The End of Arctic

Scientists know that the Arctic is warming twice as fast as other parts of the world, causing land and sea ice to melt and currents to change.




Emma Thompson(Activist) says "Climate change is a global phenomenon. It doesn't just happen in certain places. It affects everybody. The rising of the temperature caused by our burning of fossil fuels has caused the Arctic to melt". And this extreme rate of change has deeply affected the wild life and people's lives. These people are the Inuit, who are an indigenous people that have lived in North America for thousands of years.

Jerry Natanine (Former Mayor of Clyde River)says " Inuit means people. What makes us Inuit is that we are hunter gatherers. We go out on the land, live out there for part of the year, hunting whales and seals and fishing--all this hunting lifestyle.That's what makes us Inuit, to me."





In the 1950s, the Canadian government forced communities to settle permanently into cities or hamlets, like Clyde River, stripping the nomadic way of life away from the Inuit. Given that mass agriculture isn't the easiest thing to produce in the North, it makes sense that any threat to the wildlife, which is a huge segment of their food source, would be problematic.





As if these food challenges weren't already enough, Clyde River is about to face, perhaps, it's greatest battle and risk to their livelihood yet. This is Seismic blasting. You see, the energy and oil companies use the technique of seismic blasting in the search for oil underwater, whereby high air pressure blasts are shot up underwater every ten seconds to survey the ocean floor below in hopes to find oil deposits. Basically, they're imaging with sound. But not before having an impact on the environment and wildlife first. Almost all marine animals use sound for all vital life functions. And that's because sound travels extremely efficiently under water. Five times the speed. And it just transmits over large areas very quickly.





Seismic blasting is the loudest human-made sounds other than an explosion and 4,000 km away, seismics can form the pre-dominant part of the background noise. They'll be having much more trouble finding their prey, orienting themselves, navigating, staying in touch with eachother, staying in touch with their calves, reproducing, mating, stress impact that affect their immune system. They use sound for everything. Why would they not be impacted? How could they not be impacted? We can't even imagine.

It's far harder for us to imagine they wouldn't be impacted than they would. I mean, the parsimonious explanation is, they're going to suffer something.And if the animals are affected, it becomes a matter of life and death for the Inuit people in Clyde River.But Clyde River is unique in that they have begun an unprecedented legal battle against the Canadian government and energy companies to protect their land, culture, wildlife, and way of life. So the seismic companies applies for a permit to conduct a five year project to blast Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait in search of oil and gas beneath the sea floor. They want to blast over a very large section of the Arctic Ocean in Canada.


The project that was approved would allow them to blast the ocean for five years during the ice-free season, which is a pretty significant amount of the year and they'd be blasting their air canons every ten seconds,24 hours a day.This shouldn't have been a problem, given that indigenous peoples in Canada and other countries around the world have certain rights enshrined to the United Nations Declaration On The Rights of Indigenous Peoples, requiring proper consultation and consent to go forward with such projects.Clyde River never gave their consent , but the seismic blasting was given a go-ahead.The National Energy Board and a company came to Clyde River in what they call consultation.They brought a lot of paper work, their presentations.

They were telling us, "this is what we're planning to do." The People were asking them questions when they were done, you know, how presentations work. The People were asking them things like, "what's going to happen to the halibut? How are the halibut (or the turbot) going to be affected by the canon blasts?" Narwhals, walrus--we thought that we would get an answer that explains what would happen. But, no, they didn't give us any answer like that. Here are some of the actual excerpts from the consultation process with the community.



This move to avoid proper consultation and to find more oil is not only affecting the wildlife and ecosystem but the Arctic entirely


and the Inuit way of life. So what has happened is that big oil companies, who refuse to recognize the fact that we need to leave what's in the group in the ground if we're going to survive,are using that opportunity to go in there and try to extract more of the stuff that melted the place in the first instance. They don't care what happens to their grandchildren.They don't care. They clearly don't care because they know the signs. They know what's going to happen. They know that conflict's going to escalate as water supplies decrease, as food security becomes more and more difficult. Conflict worldwide will escalate.


And what's going to happen then? What's going to happen when the low-lying territories like Bangladesh,even the Netherlands, get covered in water? Where are those people going to go? It's going to make the refugee crisis in Europe look like an away day. Which is why Clyde River's fight to protect their rights in the Arctic is so important and could set a major precedent for other indigenous communities all around the world. If they lose, seismic blasting could start as soon as summer 2017, and they could be blasting for five years after that.Ultimately threatening the primary food sources for the Inuit. These are people who are already living on a very fine line.

And so therefore, seismic testing is absoulutely a question of their rights to their land and the safety of their land and the safety of their food,so any company has no right to mess with their food supply in that way. It is and should be made illegal and we sincerely hope that it will become illegal. If seismic blasting was to happen, we feel that as Inuit, it's going to take a big portion of our diet, our hunting culture away, it's going to be totally destroyed, because if you see hunting and there's nothing, that's devestating to me.If the whales migrate somewhere and we have nothing to hunt, I don't know what's going to happen. We're going to lose our lives.I fear that seismic blasting is going to completely change our lifestyle and the sea mammals.I really want to help stop it because all the animals are very important to us.


You can be a part of that change, just by signing the petition to put pressure on the Supreme Court and government of Canada to stand with Clyde River. Please sign the petition and share this article to know

PETITION : http://goo.gl/d5I4qz