Global Climate Change: A Serious Threat to Native American Lands and Culture
Editor's Summary: During the past decade, public perception of global climate change has transformed from a gloom and doom scenario not to be taken seriously to a nearly universally recognized peril to the planet. Native Americans, especially those in the Arctic region, experience changes in climate with greater immediacy than the general population, and this disproportionate result is expected to become more severe as the effects of climate change escalate. This Article will explore the nature of the impact of climate change on Native Americans, the importance of including traditional tribal knowledge and expertise in understanding the crisis and developing adaptive mechanisms, and the responses by individual tribes as well as by indigenous people as a whole.