CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH IN NUNAVIK AND LABRADOR: Lessons from Inuit Knowledge * Furgal, C.M.1**, Martin, D.1, Gosselin, P.1,2 1.Public Health Research Unit, CHUL Research Centre, CHUQ, Beauport, Québec 2.WHO Collaborating Centre on Environmental and Occupational Health and Surveillance, Beauport, Québec ** Corresponding author:
[email protected] Proper Citation Furgal, C., Martin, D., Gosselin, P. 2002. Climate Change and Health in Nunavik and Labrador: Lessons from Inuit Knowledge, In Krupnik, I., and Jolly, D. (Eds.) "The Earth is Faster Now: Indigenous Observations of Arctic Environmental Change". Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, Arctic Studies Centre, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Pgs 266-300. * This chapter is part of a larger project entitled " Climate change and health in Nunavik and Labrador: What we know from Science and Inuit Knowledge" conducted in Nain, Labrador and Kuujjuaq, Nunavik by C. Furgal, D. Martin, P. Gosselin, A. Viau, Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services, Nunavik Nutrition and Health Committee, and Labrador Inuit Association, funded by the Climate Change Action Fund. 2 INTRODUCTION " … just a comment about global warming, you hear it all the time on radio and TV, and I don’t think it makes much difference in some places if the temperature rises two degrees, but if our temperature up here rises two degrees or something, the fact that we live on the ice and snow, I don’t know what would happen to us. If we ever saw a real change, a real quick change, I don’t know how we’d deal with the impacts of something like that, I don’t know how we’d react to it, we’d have a hard hard time." (Nain, Labrador, man age 49) Our understanding of climate change processes and potential impacts on northern ecosystems and people has increased significantly in the last decade (Furgal et al., 2002; IISD, 1999a, 1999b, 2000; IPCC, 2001; Hughen, 1998; Cohen, 1997a; Environment Canada, 1997, 1998a,b; Bergeron et al., 1997; Bielawski and Masazumi, 1994).