Continuing from last post:

On the positive side there has been some action on cleaning up the environment. The now defunct LIA worked with DND and other public/private entities to clean up the PCB’s at the old Saglek radar site. LIA also worked with people from a Quebec university on testing for [contaminants, mainly POP’s] in the food chain, in areas around some communities. The Quebec Labrador Foundation has been involved with summer projects for some years now. The town council sponsors spring clean ups every year, enters clean beach contests. Volunteer teachers run the re-cycling program, the funds generated go towards a breakfast program at the school, very admiral that is. I’m sure there are some I have missed but that’s the general trend.

So I see a definite trend in what has been happening here; most of the programs are promoted by outside entities, most include some sort of financial incentive. Almost none are promoted by people in leadership or grass roots to do what is right for the environment for the sake of doing it, that it is the right thing to do. There is little to no proactive efforts to deal with litter, contaminants in the air or water on a continuing basis.
Why not some one say; let’s look back at the history of the Inuit, let’s get back to our relationship with the land and animals. Is the way the Inuit are heading what people really want, are we being miss informed and miss guided in this rush to jobs at any cost, the rush to over consumption of consumer goods and processed food.
The jobs at any cost are today mainly in the non renewable resource sector, is this good for future generations?
It’s past time that people started to think hard about these things, alas without strong committed leadership, or a strong committed grass roots, it will not happen.

Some may look at my ranting and say that I’m naive and idealistic. Most who would say that would be the ones whose life style relies on the rush to abuse Mother Nature and the rush to over consumerism? Their life styles also rely on the ever evident rush to what could be called cultural genocide.
My answer would be that I am certainly not naive having traveled and taken an interest in what is happening in the world. I may be idealistic, and I’m proud to be called that. Beats the hell out of being a flunky to the corporatocracy.

Table Mountains in comments mentions the influx of different bird species to his area. We have some smaller species of sparrows that are new to area. Different patterns of some rodent types are evident. More polar bears are seen since 25 years ago. The consensus among scientists seems to be that global warming will affect different parts of the Province in different ways. For instance Northern Labrador will see colder winters and perhaps dryer summers due to more ice and bergs in the Labrador Current. This makes sense to me, and it was actually happening, until this winter that is. A definite warmer winter overall, with very unstable and unpredictable ice conditions. This makes for traveling plans for hunting and wooding to be re assessed. It also makes it harder for animals to hunt; this could lead to extinction of certain species.
Maybe it is a good thing that subsistence hunting is on the way out then, then maybe not in long term.

This is getting a bit long, but it is only the tip of the iceberg of the debate/conversation, so lets up and at em folks. One Inuk in Nunavut used the analogy of; Inuit are the canneries in the coal mine on the Global Warming front. I wonder how many canneries have to die before the world wakes up?