As record low sea-ice looms, Arctic wildlife and people face uncertain future

By mid-September, the NSIDC experts in Colorado will be issuing the latest stats, which this year seem to be leading towards September 2010 as the third lowest coverage of arctic sea-ice on record. Of course this is not some high school math calculation at all, but a real-life series of dark indicators as to the health and future predictability of our planet – yes, the one our own children will be wrestling with for the remainder of this run-away century (unless today’s decision-makers and consumers finally act).
In the Chukchi Sea and relatively well-studied Alaska, walrus are essentially stranded ashore right now, well away from their preferred benthic feeding areas, at least until sea-ice returns. But here in the Canadian Arctic there are many other wildlife species experiencing increasing declines, problems and body condition as a result of the same unprecedented trends in arctic warming and sea-ice retreat. And that means wildlife species of local, national and global significance, like peary caribou, ice-associated arctic whales like beluga, narwhal and bowheads, and of course polar bears, walrus, ringed and bearded seals. But this is also about sharply increasing uncertainty for Inuit, who continue to depend heavily on these animals for their food value, livelihoods and cultural traditions.
The puzzling thing for my children’s new classes is why such avoidable and undesirable problems and uncertainty are allowed to keep increasing. Will humanity work to solve the climate change problem, when we know the main cause and we still have the chance to address it?