SHISHMAREF, Alaska — As world leaders debate the possibility of global warming and its uncertain threat to the future, the reality of climate change has closed in on this small Eskimo village on the Chukchi Sea--to be precise, on a rusty fuel tank farm holding 80,000 gallons of gasoline and stove oil.
Several years ago, the tanks were more than 300 feet from the edge of a seaside bluff. But years of retreating sea ice have sent storm waters pounding, and today just 35 feet of fine sandy bluff stands between the tanks and disaster.
The airport runway--the only way to haul in wintertime food and supplies from Anchorage, 625 miles away--has seawater lapping near its flank. Seven houses have been relocated so far, three others have fallen into the swirling drink and engineers now say the entire village of 600 residents could disappear into the sea within the next few decades.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who is trying to get millions of dollars in federal aid to help, blames the problem on cyclical changes in ocean temperature. But in Alaska, where receding glaciers, melting permafrost and advancing forests have placed the state on the front lines of climate change, many scoff at that.
Since the 1970s, Shishmaref residents have seen their drinking water inundated with advancing seawater, an ocean ice pack that melts earlier each year, unusual tides and difficulty hunting ice-bound sea creatures, such as seals and walruses.
"We've been here since before Jesus, and there was no global warming then. Everything was good. The tides were good. And now the sea level is coming up," Shishmaref Mayor Daniel Iyatunguk said. "You can't talk to the ocean and tell him, 'You're a loser.' Because it's got more power, I guess, than we've got in our heads."
At a time when the issue of global warming is sparking international conflicts for the Bush administration, towns such as Shishmaref and others on Alaska's coast are dealing with what many believe are the early heralds of climate change.
The Malaspina and Seward glaciers, at the top of the Alaskan panhandle, shrank 15 cubic miles of water since the early '70s--the equivalent of a month's worth of water from Canada's largest river system. The Harding Ice Field on the Kenai Peninsula has receded 85 feet over the last 40 years, along with many glaciers on Prince William Sound.
