Above: Sheila Watt-Cloutier (left) with Jen Marlow, founder of the Climate Justice Project, Three Degrees Warmer, at the UW School of Law. (3\/14)<\/i><\/p>\n
by Annie Banel, MPA Candidate, Evans School of Public Affairs; Canadian Studies Center Reporter<\/p>\n
Watt-Cloutier opened with a greeting in Inuktitut to underline the importance of language in the Inuit culture. Though she first spoke English at six years old, Watt-Cloutier had to later relearn her native language after being sent away for school. Watt-Cloutier was pleasantly surprised to see Mick Mallon in the audience and she expressed her appreciation for his work teaching Inuktitut alongside his wife Alexina Kublu. Mallon is currently the Inuktitut instructor for our FLAS scholars, Walter O\u2019Toole and Caitlyn Evans.The\u00a0Future of Ice<\/i>\u00a0lecture series came to a fitting end with Sheila Watt-Cloutier\u2019s lecture, \u201cThe Right to be Cold\u201d on March 11, 2014. In her talk, Watt-Cloutier reframed the dramatic climate changes in the Arctic as a human rights issue. Watt-Cloutier is a Canadian Inuit activist and Former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for her work highlighting global warming as ecological issue and human challenge.<\/p>\n
Watt-Cloutier described the Arctic as an area of utmost importance on the mind of many policy makers and researchers. The most dramatic effects from globalization are taking place in the circumpolar Arctic, from toxins in the food chain affecting nursing mothers to the effects of UV radiation from the weakened ozone layer seen in the epidemic of cataracts and skin problems. Watt-Cloutier calls the people of the Arctic the \u201cground-truthers\u201d who confirm firsthand the observations of climate models and satellites.<\/p>\n
Watt-Cloutier calls her work to bring a legal petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2005 her \u201cmost caring act.\u201d Watt-Cloutier said everything she does is to pass on the Inuit respect for environment and culture to her grandson. By working with hunters and elders from Inuit communities to file the petition Watt-Cloutier said they spoke \u201cfrom a position of strength, not victimhood.\u201d She sought to refocus the climate change debate on \u201cour common humanity\u201d in order to find solutions that will give future generations \u201cbetter chances to embrace life.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the \u201ccooling system for the planet is starting to break down,\u201d Watt-Cloutier sees the melting ice bringing new interests North just as the Inuit are coming out of the \u201cfirst wave of tumultuous change\u201d of modernization.<\/p>\n
In her lifetime, Watt-Cloutier witnessed the community oriented and traditional society of the highly independent Inuit people transformed. Watt-Cloutier said the Inuit are a uniquely adaptable people and \u201chave weathered the storm of modernization remarkably well, but enormous changes are not without consequence.\u201d Watt-Cloutier sees the loss of the predictability of their climate combined with historical trauma as the root causes of the health problems that plague the circumpolar Arctic, including substance abuse and suicide.<\/p>\n
For the Inuit, unpredictable weather is a food security and safety issues. Watt-Cloutier explained that snow and ice serve as highways to hunt and fish and so unpredictable weather events cut off access to the traditional country foods Inuit have thrived off of for millennia. Coastal erosion and melting permafrost mean buckling homes and the relocation of entire villages. Glaciers used for drinking water are now unreliable.<\/p>\n
Watt-Cloutier stated that historical traumas inflicted on the Inuit have \u201ceroded our sense of identity and self-worth.\u201d This loss has \u201ctranslated into monumental health and social problems.\u201d Watt-Cloutier said she is shocked by how few have heard of the historical trauma of the Inuit, including; forced relocations in the name of sovereignty, dog slaughters, boarding schools, sexual abuse by those in authority, and the collapse of the seal skin market. Watt-Cloutier connected the collective pain felt from these traumas and the loss of food security to high suicide rates through a closer understanding of the hunter in Inuit culture.<\/p>\n
According to Watt-Cloutier, the hunter is a \u201crevered elder who personifies a remarkable person, calm, reflective, holds a great deal of wisdom and judgment, and knows how to pass these skills to the next generation\u2014not just the technique of hunting but the patience to withstand stressful situations and not be impulsive.\u201d Watt-Cloutier said that suicide is itself an impulsive action and the land and ice teach that impulsivity does not pay off. In her words, \u201cthese skills help you in those times of great darkness, facing the stressors of the modern world, to be persistent and resilient in stressful situations.\u201d One key value of ice is that is serves as the platform to teach this patience and resiliency to the next generation.<\/p>\n
The shortened hunting season and unpredictable weather have forced the Inuit to buy expensive imported and processed food and have cost them this essential means of passing on the character skills of the revered hunter. Increased rates of diabetes and other food related illnesses as well as increased reliance on government support are related to the loss of country food and the high costs of imported food.<\/p>\n
Despite these dire challenges, Watt-Cloutier remains optimistic for she recognizes the brilliance in Inuit culture and she sees how the troubled atmosphere is \u201cbringing us together and connecting as family to understand what is happening to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Photographs of breathtaking Arctic beauty played behind Watt-Cloutier throughout her talk. She paused to explain how her favorite picture, of an Inuit man\u2019s smiling face flecked with snow, captures the \u201cjoy of being out in Arctic and the right to be cold.\u201d While the cold is daunting to outsiders, Watt-Cloutier said that for the Inuit, \u201cthriving from the cold connects and bonds us as a strong people, resilient, and brilliant to build homes of snow so warm that babies can sleep in them naked.\u201d In her work, Watt-Cloutier strives to find the \u201cresonance of truth with one another\u201d and foster commonalties. She is motivated by people \u201cgetting it\u201d and seeks to use human stories to mobilize people.<\/p>\n
Of her time at the University of Washington, Watt-Cloutier remarked, \u201cI have been fed very deeply by these two days and nourished in so many ways.\u201d She was especially pleased with the surprise gift of an Acadian band playing music from Nunavut. Watt-Cloutier\u2019s mother was an accordion player and she felt as if her mother was present and saying \u201cYou go, girl.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cFuture of Ice\u201d Initiative represents a commitment by the University of Washington to invest in knowledge about the polar regions. Future of Ice also provides a framework through which to foster collaborative partnerships with stakeholders in the polar regions, where the triple challenges of climate change, new economic pressures, and rapid social and political disruption intersect.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Above: Sheila Watt-Cloutier (left) with Jen Marlow, founder of the Climate Justice Project, Three Degrees Warmer, at the UW School of Law. (3\/14) by Annie Banel, MPA Candidate, Evans School of Public Affairs; Canadian Studies Center Reporter Watt-Cloutier opened with a greeting in Inuktitut to underline the importance of language in the Inuit culture. Though<\/p>\n