Washed Away: Obama's Arctic Visit Buoys Climate Refugees

[riversedge]

Source: nbcnews.com



by Cynthia McFadden, Jake Whitman and Tracy Connor

Arctic Villages Melting Away in Alaska 3:23

Not so very long ago, the elders of Shishmaref, Alaska, warned the younger generation that cataclysmic change was coming to their tiny village on a barrier island perched just above the Bering Strait, where families still survive on seal meat and caribou soup.

"The elders that passed away used to say that someday we'll have no winter. It's happening now," said Jimmy Seetomona, 48, one of about 600 people who live in the village just 20 miles south of the Arctic Circle.

"I've noticed a lot of changes in my time," Seetomona added, surveying a coastline that has been shrinking as much as 20 feet a year. "There were a lot of homes here a few years ago."

Shishmaref, three square miles on the state's western edge, is one of more than two dozen villages that are washing into the ever-rising sea, making their residents the nation's first real climate change refugees. ......................

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/obamas-arctic-trip-buoys-climate-refugees-n413726

[Geronimoe]

1. The Fed received $2 billion from Shell

Shell paid $2 billion to Fed for lease to explore Chugiak for oil. The villagers get $34 million for wall to temporarily postpone moving Village due to global warming and rising sea level.

Oh yeah, they also get Obama to acknowledge the State of Alaska officially naming the mountain Denali back in 1975.

[Psephos]

2. Minor semantic point: Fed = Federal Reserve, Feds = federal govt. n/t