To students in this program, the use of plastic bags, challenges of waste disposal, and the ever present consumption of fossil fuels became the three key symbols of Arctic materialism – and climate change affecting this area.
The North faces a conundrum in the future: Climate change might provide lucrative business and economic development opportunities by opening up more mining, tourism, and other employment sectors, yet these directly threaten traditional ways of life, further advance fossil fuel use and extraction, and also may enhance economic inequality that is already pronounced within Canada.
Climate Change, in various forms, impacts youth, and their ability to participate in Inuit society. Rising temperatures have impacted snow depth and ice thickness.
Ice used to be much thicker…20 to 30 feet of glacier hung on that ridge. Now it is totally gone. And now we have hardly any seals.
Jacob Jaypoody
Explore Our People Our Climate online with the Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts.
