The Right to be Cold

            The title of Watt-Coutier’s book might resonate with us who live in northern Minnesota, but others might ask, who wants that right?

            I heard Sheila speak at a Nobel Conference on climate change at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.  She has been a powerful advocate for making the world aware of how the climate crisis we are in affects one particular people in one particular area of the world, northern Canada.  As the book cover states:  “One woman’s fight to protect the Arctic and save the planet from climate change.”  Her influence has generated a foreward by Bill McKibben.

            The thesis of the book revolves around the changes that climate warming has brought to the Arctic circle region of the earth and how it impacts the people that live there, primarily Inuit natives.  The culture of those people that have adapted to the cold of the Arctic has drastically changed due to the Arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet, and modernity invading the region with mining, logging, and conveniences that have changed their way of life in ways not desired or asked for.  Houses on permafrost now cave in.  Seal and Polar Bear hunting is nearly impossible.  As Sheila bemoans, the Canadian government is more interested in protecting the Polar Bear than helping her people cope with the changes wrought with climate change.

            From the introducton:  “The Arctic, after all, is the cooling system, “the air conditioner”, if you will, for the entire planet.  As its ice and snow disappear, the globe’s temperatures rise faster and erratic weather becomes more frequent.”  And we have certainly been witnessing those weather disasters this year.

            Watt-Cloutier was co-nominated for the Nobel Peace prize along with Al Gore.  She has served on the Inuit Circumpolar Council Canada, launching her into international politics on climate change.  The book is a call to arms to be engaged in the struggle to curb climate change.  It is also a fascinating window into the lives of the natives occupying the region of the Arctic circle who are fighting for the right to be cold.

John Hanson