Arctic impacts: The human cost of melting ice

This episode, we're staying in that region, but this time we're speaking to an expert who hails from the Circumpolar North about the connections between climate change and human rights. Indigenous communities have been calling attention to warming temperatures in the Arctic and the resulting impacts on their ways of life for decades.

Spanning from contemporary Finland, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Greenland, to the United States and Canada, Indigenous peoples have called the Arctic home for far longer than concepts of states and national borders have existed. For thousands of years, they've relied on the ice to inform and sustain their ways of life.

Ice routes that allow communities to travel safely and facilitate their hunting and gathering of country food, and which only come into existence in the Arctic winter, are now at risk. The destruction of ancient ways of life is leading to the loss of languages and customs reliant on the cold, meaning there's so much more at stake in the north than melting ice.

Indigenous peoples across the Arctic have lives that depend on that ice and depend on the rest of the world to transition away from fossil fuels to help preserve their way of life. These communities, that need to practice their culture and preserve their heritage, deserve as much attention and energy as the concerns over rising global temperatures and sea levels. [music fades out]

[energetic, upbeat music] The climate crisis has already begun to negatively impact the communities of the Arctic, but part of ensuring that all voices are heard means that especially-vulnerable demographics must be equitably represented at the decision table. My guest today knows from personal experience that even though it shouldn't be this way.

Sometimes, you need to shout to be heard, but through her lifetime of work advocating for the people in the land of the Arctic, she has certainly made a difference in helping the world to understand the costs that are already being paid by the north, costs that the north is being forced to pay, but the rest of the world has incurred on their behalf. But she can tell you about herself better than I can [chuckles lightly] or should, so let's get going. [music ends]

She sits as an advisor to Canada's Ecofiscal Commission, and is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. Sheila was instrumental in the global negotiations that led to the 2001 Stockholm Convention banning the generation and use of persistent organic pollutants that contaminate the Arctic food web. [music ends] Sheila, thanks so much for joining us on Cities. 1.5.

For eight years I was away, "being educated", as they say, [chuckles] but it was more about deprogramming and reprogramming in a sense for many of us Inuit children. And we were very young. And so, my grounding and my humble beginnings are being raised very traditionally up in the Arctic, hunting and fishing, and just the values and principles of what it was like before a lot of turmoil was coming into play in our regions. And so, that's my humble beginnings.

We teach our children not just the technical aspect of a hunt, where they become proficient providers and natural conservationists, but we certainly teach them the life and character-building skills that are needed for them to be efficient providers for the community and to survive one of the harshest environments in the world.

But those life skills, the coping skills that they learn about themselves is just as important, if not more so, because it not only helps them to survive the harsh environments, but it really gets ingrained and integrated if they've learned, traditionally, how to be patient, how to be bold under pressure, how to withstand stressful situations, how to develop their coping and resiliency skills and ultimately their sound judgment and wisdom... what we call [speaks Indigenous language

00:07:07] in our language and those skills, we're finding, are very needed in dealing with the modern stressors of the day because, as Inuit, we've gone through so much changes in one lifetime, where most societies have taken, what, 350 years to adjust to this modern setting. And, for us, we say, in my lifetime, it's been three lifetimes, you know, that we've lived as a result of that.

But, along with the tumultuous change, it also has included, of course, the historical legacies of historical traumas—the colonization, you know, the oppression, the suppression, the violence, the abuses that occurred from those of authority—and that has created of course what we are faced with today. Most people have come to understand the Arctic for-- or know the Arctic for its wildlife more than its people.

And, for me, the work that I've been doing all these almost 30 years now, is to humanize the issues of climate change, and put that human face onto that map to better understand that context of why we have such high suicide rates—the highest in North America, in fact—and the addictions and the violence that has now been created in our communities as a result of that history.

So, what we're finding is, as we come out the other side of understanding these pieces a lot more clearly, we find that the answers lie right in front of us. It lies in our culture.

In order for us to stand back on our feet or on solid ice—pun intended—then we need to ensure that that ice remains intact as the university, as the learning space and place for our young people to develop those resiliencies as a result of the historical traumas which, again, as I say are very transferable to the modern setting, because we've realized the younger generation that have had that kind of training, culturally, traditionally, are more apt to adjust and adapt to the

modern setting and to the stressors. That's how very transferable that is. So, it's not just about the ice, not just about the polar bears – it's about the people and the younger generation that carry the burden the most, the heaviest burden the most of all of those historical contexts. So, that's why it's important to understand the human context of climate change and its impacts on the Arctic and its people.

And so, things were freezing very early in the fall and breaking up much later by June, let's say. Today, the ice in my community of Kuujjuaq does not form fully on that river until December, January, and some pockets of that area of the river do not freeze at all anymore.

I mean, we Inuit live in Greenland, we live in Alaska, we live in Canada, and we live in Russia. In Alaska, they are hit the hardest when it comes to that because it's open coast now, and so there's homes that are already into the sea as a result of coastal erosion. So, it's really about that losing our homes, even to that kind of situation that's happening very quickly.

There are new species of animals and fish and insects that sometimes we don't have a name for because they're making their way north as a result of the climatic changes. We live just below the tree line in Kuujjuaq in Nunavik and there's a lot of trees that are slumping as a result of the permafrost that is melting very quickly, as well. So, many, many changes.

Hunters have to reroute themselves to get to the same hunting and fishing grounds that they've done for generations, and also, the Indigenous knowledge and wisdom is weakened because, as I say, not only does the ice go; so, too, does the wisdom when it all melts away. And so, those teachings are very valuable. But, many of our hunters and our seasoned elders often will say, "I'm teaching you this now, as I have done for generations, to help you.

However"—and there's a disclaimer, “however”—“because of climate change, it's not always going to be that way. Things are unpredictable and we can't assess the ice conditions by looking at it from the surface anymore because the Arctic sink or the waters are warming so much that the ice forms very differently. So, that's what I mean by minimizing of traditional knowledge that has held us together and safe for generations is now in question as a result of that.

That, I would consider to be one of the bigger successes at the UN level, that I led that campaign on protecting our country food because of these persistent organic pollutants that were making their way through the weather patterns, from pesticides and byproduct of industry from very far away, and ending up in our food chain because they made their home in the cold Arctic waters, not able to go back up in the atmosphere.

[music fades out] So, they bio-magnified and bio-intensified when they got to the Arctic and ended up in our marine mammals, which we are avid eaters of because that's very highly-nutritious food that we eat up there to stay warm and to stay healthy. And so, I became very active as I was just a newly-elected ICC Canada—Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada—president, and the UN negotiations were just starting.

Lots of work had been done previous to that with Health Canada, Inuit organizations, Inuit committees in the community, when we realize in the '80s we were being poisoned from afar, not of our doing. And so, it became very alarming when these toxins were being found in the nursing milk of our Inuit women and in our food chain, in the blood cord as they were doing the research.

So, when the negotiations started for me, as a mother and a young grandmother-to-be, it was a no-brainer to say, "This is not just a chemical story here. This is not just an environmental problem. This is an urgent health matter for Inuit, who rely upon their country food for incredible sources," and I'll just list a little bit of that for you now...

The nutritional value of our food, the cultural value, educational value—that I had mentioned earlier about the character building—the emotional value of connecting to identity and the grounding that we have as we connect to family and to our hunter and ancestry, the spiritual value of our women as they sow in almost a meditative state or prepare the food, the men in a yogic position almost for many hours upon hours in the cold, waiting for that seal to surface through that

little hole, of the seal is they call that their peaceful space and, trust me, we need more peaceful spaces for our men today who have gone through much change. And then, of course, the communal value of eating from the same animal is extremely powerful for us and we have ceremony around our young men when they have their first hunt.

And so, it creates this sense of confidence, more confidence for them, for the young men to build their sense of identity and their confidence to be good providers, and that's what we need the world today with our youth, you know, who have gone so dispirited because of that legacy I mentioned earlier. Of course, the medicinal value is really important for us – omega three fats, all of that.

And, the economic value – many people rely on our country food because the cost of living and the food insecurity in the Arctic, my goodness, it's high – two, three, four times higher than southern places in Canada. So, all of these values are extremely important to us. It was about our way of life and our culture. We didn't want to be caught between having to choose between our country food and our cultural heritage.

"What a world we created," I said early on, "that mothers of the world have to carry the brunt of these toxins, Inuit women having to think twice about nursing their babies as a result of that," whereas African women had to try to use DDT to protect their babies from dying from malaria. And so, here we are, in this world, creating these kinds of horrific things that have an impact on peoples, way far from the source of these toxins.

And so, that's the first one, and to be able to put that human face on the map, we were successful in creating and working with the world on these issues – the UN Stockholm Convention which, by the way, in that time in history was one of the fastest UN treaties to have been signed, ratified, and enforced in the history of the UN in those days.

Now, of course, we were protecting ourselves in the Arctic, but in reality, we were very inclusive in our work because whatever we did to protect the Arctic was protecting everybody else along the route of these persistent organic pollutants, so everyone was protected in that way. I've always tried to be very inclusive in the work that I've done, to say, "It's not just about us," because the Arctic is the cool... I'm switching back to climate change now.

The Arctic is the cooling system for the planet. It's the air conditioner, if you will, and it's starting to break down, and it shows the impact of that breakdown with the droughts and the fires and the hurricanes and the tornadoes. And all of those things that are happening around the world are very much connected to the meltdown of the Arctic glaciers and Greenland Ice Sheet, with the sea-level rise. The connection is very clear. It's all there.

And, we put ourselves on the map with that issue, but then climate change was this huge, much, much more challenging issue to deal with because, in those years, big players like the United States were always the odd man out.

They did not want to sign on to the COP process, and we learned through the work that we did under the Arctic Council on developing the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment just how resistant the US was at the time to sign on to anything that would impact their economic or environmental policies. [music fades out] And so, the politics was very high. But we also knew what was coming down the road. This is '94. I've been doing this for almost 30 years.

This is in '94 that this occurred, that we actually assessed climate change.

It was one of the first detailed, comprehensive reports on climate change, and it happened to be on the circumpolar world, and it involved many countries—I believe, 15 countries—with many, many scientists from around the world, and we ensured—and we really worked hard on this to ensure—that Indigenous knowledge of the circumpolar world, including our Inuit elders, their voices and their experience and their expertise would be added to every chapter of this assessment.

And so, it was really long ago that we said, "Red flags. Climate change is really going to happen and it's really going to impact the Arctic." This was even before the IPCC reports were coming out. And so, lots of things were said in that report, which was really an indicator of these changes that we actually live today in the Arctic and in the world that are impacting all of us.

So, when people started to search me out after this work that I had done on POPs, said, "You know, we're working, and these two legal-- international legal teams in the United States, actually, who sought me out and said, "We'd like to explore something with you and let's have a meeting about connecting climate change to human rights, and we have some ideas. This is what we'd like to do," you know, in terms of moving forward to really put this issue on the map as a human rights issue.

So, that's where all that kind of began, and I met with the Centre for International Environmental Law in Washington DC, and also with earthjustice.org from San Francisco, who had been working on these issues, and we talked about that, and I had to think very hard about this, but it really felt right to me.

It didn't feel strange to make this a human rights issue because, for us, we live this reality, even though I had a lot of challenges I have to admit with some of our own institutions because people wanted to go into development issues and they didn't want to be seen as hypocrites and so on. [pensive music] But, that's all in my book, so I won't get into that too much. But, if you want to know more about the political challenges of our own Inuit world, you can certainly read that.

But, at the end of the day, ICC chose not to sign on to this and so it became myself who led it with 62 elders and seasoned hunters and women from Alaska and Canada, and what we were suggesting is that this, indeed, is a human rights issue, and that's where all of that began. [music continues then fades out]

The Journal serves as a platform for dynamic content that highlights ambitious, near-term climate action, focusing on human-centered solutions to today's most pressing climate challenges. To read the latest issue, visit JCCPE.utpjournals.press or find the link in the show notes. [music fades out]

I'm not sure that everyone is familiar with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, so can you just talk a little bit about that and why it would matter that you would take a petition with the aid of these human rights lawyers and with 62 elders to speak about the impact on Inuit life of climate change? Why is that the place to take a petition like this?

[gentle music] We were way ahead of our time when it came to the research on these issues and we chose them because they are the ones that look at these kinds of legal petitions that are not lawsuits-- and I can't get into all of the legal jargon of all of that because it's, like, over 20 years ago [chuckles]. I think it's really important in the sense that they chose not to hear our petition – our legal petition. However, because of the politics that played itself out—and I won't...

Again, if you want to read more about that in terms of how I testified at John McCain's Senate hearing that he had on climate change and transportation, because of the problems and challenges that we had at the Arctic Council level with the American delegations that were stalling all of this report from coming out before an election that would see Bush back in for the second term, all of these things are indicated in my book.

However, we did realize we were up against a huge political machinery here. But, at the same time, it didn't stop me because I felt that, even some of the things that people—my own leadership—thought – "What if we get repercussion? What if we get funding cuts?" You know, "What if we get some kind of a, you know, backlash from all of this?" and I say, "Well, I am more afraid of the future of my grandchildren than I am of any backlash that could happen here."

And so, it was really about getting the world to take notice how serious a matter this is for Inuit, of the Arctic and the circumpolar world.

And so, we used the remarkable data and the research that had been done through the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and we were able to arm ourselves with that, the same way that we were able to arm ourselves with all the data and research that had been developed, and we translated that kind of data into international policy, which is the Stockholm Convention that makes our country food safer today, as a result of that work.

So, we didn't have anything in our hands for climate change until this Arctic Climate Impact Assessment was done, and so it was really an important piece because, even though they chose not to move forward with our petition, per se, because of the politics at play, they did choose to have myself and my legal team go down and talk about the legal impacts of climate change on these issues, and they had promised me, at the end of our testimonies, that they would go ahead with our petition.

However, we never heard back from them after that. So, it was very unfortunate, 30 years later, here we are in a climate crisis that we had predicted long ago.

And, when we first started this movement and we started connecting climate change to human rights, even big organizations like Amnesty International and the guy who headed that in those years, when I won the Sophie Prize in Norway, was told, "The woman who targeted the United States as a human rights issue has just won the Sophie Prize," and he said, "She's doing what?" [chuckles] And then, he's telling me this at another meeting much later on, he said, "But then I got it right away.

After I thought about it, I worked it through, and I got it right away." So even Amnesty was not up to speed [chuckles] with this. But then, lots of other people started to really take this on and, you know, within five years, it became mainstream language. It wasn't just about politics anymore. It wasn't just about economics and academics and science. It was about people.

It was about culture, of people who rely upon the wellbeing of their environment and their land and waters to still survive and thrive, you know, and have their children be in safe places and spaces to learn about who they are and where they belong in this world of ours and the larger world, [gentle music] and that's what this was all about for me. And so, it really, I found, changed the discourse on the language of climate change in those years, and it has only escalated more and more.

There are youth that have stood up. Now, if you heard, on April 9th, just a week ago or so, the International Court rules that Switzerland violated human rights in a landmark climate change case brought by 2,000 women—older women—if you have read this rearing recently in the last week or so.

And, it's the European Court of Human Rights and France that made this landmark ruling. So, yes, I believe that there has been, you know, influence in the world with the work that I did, which was the hardest-- I would say the hardest part of my journey—life's journey—that I've ever had to go through because of the politics within our own homelands and also, of course, you know, with the United States and so on. But, I was never fearful.

For some reason, I had this drive in me in those years to just do what I need to do to protect what I love and to protect what we love in our culture and our children that we lose so many to high suicide rates as a result of that history. And, as I said, you know, the land, the waters, the hunting, the skills, all of these things together really is the solution to us, and I would suggest that culture is our medicine, and that's what we're protecting, to fight, to keep and maintain.

But, I would suggest that Indigenous wisdom is also the medicine the world seeks to create a sustainable world, and if people could see as much more as teachers of sustainability and connection, rather than victims of globalization, rather than victims of colonization, then I think we're going to be helpful and making headway in a sustainable world for all of us.

case you cite, brought by a group of women who I think, predominantly, were older.

That's what has grounded me all these years, all these decades that we're doing this work. But, for the youth who are not yet mired in the politics of things, for them, it's very clear – this is their future we're fooling around with, that we're tinkering around and not finding the solutions for.

And so, I get very inspired by the youth movements that are happening around the world, as well, because I think that's who we're trying to leave this legacy to is a planet that is still healthy, and for them to feel safe in.

There has been, especially since the pandemic has hit, a lot of insecurities that have been created around climate change because they're seeing that what happened, you know, during the pandemic, where even their own lives and their own courses that they take in university or their path of education has shifted, you know, in the way they view the world today. And so, for me, I say, "Don't be discouraged by that.

Continue to push forward and see the issues for what they are and, if you can bypass some of the politics-- because that's kind of what I've done to survive the last many years that I've left elected politics. I was elected for 11 years with ICC.

But, since leaving the political arena, I have felt more free to say and do what I need to do and say, and I think, for the youth, if they can avoid some of the politics at play, then they can do wonders and the hope is still there to be able to shift and change the way things are done. You know, I was at a book festival in Australia, New Zealand, way back after my book came out at some of these book festivals.

I was on a panel with Tim Flannery, one of the greatest climatologists, with many books, and an audience member asked him, "What is it about us in this world that is preventing us from taking urgent action on climate change when we know the science is so strong?" and I would add, collaborated by the Indigenous knowledge and wisdom on the actual impacts that it's having on the ground, and when he was asked, "What is lacking in us?" his answer was, "Imagination is lacking."

[gentle music] Imagine we can do things differently, we can innovate differently, because imagination is not just dreams. It really starts to gel the ideas, as you can imagine a new world. And, all of my talks that I give now are reimagining a new world forward with intention, with a conscious intention to change what is happening in the Arctic and how that impacts everyone else below, you know, in the southern parts of the world.

And so, for me, don't get discouraged by that for these changes, because sometimes I think things have to really break down and break apart before the real breakthroughs can come through. [music fades out] And, I try to offer that hope because I am not a pessimist. I wouldn't be doing what I do for 30 years if I were.

I am more of an optimist because I think that next generation will also be thinking very creatively and innovatively on how to address these issues of the impacts of climate change, but they will do it without being paralyzed or pulled down by politics of things. That's my take on it.

And, for me, it comes down to the personal level of, "How do we live in our families, with our families, how do we live in our work, how do we live in our municipalities, in our country, all around?" [delicate music] But, it comes down to us and I always say, "Personal transformation is the way to go," and, if I may, I just want to share this quote that has been with me for a long, long time that has helped me to see and remain grounded, no matter where I go in terms of my life's work.

I don't separate my life and my life's work, and so, "Personal transformation--"you know, which is a quote that I've always used, "Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world for the world is us, and the revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one." So, it does start with us. It starts on a very personal level in terms of changing and shifting the way in which we think.

But, I also say too, we can no longer think our way through this. We need to feel our way through and, if you've been to all these global negotiations and big meetings, corporate meetings, there often is no heartbeat to any of that, and so we've got to bring it back to the place and space where all change can happen and that is the heart – not just the thinking through all of these things. [music continues] Many people go to these.

You know 20,000 people often go to these COP meetings with the intention to fight for status quo, not for a real effective change. And so, it's a competitive world we live in. If you don't mind, I was asked to do a virtual talk to scientists, you know, during COVID times, and I was still in the Arctic at the time, living there in Kuujjuaq, in my hometown. I was asked to speak to 1,200 scientists virtually, from 37 countries, at this Arctic Science Summit that was hosted by Portugal.

[music fades out] So, I said, "You know, this is the pandemic. This is the time that we're trying to get the universe and whoever-- however we call, you know, this power that exists in all of us to see and do things differently from a new perspective. This is a pause we needed."

You know, when pollution went down almost overnight when all these unsustainable activities occurred, when animals surfaced where they've never been for decades, not to say that CO2 lowered, but the pollution did, and we saw a glimpse of what could be if unsustainable activities were put to a minimum.

And so, that gave us a sense of, "Oh, this is the reflective time for all of us to take," and as hard as it was for me as an independent, I took that time as well to really reflect on deepening my journey with the work that I do. And so, I said, "I need to get to the scientists who often come up north, you know, and many, many decades now have researched us to death, and so it's time to research us back to life, really, in the right way."

And so, scientists come up north and they come in the spring and leave in the fall like the geese, you know, and then we never know what kind of research they're using that for, and it doesn't benefit back to the people, although the guidelines are much better today than they were in the past.

Anyway, I came across this quote from one of their own scientists, which you may have heard of – Gus Speth from the United States, and Gus said this – he said, "I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, environmental collapse, and climate change. I thought that, with 30 years of good science, we could address these problems, but I was wrong," he said.

The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, and we scientists don't know how to do that." And so, it's really important, I think, for us to shift the way in which we do things by actually changing our own values and our own spiritual and cultural transformation that has to happen.

So, whether you're a mayor, and [chuckling] especially if you're a mayor, you know, and heading cities that are trying to make a difference, then let's tap into those places and spaces within ourselves that need transforming so that we can transform our external world as the important work that we do in trying to make these shifts. [driving, pensive music] That's my take on that.

The rest of the world sees the second-hand impacts that a melting polar ice cap creates—rising oceans, disappearing shorelines, and skyrocketing global temperatures—but the Indigenous communities of the Arctic region saw the writing on the wall decades before the rest of us and there's a lot more at stake than just ice if we don't transition away from fossil fuels now, in order to save, not just the north, but the entire planet. [music continues then ends]

[Cities 1.5 main theme music] On the next episode of Cities 1.5, learn how the Mayor of Montréal, Valerie Plante is guiding her city on the path towards decarbonizing buildings. I'll also speak with Frankie Downy, the Head of Building Strategy and Implementation at C40. You won't want to miss it. [Cities 1.5 main theme music] This has been Cities 1.5, leading global change through local climate action. I'm David Miller.

I was the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, and I know, firsthand, the role cities can play in solving the climate crisis. I'm the Editor in Chief of the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy, published by the University of Toronto Press in collaboration with the C40 Centre for City Climate Policy and Economy, where I'm also the Managing Director.

C40's mission is to help our member cities halve their emissions within a decade, while improving equity, building resilience, and creating the conditions for everyone, everywhere to thrive. [music continues] Cities 1.5 is produced by University of Toronto Press in association with the Journal of City Climate Policy and Economy and C40 Cities. This podcast is produced by Jessica Schmidt, and our executive producers are Peggy Whitfield and Dali Carmichael. Our music is by Lorna Gilfedder.

The fight for an equitable and resilient world is closer than you think. To learn more, visit the show's website, linked in the episode notes. See you next time. [main theme music continues then ends]