Warming Temperatures to Force Alaskan Village to Move

Shishmaref is a small place, 600 people, located in a remote part of Alaska, on a narrow Chukchi Sea barrier island. While everyone feels that his home is the best place to be, an objective observer is not likely to find anything unique about the village. But in a few years, it will become a trendsetter. This may be the first community in America to move due to global warming.

In all of Alaska, there are 184 villages that are in the same kayak, facing serious flooding or erosion. The Bush administration may say that global warming is still “just a theory,” but the cost of moving the village inland 13.5 miles will come to around $150 million, a not very hypothetical sum. Multiply that by 184, and the money becomes significant.

The problem for Shishmaref is erosion. The warmer climate is preventing large amounts of sea ice from forming to protect the bluffs of the island. Also, the ground doesn’t stay frozen as long, meaning that it isn’t held in place as well. From 2001 to 2003, the bluffs on the island eroded between 13 and 22.6 feet per year – over the preceding two decades, the range has been 3 to 9 feet per year.

The villagers want to keep their way of life intact, and moving to another village or municipality would effectively kill that off. So, by 2009, they are going to move the whole shebang inland. At the other end of the country, Floridians rebuild in the exact same spot after hurricanes, so perhaps the cold Alaskan nights provide the Inupiat people of Shishmaref with ample opportunity to think things through. Moving is a feasible response.

While a pro-energy White House claims that there is no need to worry about “theoretical” global warming, and while the Kyoto Treaty sits in the Senate without the benefit of an up or down vote (which even rabidly reactionary judicial appointees can get these days), the people of Shishmaref are getting ready to move. Even if erosion quintupled its pace, the distance the people are putting between themselves and the sea will last for 700 years or so – some people are capable of taking the long view.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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