This New York Timesarticle reports on a comprehensive, multi-nation report on what climate change is doing to the people and places of the Arctic.
The first thorough assessment of a decadeslong Arctic warming trend shows the region is undergoing profound changes, including sharp retreats of glaciers and sea ice, thawing of permafrost, and shifts in ocean and atmospheric conditions that are likely to harm native communities, wildlife, and economic activities while offering some benefits, as well.
The report, while noting that conditions in the far north have varied naturally in the past, says the current shifts match longstanding scientific projections that the Arctic should be the first place to feel the impact of rising atmospheric concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases from smokestacks and tailpipes.
Reading it brought to mind the famous words of the German minister and Nazi resister Martin Niemoller: “First they came for the Jews . . . “
As the article makes clear, climate change has come for the Arctic.
