Psst, hey, climate change deniers: Halifax Harbour is rising,
and you don’t need a PhD in carbon core analytics to prove it. A simple
observatory pillar in the harbour does the trick—and that’s how city
staff measures water levels. And if you don’t trust a low-tech
solution, 90 years of tidal records agree with the pillar. These show
that not only is our harbour rising, it’s rising faster than the most
dire predictions of modern climate science.
HRM environment staff have been hard at work tracking these changes
and using the data, along with digital mapping, to model how the
shoreline might change, where the most flood prone areas are, and how
we can keep that nasty harbour water from taking its vengeance on our
polluting asses.
This is important work, but it’s slow going. What’s worse is it
doesn’t tackle the even more difficult challenge of dealing with new
diseases and infestations, the inland droughts and other consequences
of climate change. This preparation falls to the province, and the
province is waiting on a grant from the feds.
Natural Resources Canada will likely give Nova Scotia about a
million dollars in coming months to pull together research from around
the province. The research will guesstimate the ways climate change
might hurt us most, and determine “best practices” for mitigating that
hurt. Rather than develop a comprehensive adaptation strategy, it will
look at specific vulnerable areas like Lunenburg, a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, and Minas Basin, where rising salt water could
contaminate drinking aquifers.
The process will be a technocratic exercise devoid of public
consultation. And thus, as usual, the province’s aboriginal reserves,
those communities where people are most vulnerable to new diseases and
infestations, will in all likelihood be ignored. “No one’s going to pay
attention to us until there is a disaster,” says Cheryl Maloney,
director of environment for the Native Women’s Association of
Canada.
Maloney is working feverishly to educate aboriginal communities
about climate change and get government—any government, to notice. So
far, no interest from Canada, the province or any municipality.
It’s no surprise to Maloney. “The Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples was signed by all nations except the US, Canada and
New Zealand,” she reminds us. “Canada doesn’t invite aboriginal people
on delegations. Nova Scotia hasn’t talked to aboriginal people about
adaptation.”
Frustrated by the lack of local interest, Maloney, who comes from
Indian Brook reserve in Nova Scotia, represented the Mi’kmaq Grand
Council before the UN Permanent Forum. She invited the UN to
investigate the “human rights violations against the Mi’kmaq in regards
to the legislative and administrative barriers within the state system
in relation to mobility and safety issues restricting their ability to
adapt and mitigate the potentially disastrous affects of climate change
on an already vulnerable society.”
According to Maloney, the entire reserve system is a human rights
violation because it denies traditionally mobile cultures the ability
to move. “We never stayed in one place, it’s against our cultural and
environmental laws and the result is unhealthy communities. Indian
Brook was forced as far out of the way as possible, and once an
aboriginal person leaves the reserve their rights don’t follow them.”
The resulting lack of mobility will create a dangerous situation if the
predictions of climate experts hold true.
Maloney has not received an official response to her invitation, but
as she explains, “I’m setting a seed. Next year the UN is going to
focus on the denial of aboriginal rights in North America.” During that
campaign, she hopes to bring a group of aboriginal youth to UN
headquarters in New York City. “Their generation will follow up on our
basic rights to mobility, food and clean water, but right now
international indigenous rights are a very new focus.”
Empowered by a better understanding of its rights, she hopes that
generation will have the opportunity to live in healthy, vibrant
aboriginal communities able to adapt to climate change on their own.
For now, Maloney argues that a little money invested in climate change
preparation for aboriginal reserves could save a lot of lives.
“But they don’t deal with it until after the disaster has happened,”
she adds. “Look how only after a surge of suicides in Eskasoni did the
government fund a crisis centre there. Aboriginal women have been going
missing for 20 or 30 years and only now people are starting to
notice.”
As the harbour keeps rising and the deniers keep denying, it seems
foresight remains elusive in the dominant culture.
Drop Chris Benjamin a line at chrisb@thecoast.ca.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2009.