Baked Alaska

The residents on the front-line of global warming

Baked Alaska America's largest state is renowned for two things: its incredible natural beauty, and its oil. However, it is now feeling first-hand the effects of global warming.
"The weather really changed", says Eleanor Sam, plucking feathers from a goose. "When we were children we wore thick fur. We don't wear clothes like that no more..." "That ocean should be four feet thick", confirms a hunter who catches walrus on the sea ice. "Now it's only one foot thick." Elsewhere, houses and roads collapse as the ground beneath them melts. Temperatures in Alaska are rising ten times faster than in the rest of the world. President Bush is ignoring the warning signs. He pulled out of Kyoto and now wants to open a wildlife refuge for oil drilling. Native Alaskans are divided: The Inupiat Eskimos want the jobs and the money, but the Gwitchin Indians fear it will destroy their reindeer. Alaska is rich from oil. But each barrel sent south comes back as damage to the delicate balance of Arctic life. The tiny island of Shishmaref is being rapidly eroded by ever stormier seas. "We can't tell what's going to happen tomorrow", says villager Robert Iyatunguk "We just take it day by day ."

Produced by Spanner Films
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