A great new project out of the UK and Italy has come my way. I will begin shooting in April.
The indigenous people of Alaska have stood firm against some of the most extreme weather conditions on Earth for thousands of years. But now, flooding blamed on climate change is forcing at least one Eskimo village to move to safer ground.
Climate change forces Eskimos to abandon village
The community of the tiny coastal village of Newtok voted to relocate its 340 residents to new homes 9 miles away, up the Ninglick River. The village, home to indigenous Yup'ik Eskimos, is the first of possibly scores of threatened Alaskan communities that could be abandoned.
Warming temperatures are melting coastal ice shelves and frozen sub-soils, which act as natural barriers to protect the village against summer deluges from ocean storm surges.
"We are seeing the erosion, flooding and sinking of our village right now," said Stanley Tom, a Yup'ik Eskimo and tribal administrator for the Newtok Traditional Council.
The crisis is unique because its devastating effects creep up on communities, eating away at their infrastructure, unlike with sudden natural disasters such as wildfires, earthquakes or hurricanes.
Newtok is just one example of what the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns is part of a growing climate change crisis that will displace 150 million people by 2050. The group says indigenous peoples in Asia, Central America and Africa are threatened by shifting environmental conditions blamed on climate change.
Floods blamed on climate change forcing Alaskan village to move 9 miles away
Twenty-six other Alaskan villages are in immediate danger
Move comes as indigenous people hold Anchorage summit on the crisis
UN: Climate change will force displacement of 150 million people by 2050
