Global Warming Melts Arctic

CHAN:
With global warming likely to have ecological and social impacts. One group who's being affected is the Inuit population. Their traditional life is melting away alongside Greenland's icebergs. Here's more on their situation.

STORY:
Surrounded by the beauty of Disko Bay, lies the village Ilimanaq in Greenland. The surrounding glaciers used to release gigantic icebergs that moved slowly and would sometimes block the bay.

But nowadays during the summer, Disko Bay is full of ice floes and smaller icebergs, forming a beautiful, but for the inhabitants, difficult ice sludge spreading across the bay.

Sled dogs used to take the fishermen far out on the ice to the middle of the bay where they would stay all day and haul up their catch. But as the ice has become weaker every winter, people here cannot trust it anymore.

Last winter there was a thin layer of ice outside the village but only for a month. It is even more difficult for the hunters because animals don't roam the ice anymore. The locals say they've noticed huge differences during their lifetimes.

[Amelie Lange, Villager]:
"We see most of it in the winter. In the old days there was ice covering Disko Bay every winter but no more... Whatever ice there is, it is really thin and we can't use it for anything. We used to go with dog sleds crossing the bay to Ilulissat but we can't do that anymore."

Villagers believe people have to stop their dependence on oil if there was any hope to stop climate change.

[Thorkel Larsen, Villager]:
"If we could just slow down on our use of oil. We can't use as much as we are doing right now. I know it will be difficult because many countries use a lot of it and depend on it. But maybe that is the only thing left to do."

Ironically Disko Bay is one of the areas in Greenland where companies have already started looking for oil.

Climate change here has already meant huge changes and for these villagers a letting go of the Inuit traditional way of living.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• NTD
• NTDTV
• news
• Global
• ecological
• social
• Arctic
• Greenland
• icebergs
• Disko
• Bay
• Ilimanaq

[strab55h]

Hoax huh? I look forward to urinating on your drowned ASS when we are underwater. You "skeptics" are quite literally ruining this planet. Do some research before you form such an ingnorant ass point of view. Bet you voted for Bush too....irrational FUCK!!!

[audgeyp]

I agree with gr8k4an, I believe global warming is a farce designed to keep people in fear.

I'm all for being greener but it has to be a global effort. If people in India and China for ex. don't do their part, it doesn't matter if everyone in North America is recycling everything and driving hybrids.

[gr8k4an]

Its not global warming, because man made global warming is a sham. It's natural climate shifts that happen and they are dependent on shifts in the ocean currents and sunspot activity. If you really believe in man made global warming, ask yourself what ended the last ice age which was prior to industrialization? Our planet has shifted its temperatures throughout its millions and millions of years of existence. Look at the mini ice age prior to the black plague.

[ajgolfer1]

its actually summer that melts it, and winter that refreezes it.

[Atuarfikmathias]

it is inuit! not innuit

[stopglobalwarming08]

we need more videos like this showing real life impacts affecting people and the world...from global warming!!

rated this 5 stars earlier!

Thanks, keep up the informative videos!

[pnkearns]

Traditional life styles?

Prefabricated houses heated by oil. Manufactured clothing. Internet PCs. Bottled beverages - probably alcohol.

And well known that Inuit "traditional" hunting today consists of snowmobiles and rifles. 

Yeah, traditional....