Perspectives on changing ice and snow
The essays below are from people living with and planning for the consequences of changing ice and snow in the
Arctic, Pacific Islands and Nepal.
All things are connected...
A perspective from an indigenous world view
Patricia Cochran, Chair,
Inuit Circumpolar Council
In indigenous cultures, no one part of an ecosystem is considered and tropical countries affects us dramatically here in the North.
more important than another part and all parts have synergistic Many of the economic and environmental challenges facing In-
roles to play. Indigenous communities say that “all things are uit result from activities well to the south of our homelands, and
connected” – the land to the air and water, the earth to the sky, what is happening in the far North will affect what is happening
the plants to the animals, the people to the spirit. in the South. If the Greenland ice sheet melts (as it seems to be
doing now), not only do world water levels rise, but scientists
The Arctic may be seen as geographically isolated from the rest speculate that dumping such massive quantities of cold water
of the world, yet the Inuit hunter who falls through the thin- into the Atlantic may very well affect the Conveyer Belt. This cir-
ning sea ice is connected to melting glaciers in the Andes and cularly moving body of cold and warm waters regulates climate
the Himalayas, and to the flooding of low-lying and small is- in much of the Northern Hemisphere. We are all connected on
land states. What happens in foreign capitals and in temperate this planet and the Arctic plays an important role.
224 GLOBAL OUTLOOK FOR ICE AND SNOW