Alaskan communities seek help to combat climate change

While everyone’s eyes are locked on the current coronavirus pandemic, Alaska is slowly and quietly melting away. Climate change impacts some areas more than others. While fires and droughts are hitting Australia and California, Alaska is seeing it through erosion and land loss. Alaskan communities are struggling due to changes caused by climate change, and they need our help.

Climate change has threatened over 200 indigenous communities, forcing whole villages to move from lands their ancestors have walked for centuries. The erosion directly caused by climate change has even forced them to dig up their cemeteries and move them.

Some villages have had to move their homes not once, but several times as rivers unexpectedly widen. This isn’t the only problem they face either. Salt water intrusion has made the use of some of their wells for daily necessities impossible.

These are just a couple examples of the difficulties these villages face, and now they are seeking outside help to combat the crisis caused by climate change. The indigenous community is hoping to take proactive measures by commissioning studies to seek more information that will help in this fight.

In order to do so, they need help from us. The indigenous tribes are fundraising in order to conduct research that will help them do more than just relocate. With your help, they can get the data they need to save their communities, and save lives.

How to help these communities

You can help by donating money directly to the tribes through this gofundme, or by sharing the fundraiser on your social media. Without the help of many people sharing and caring, this fundraiser will be unsuccessful.

Even if you don’t believe in human caused climate change, helping others deal with the effects of our changing planet is important. Ronni L. Wilcock, Ph.D. who is working directly with the tribes, shared a very poignant analogy on this in a recent interview.

“It is like coming up to the scene of an accident with several injured and bloodied bodies. Instead of helping the injured, people argue about who is to blame. While they are arguing and pointing fingers, no one is helping the injured people. To the people who are impacted by a changing climate, the cause of climate change is not what is important; the impacts of climate change are very real to them and they want help to adapt to and respond to the climate change. I work with the ‘injured villages’, others determine the cause and actions society can take to slow climate change down.”