The past is never dead: Using a climate justice framework to examine vulnerability in Native Alaska communities pursuing relocation

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

Citations

Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/9593tv53b

Abstract

This paper justifies using a climate justice framework to shed light on how the urgency of climate change intersects with longer historical processes of colonization and inequity. I argue that a climate justice framework considers how the past contributes to present day vulnerability of Native Alaska communities to climate change. To illustrate the relevance of the past, the paper includes three case studies on Native villages pursuing relocation- Newtok, Kivalina, and Shishmaref. These case studies demonstrate how vulnerability to erosion, flooding, and environmental degradation all predate climate change. Therefore, climate change presents an opportunity to address and reckon with old problems and their present legacies such as colonization, racism, and inequity. Consistent with the climate justice framework, I recommend a more critical approach to adaptation that is not so narrowly keyed to the temporality of climate change and that all future environment policy regarding Alaska Natives takes a rights-based approach.

Creator