use of dogs, dog sleds, and kayaks for transportation; and marine mammal hunting, fishing, and whaling are examples--developed by the Inuit over the last 1,000 years to adapt to their harsh environment. The author also describes glaciers, icebergs, and shelf, pack, multiyear, and annual ice, and how the study of ice cores gives information on chemistry, pollution, and the temperature of the atmosphere for up to half a million years. This clearly written work devotes equal space to Inuit history and political organization and environmental ecology. In contrast, Settlement, Subsistence, and Change Among the Labrador Inuit, edited by David C. Natcher, et al, covers a more limited Inuit population, is intended for a specialized audience, and has only one chapter devoted to climate change in the Arctic. VERDICT With its bibliographical notes, photos, appendixes with documents of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and a list of websites, this book will appeal to readers with interests in anthropology and in the scientific evidence of climate change.--Judith B. Barnett, Univ. of Rhode Island Lib., Kingston
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