Madam, - While Kieran Cooke's article in your edition of October 23rd was an interesting analysis of the terrible effects of climate change in Greenland, we found it too optimistic about the consequences of warming, given what we learned in a recent delegation visit to the island.
In Ilussiat we met some of the world's first climate refugees. For hundreds of years the Inuit have lived in small villages around Disco bay. They have earned their living by fishing and hunting, travelling on the ice with their dog sleds. But since 1996 the ice has not frozen around Disco bay nor in the fjords near Ilussiat. Without the ice, the conditions for the traditional way of living are deteriorating and a lot of people are forced to move to the bigger towns. Locals reported more bad and unpredictable weather as protection from the ice decreases. Hunters said that now when they net seals under the ice in winter, they must pull in those nets within hours, since worms and parasites that they have never seen before rapidly destroy the carcases if they are left in the water. The parasites are believed to have moved north with the warmer water.
Undoubtedly some see people opportunities and are seeking to profit from the climate catastrophe that is facing the Arctic, but their voices are drowning out objections from the Inuit who are experiencing this catastrophe on a daily basis. The indigenous people of the Arctic deserve better than European reassurance that cash from multinational oil and minerals companies can offset the destruction wrought by decades of reckless industrial profiteering. - Yours, etc,
JENS HOLM MEP (Sweden),
Temporary Committee on Climate Change,
European Parliament;
DAVID LUNDY
(Press Officer),
LISA EKSTRAND
(Environmental Adviser),
European United Left/Nordic Green Left Group,
European Parliament,
Brussels.