Earth Equity News

The Village at the Tip of the Iceberg. By Ed Pilkington, London Observer, September 28, 2008. "For more than 2,000 years the Yup'ik Eskimos have carved out a subsistence living on the frozen wastes of southwest Alaska. But now the ice is melting the village is having to move to a new site, and the world's first climate-change refugees face an uncertain future... Peter John has known for years that the change was coming. The elders had foretold it. As a young Eskimo boy he would sit at the feet of his father and grandfather, uncles and great uncles as they arranged themselves in a circle in the qasgiq, the house built of sods dug deep into the tundra and reserved only for the men. Outside, snow would lay thick on the ground and the sea would be a single block of ice. Inside, the heat of the men's bodies would keep young Peter warm. An elder would be chosen to lead the discussion and would sometimes speak uninterrupted for an entire day... Peter is 72 now, an elder himself.... He has watched the change [his elders] foretold come true... Now... he tells the children the change is here."