This will certainly make the global warming debate more interesting:
As ice caps shrink around them, Inuit activists are making an international case out of Washington’s alleged indifference to global warming. But the Bush administration is standing by its refusal to negotiate long-term limits on “greenhouse gases.”
A two-week U.N. climate conference, attended by more than 180 nations, enters its final two days Thursday with little prospect for consensus on a key item – mandatory cutbacks beyond 2012 in carbon dioxide and other emissions whose buildup in the atmosphere is expected to disrupt the global climate.
The climate is already changing in the Arctic, where an international study last year found average winter temperatures have increased as much as 7 degrees over 50 years. Permafrost is thawing, and the extent of Arctic Sea ice is shrinking, imperiling polar bears and other animals.
The warming threatens “the destruction of the hunting and food-gathering culture of the Inuit in this century,” said Paul Crowley of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, representing 155,000 Inuit of Canada, Greenland, Russia and the United States, where they are known as Eskimos.
On Wednesday, the Inuit group submitted a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an investigative arm of the Organization of American States in Washington, “seeking relief from violations resulting from global warming caused by acts and omissions of the United States” – the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
The northern natives – 63 petitioners are named from all Inuit regions – seek a declaration that their human rights are being violated, putting political pressure on the U.S. government to reduce emissions.
Looks like the global warming debate might be heating up, although these Inuits will probably get the cold shoulder***.
*** Nope. Not apologizing for that, or for the title.