In a sense, Inuit of my generation have lived in both the ice age and the space age. The modern world arrived slowly in some places in the world, and quickly in others. But in the Arctic, it appeared in a single generation. Like everyone I grew up with, I have seen ancient traditions give way to southern habits. I have seen communities broken apart or transformed dramatically by government policies. I have seen Inuit traditional wisdom supplanted by southern programs and institutions. And most shockingly, like all my fellow Inuit, I have seen what seemed permanent begin to melt away.When I was in Peru recently, I was excited to visit the floating reed islands on Lake Titicaca: Having fled across the highlands from the advancing Inca, the Uros people took to the water, and by ingeniously weaving the widely available reeds into floating blocks, they were able to build a homeland that the Inca then grudgingly allowed to them (when the Spaniards eventually arrived, they also left the Uros to their islands; what use are floating reeds to gold-hungry Conquistadors?) The Uros still use totora reeds to build their homes and boats, and the young vitamin-rich shoots supplement the protein-heavy diet provided by the lake (this diet and lifestyle are so healthy that our local guide explained that his 101-year-old grandmother still plays volleyball weekly). I was enchanted to be shown this unique culture and dismayed to learn that climate change is lowering the water levels on Lake Titicaca and threatening the reeds that literally support a traditional people's way of life: What the Inca and Spaniards failed to do, we will accomplish with our Humvees and our coalstacks. I am someone who rolls my eyes at environmentalism as cause célèbre – I won't be lectured by jet-setting millionaires like Al Gore or Leonardo DiCaprio – but it's a whole different experience to see an Indigenous people (people whose ingenuity and wisdom has sustained life, where it shouldn't even be possible, for countless generations) be threatened by circumstances over which they have no control. When you put this human face to climate change, the issue becomes less about politics and more about people; and hopefully, spurs action. As an Inuit activist, Sheila Watt-Cloutier has spent her career pointing out that her people are at the forefront of experiencing negative changes to our planet's health: and as she explains in The Right To Be Cold, as goes the Arctic, so go we all; what could be more important to read?
Without a stable, safe climate, people cannot exercise their economic, social or cultural rights. For Inuit, as for all of us, this is what I call the right to be cold. And this is what I have been fighting for over the last twenty years of my life's work.The Right To Be Cold is Watt-Cloutier's memoir and is interesting at both the personal level – she describes a loving childhood playing on the tundra and joining in her people's traditional ways – and on a professional level – as Watt-Cloutier was chosen as a potential leader in her youth and sent away for a “southern” education, she was prepared to write and speak and act on behalf of her people (in the ways that we southeners expect to interact) when the opportunities arose. I see some reviewers found the endless acronyms of international agencies, dates, names, and conferences to be dull or confusing, but I appreciate that Watt-Cloutier was thorough in this history (and as she seems to be using this book as an opportunity to thank the people who helped her and spread out the accolades that she personally received, that's understandable). What I found most interesting: After years of being involved with health care in her home community and education from her marital home-base of Montreal, Watt-Cloutier eventually got involved with the Inuit Circumpolar Council (an NGO that represents the interests of the Inuit from Canada, Alaska, Siberia, and Greenland), and through them, attempted to discontinue the use of POPs (Persistent Organic Pollutants) throughout the world. She had learned that these pollutants evaporate in warm climates, and after travelling through the jet streams, eventually condense at the poles: toxins found in POPs were discovered in Inuit mothers' breast milk and in their infants' cord blood. Yet when she tried to raise the alarm about POPs at international conferences, she was met with resistance from African delegates: How do you compare the health issues of 160,000 worldwide Inuit to the millions of African babies who are saved from death by malaria every year by spraying for mosquitoes with DDT? Watt-Cloutier eventually made it clear that this isn't either/or – as goes the Arctic, so go we all – and by putting a human face on environmentalism, she eventually got her treaty (by which developing countries weren't bound, and which the US refused to sign).
When Watt-Cloutier was approached by Earth Justice and the Center for International Environmental Law and asked if she would be interested in launching an international human rights case linking climate change to her people's “right to be cold”, she was ready to enter a new phase in her career. Not only was she seeing the devastating tangible effects of global warming in the Arctic – the permafrost was melting, causing roads and buildings to buckle; reduced sea ice changed the migratory habits of the animals that Inuit harvest; elders could no longer read the clouds and warn of incoming storms – but Watt-Cloutier makes the case that hunting and living on the land are fundamental to who the Inuit are as a people: climate change was as much about cultural devastation as environmental. Ultimately, Watt-Cloutier was co-nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize (along with Al Gore) for her work on climate change, and while she was severed from Gore before his win, she was delighted by the media attention that the nomination garnered for the cause.
Science is a body of knowledge and a way of knowing based on rigorous observation. By this definition, the hunters who criss-cross the ice and snow and embody centuries of observation are scientists. When they describe what is happening to their landscape, the world needs to listen.By far, the most resistance Watt-Cloutier has experienced has been from “white men from warm countries”; and not only from those who run the endless backroom negotiations at international conferences, but also well-meaning and misguided activists. Greenpeace supports the Inuit's right to a clean environment, but protest their (sustainable and culturally imperative) seal hunt. The Sea Shepherds attempted to block Watt-Cloutier from receiving an environmental award because of her people's (sustainable and culturally imperative) whaling activities. Not only could Al Gore's people not squeeze in even a phone call between Watt-Cloutier and her co-nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, but Paul McCartney never responded to her invitation to have him come north and witness in person the seal harvest that he maligns. Activists have recently prompted the US government to put the polar bear on the endangered species list, and not only did that collapse the Inuit guide/hunting industry, but according to the Inuit themselves, polar bear numbers are steady and not in decline.
The most interesting issue facing the Inuit today is that of resource extraction: As the ice melts and the northern waters become navigable, there's a potential resource boom in store for the region's indigenous people. Watt-Cloutier is very aware of the potential hypocrisy of her long having represented her people as victims of the fossil fuel industry just as they (who have otherwise lost the ability to sustain themselves through traditional means) are about to benefit greatly from this same industry. While Watt-Cloutier doesn't disparage those who might seek this kind of prosperity, she believes that the only viable way forward is to continue to battle for the right to be cold; to attempt to return the Arctic to the conditions that would allow her own grandson to learn the wisdom, patience, and courage that a traditional hunting trip imparts from elders to youth. I have no idea if those days are gone forever.
It's easy for us “southeners” to say, “Well, the Inuit will need to move down to the cities”, or “Those Uros will need to move off of Lake Titicaca”: after all, humankind has always been mobile and adaptable in the face of changing climate; we survived the ice ages, right? But Watt-Cloutier really impresses on the point that there is value and spirituality inherent in a traditional way of life; that the foods her people harvest nourish more than the body; that they should have the right to express their traditional ways. As she so impressed me with the human face of this issue, I can't fault that conclusion.
If the theme of this year's Canada Reads contest was “The book Canada needs right now”, I have no idea how The Right To Be Cold didn't win.
