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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (699205)	9/3/2005 7:57:05 AM
From: E. T.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

It's true, throughout the arctic region, in Alaska and Canada, local folks will tell you outdoor ice rinks no longer last as long as they once did. Spring arrives earlier than it ever did before. ... Near the town of Iqaluit, rising temperatures have created unstable ice conditions -- a problem Inuit hunters like Hans Aronsen are witnessing across the Arctic. As a snow squall blows in from Greenland, a crowd huddles inside the Iqaluit Municipal Arena while the skaters wait for the puck to drop. It's the start of the annual Baffin Island hockey tournament and Iqaluit, the capital of Canada's self-governed Inuit province, Nunavut, faces off against Pond Inlet, a remote settlement 800 miles to the north. Skates flashing, teenage boys scramble up and down the ice, hoping to prove themselves in front of the capital city fans. Hockey is the premier team sport in Nunavut, a place where both dogsleds and desktop computers are common household items. Communities that once met on the pack ice during hunting forays now await the passing of the Zamboni together, bundled up in fur-fringed parkas and kamiks. Iqaluit boasts one of the province's two artificial ice surfaces; everyone else plays the old-fashioned way, on outdoor rinks that usually freeze solid by the time the season begins in November. But the last several winters have brought a crisis for Nunavut hockey. Temperatures acrossthe territory have hovered near or above freezing long into the Arctic winter, keeping many teams benched until Christmas. Twoyears ago, the provincial hockey association called for help from Canada's hockey authorities because 50 percent of its members had yet to start playing and paying their dues. Even villageswell north of the Arctic Circle couldn't cobble together enough ice time to field a team. And with temperatures once again reaching record highs across the continent's northern regions, this winter has proved to be another troublesome season. The slushy ice and erratic weather that have been frustrating Nunavut's hockey players arepart of a larger set of climatic trends that are playing out throughoutthe Arctic. Sea ice -the frozen ocean surface that human and animalhunters traverse in search of their prey - is more mobile andfragile than it was a decade ago. Disoriented polar bears wander inland at times when they would normally be prowling the floes for seal. Skies are cloudier, rain falls more often and locals report the arrival of species never seen before, such as robins. Only a few weeks beforemy visit to Nunavut early last year, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change unveiled its latest evaluation of climate science around the world. The panel's report echoed and amplified the commission's previous warnings: The global warming trend measured throughout the 1990s had accelerated far past earlier estimates. On average, the scientists predicted, the planet could see a rise in average temperatures of 11 degrees by 2100, an increase "without precedent during the last 10,000 years.." An even more dramatic warm-up two to three times as fast, was forecast for Greenland, Alaska, and Arctic Canada. The warming has already begun. Over the past 30 years, winter temperatures in parts ofthe north have risen more than 10 degrees, compared to a worldwide increase of just 1 degree. the volume of ice in the polar caphas decreased 40 percent since American submarines first took measurements in 1958. Some researchers predict that if greenhouse-gasemissions continue unabated, summer ice over the North Pole could disappear by 2050 - a catastrophic melt that, under one long-term scenario, could raise oceans by up to 21 feet worldwide. The U.N. panel's findings barely made the news in the United States, where the Bush administrationwas preparing to withdraw from worldwide climate-change negotiations. But in Nunavut, the report confirmed what hunters, hockey players,and traditional elders already knew all too well. For the people of the Arctic have been the first among us to learn what it means to live in a greenhouse world. As Pond Inlet sets upto play Cape Dorset, I wander out into Iquluit's late-winter twilight. It's minus 35, and global warming feels like a distant rumor. Caribou-skinclad hunters roar down the streets on snowmobiles while taxis and pickup trucks line up at the town's main intersection.Polar- bear hides are stretched outside near a Pizza Hut outlet. Around the corner from the hockey arena is the one-room hut of Iqaluit's Hunters and Trappers Association. In a space crowded with caribou tags, a Coleman stove, and a computer, association manager David Audlakiakis busy tracking this season's pollar bear kills. Only nine kills have been logged since the season opened. It's been a slow stat, mostly because nearby Frobisher Bay froze six weeks late this fall. bluedolphin.org