Climate Changes Confront Alaska Villages with Wrenching Choices

Reporter Erica Goode with the New York Times writes about the climate change impacts facing remote, rural Alaska villages:

With its proximity to the Arctic, Alaska is warming about twice as fast as the rest of the United States, and the state is heading for the warmest year on record. The government has identified at least 31 Alaska towns and cities at imminent risk of destruction, with Shaktoolik ranking among the top four. Some villages, climate change experts predict, will be uninhabitable by 2050, their residents joining a flow of climate refugees around the globe, in Bolivia, China, Niger and other countries.

These endangered Alaska communities face a choice. They could move to higher ground, a wrenching prospect that, for a small village, could cost as much as $200 million. Or they could stand their ground and hope to find money to fortify their buildings and shore up their coastline.

At least two villages farther up the western coast, Shishmaref and Kivalina, have voted to relocate when and if they can find a suitable site and the money to do so. A third, Newtok, in the soggy Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta farther south, has taken the first steps toward a move.