Planning to save a changing world

Climate change is not only altering Alaska’s natural world, it’s also affecting how humans interact with it, particularly those whose culture and traditions have pointed the way for generations to survive in the sometimes inhospitable far north. Terry Chapin, a professor of ecology at the University of Alaska’s Institute of Arctic Biology, said that climate change is already affecting Alaska in many ways. Sea ice is retreating, salmon are migrating farther north, forest fires are increasing, permafrost is melting, and forest pest outbreaks are becoming more frequent. While those changes are having a dramatic impact on the natural world, Chapin said they’re also affecting the people who live in remote villages around the state. read more

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