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00:00I'm going to start with you Andrew because I think when people think of the high Arctic they think first of all of ice and that is what your research with smart ISIS focused on. What are some of the biggest changes that you've observed to the ice over your lifetime. And and what did those changes mean for the community out there. Well thanks. Thanks for having me. The session here now with regarding your question. Some even in my lifetime ISE. I'm seeing some changes. So ISE conditions. The ISE see ISIS forming a little later each year and breaking up a window. Each year and our community need to be aware of that because like you said there wasn't there is no connect roads to our neighboring community and use the sea ice as our main highway to get to our neighboring communities are hunting grounds camping grounds. And just to get away from the. NIKKEI. Shelly you're a longtime resident of Pond Inlet although you're not from there originally. You're also an anthropologist. You teach environmental technology. What are what are the big changes that you've observed. Well I think the easiest way to describe not just the changes but why the changes matter. You know I could give you a list and I'm sure you you're all really familiar with them you know melting permafrost melting ice shorter ISE season. But but I think something to keep in mind is that as an anthropologist I I know that every culture is a reflection of a specific environment which means as an environment changes so too does the culture. And this is something that we need to be hyper concerned about because the depth of knowledge that we have about their environment means that as that environment changes so too does the culture. Yeah. Alex let me bring you in on that because you know you're a member of the carving which is a group we're gonna talk about in a second that's very connected with this climate science. But you are also an elementary school counselor and Pond Inlet. So you have a direct contact with the kids with the families. Tell us how some of the climate change that you're seeing is is affecting people sort of from a sociological perspective. From a sociological perspective it just encompasses a lot of planning ahead. So for example if you just need to figure out OK the sea ice is melting earlier therefore you need to get our gear ready. Do we need to save some money or more food. Do we need to have more ammunition to go hunting. There's just a lot of preplanning within their own families but it trickles down to the children as well where they have some knowledge to the pre planning or any sort of thing that they need to kind of be vigilant about is just another it's just another layer of worry that they already have with their schoolwork with the children. And then another added layer from the families who are either working a 9 to 5 or who are full time hunters. It's just there's so many ways to think about it. All you have to do is just think about the bigger picture and how you can trickle down be the effects and how you're able to think about it. And so obviously a goal of climate science we tend to write about it often in terms of what it means for the big picture. But there's also the idea of mitigation of adaptation of trying to do science that will will be helpful right to real life. So Shelly you and Andrew were both instrumental in forming a car wreck which Alex is a member of. This is a group that brings sort of young Inuit adults together with scientists to try to make the climate science better. Tell me why that was important. Well I think it really came out of a place of frustration seeing the high priced consultants with no real understanding of what they were observing. We're coming in to give information to decision makers now. Ultimately what I know as a human being is that climate change requires quick action. If we rely as a lot of governments do on the best available science for decision making it means that you are then stuck in a system where you are waiting for the scientist first to identify the issue. Come up with a hypothesis. Find the funding. Do a couple of years worth of field testing. Go back to their lab do some analysis write a report get peer review. In that time you could actually be getting meaningful information for decision making from the people that are actually here. And it's funny it's it's this kind of disconnect that happens where I don't think that people are fundamentally recognizing that what climate change solutions need is the best available knowledge for decision making. In my role with the Covid it's just been as simple as giving indigenous youth the same thing that most of the people in the audience have had which is time and space to become excellent at what you personally can contribute to the current climate change conversation. So you really simply again it's climate change needs answers quickly. And the best way to do that is to combine indigenous knowledge and science and use the knowledge that that's co-produced in order to to address some of these issues. And that's the kind of science that Andrew is doing. So Andrew is out on the ISE for a program called Smart ISE measuring the thickness of the ice where the ice floe edge is like where the kind of fracture lines are the ice leads are. There's a whole vocabulary of ice that I didn't know about that I learned doing this story. And or from your perspective are programs like Harvick and Smart ISE about making the science more accurate or are they about making the science more relevant. Are they about making asking different questions. What what is the main purpose. Weather research science part it's been more relevant to that community because that's what that community asks for and was concern about the conditions of the ice and smart ISE is able to provide real time information for the community. And one thing we do is adapt. And we've been adapting for a century to stir up in the north or majority of the world seems set to call for anybody to move up here. But that's proven wrong and we are very capable of doing research here. Also being able to have that community to listen to that community concerns about. I think so I feel when you get a better outcome of research and have better support from the community I'll see if I could just add something to to what Andrew said. I think the other theme that's really important and not often considered is that it Harvick Any new attitude means a bridge and we're focused on two way capacity building. It's not just about enabling. It used to be able to feed into climate change science. But it's also about training scientists how to work better with indigenous people so that they can build the relationships to actually create more meaningful relevant projects. Yeah I mean I think that's really interesting because there's often again like in the sort of prevalent climate reporting that we see there's often kind of an idea of like the victim of climate change. Right. Because people in many parts of the world where climate change is most dramatic are also often not the people who have caused the worst climate change. And what I found really interesting being up there was learning like the extent to which you know as Andrew said. Right. There's a capability there. There's a depth of knowledge that so the lessons can go can go the other direction. Alex one of the things that is also a running theme in Canada's Arctic for sure is economic development because as the north warms it opens up the region to more economic development. And businesses talk a lot about how important that is how how important it is to create jobs for the kids that you're seeing every day some day. How does the community weigh the pros and cons of economic development against the need to protect the environment to protect the traditional Inuit way of life to keep the ice safe as as Andrew was saying. Within the community there is a lot of holistic approach to consulting with elders consulting with just consulting with the women and children. That one word si ISE can be something completely different for you. It can be completely something different for us. Therefore how do you connect the two to make sure that whatever is being communicated is understood. And I think Shelly what Alex is talking about is that idea of and knowledge which you tried to explain to me like many times. Do you want to take a stab at it from an anthropological point of view for our audience. What is the difference between how you get knowledge and kind of the southern scientific method. Right. Well as a non-indigenous person I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say we have got it all wrong. We think it's just kind of like data thing that you go and like extract from indigenous people. And that's certainly going to open our eyes and our minds to to what's really happening in you. Knowledge is also the way that you work together in order to get the answers. I don't know about anyone in this audience but in university I never took humility one to one. No one ever told me that. Sometimes you just need to shut up and listen deeply. The way of working together requires you as a human being to to figure out something a little different than what we've typically been taught. And that is to to not come in with a fully formed idea of what the issues are but instead to to sit back and figure out how to be part of a team and all of this. In terms of the economic development though. Just just again to throw out something that may not have been considered is that research itself could be an incredible economic driver for the Canadian Arctic. The number of young fabulous superstar you eat and indigenous scientists means that all that money that typically flows outwards to consultants and researchers could actually be driving an incredible opportunity for jobs that don't require you to stop being fundamentally who you are as a human. And I think that is is something again that when you're only perceived as a victim of climate change the space hasn't been given to say what if the economic development and the climate change crisis can work together to spur on a new type of economic development in the north around you acknowledge climate change and call creative solutions with the war in Ukraine obviously there's there's going to be probably pressure to accelerate some economic development in Canada's Arctic as a way and part of asserting sovereignty over the region. If you accelerate global warming in a place like Pond Inlet that's already facing very rapid change. Right. The ramifications seem pretty significant. Andrew you you talked about a minute ago how capable Inuit people are. Certainly it's like the longest database of information about the Arctic is in their heads. How confident are you though that the community can adapt to the kind of stressors it's facing now because it's climate change on one side it's economic development on the other. You've kind of got it coming at you from both ends. Well it's another adaptation that well I'll have to chase. I'm sure they'll beach challenges ashore but we don't see them right now but we'll see them later in the long run. But we are very capable of being out here in the north and. Doing what we have to do. In order to make I guess. Alex we're almost out of time but do you want to weigh in on that one. Yes. So from the industrial area. Anywhere that's been colonized or what have you. Anywhere that the industrial area started you had a 200 to 250 year head start where within our small community it's been probably when the whalers and the traders started come here. That's when we started having. That's when we started to adapt. So as opposed to a two 200 year adaptation to the modern world. Hours or time we're amazing at adapting to any situation. That does not mean where we can all be resilient. At some point. But that means for whatever pressure that's happening within our community you as a researcher or anyone coming to the north. You need patience to listen properly to any voices that we have concern. All right we're going to leave it there. Thank you all very much. Really a pleasure to see you again.

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How the Inuit Are Reshaping Arctic Climate Science

Alex Anaviapik, Elementary School Counselor, Pond Inlet, Nunavut; Andrew Arreak, Regional Operations Lead, Qikiqtaaluk Region – Pond Inlet, SmartICE; and Shelly Elverum, Fellow, Ashoka Canada, discuss how they are shifting climate science toward adaptation and resilience in the Canadian Antarctic with Bloomberg’s Danielle Bochove. (Source: Bloomberg)

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