Alaska natives left out in the cold (BBC News "Green Room")

VIEWPOINT
Patricia Cochran

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A day after Christmas, the Anchorage Daily News ran an article about flooding and erosion in small native villages on the west coast of Alaska with names familiar to no one else except Alaskans.

But this is a very familiar story to us. With thinner sea ice arriving later and leaving earlier in the year, coastal communities are experiencing more intensified storms with larger waves than they have ever experienced.

This threat is being compounded by the loss of permafrost which has kept river banks from eroding too quickly.

The waves are larger because there is no sea ice to diminish their intensity, slamming against the west and northern shores of Alaska, causing severe storm driven coastal erosion.

It has become so serious that several coastal villages are now actively trying to figure out where to move entire communities.


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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6230731.stm

Patricia Cochran is executive director of the Alaska Native Science Commission, and chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Evidently she couldn't get the American press to pay enough attention, so she had to turn to the BBC.

the damages from global warming. Anyone who still denies global warning is a damned fool, and even worse, they're deliberate fools.

I'm afraid, due to warming, they'll have more than that in the near future.