While record snowfall, an unseasonably cool spring and predictions for increased hurricanes this season encourage discussion about climate change, some communities need only look out their front door to see that things are different and changing fast. Residents in Scammon Bay, Alaska are meeting with neighboring communities to discuss what can be done to mitigate a global issue with exceptionally local consequences. At the conference, Newtak tribal administrator Stanley Tom spoke. From the article in ‘The Arctic Sounder,’

“He said fall sea storms have increasingly threatened Newtok with flooding, turning it from a coastal village to a shrinking island off the coast for days at a time.

Flooding also washes honeybucket waste back into the village, endangering residents’ health.

Nearby rivers have already swallowed up a dumpsite, barge landing and drilling rig. He said he thinks the erosion that’s forced the massive relocation project is due to climate change.”

Scammon Bay city manager James Akerelrea continues,

“There’s deterioration of plants in our area that we smell rotting… In the middle of winter, the driftwood that we gather, when it should be frozen on the ground, we’re seeing water underneath the driftwood,”

Despite these and other unprecedented conditions, the solutions that are being discussed by those directly faced with the issue are the same as those for people further from the front lines - Energy audits for increased conservation of resources, increased use of renewable energy sources, and increased disaster planning to improve response to future uncertainty. This is remarkable, in that it is a rare situation that requires all citizens to make the same choices the world over to address a problem whether you can see the problem out your front door or not. That may be the unique social characteristic of climate change. It throws into sharp relief, the reality that we, every living creature on earth, are all in the same boat when it comes to the state of the planet.

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