Inuit to file anti-U.S. climate petition

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 6/15/05 | Reuters - Oslo

[NormsRevenge]

OSLO (Reuters) - Inuit hunters threatened by a melting of the Arctic ice plan to file a petition accusing Washington of violating their human rights by fueling global warming, an Inuit leader said Wednesday.

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), also said Washington was hindering work to follow up a 2004 report by 250 scientists that said the thaw could make the Arctic Ocean ice-free in summer by 2100.

Watt-Cloutier, in Oslo to receive an environmental prize, said the Inuits' planned petition to the 34-member Organization of American States (OAS) could put pressure on the United States to do more to cut industrial emissions of heat-trapping gases.

"It's still in the works, the drafting is still going on," she said of a long-planned petition to the OAS' human rights arm, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

She said the Inuit aimed to file it before a U.N. meeting in Montreal in December.

The OAS represents 34 nations in the Americas, from Chile to Canada, promoting cooperation and common interests.

Its Inter-American Commission on Human Rights analyzes and investigates petitions which allege human rights violations. It has no power to sanction the United States but it could issue a report agreeing with the Inuit.

The Inuit hope that the commission will agree that climate change is tantamount to a U.S. abuse of their human rights by thinning the ice on which hunters depend and by threatening species ranging from polar bears to seals.

Watt-Cloutier said that Washington, the world's top polluter, was doing too little to limit emissions of carbon dioxide from factories, cars and power plants that are widely blamed by scientists for driving up temperatures.

Washington says it is investing heavily in energy research and clean hydrogen fuel but has not joined almost all its allies in signing up for the United Nations' Kyoto protocol, which sets caps on carbon dioxide emissions.

U.N. studies forecast that global warming could bring more extreme weather with disastrous droughts, floods and storms. It could also melt icecaps and drive up sea levels, swamping coastal areas and low-lying islands.

The Inuit total about 155,000 people in Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia. The Arctic is warming faster than the rest of the globe because water or bare earth, once uncovered, soak up more heat than ice or snow.

Watt-Cloutier collected the $100,000 Sophie Prize on Wednesday for her work for Inuit rights. The prize is named after "Sophie's World," a teenagers' guide to philosophy that was a 1990s bestseller written by Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder.

She said she would use the prize to help write a book about the Inuit to be entitled: "The Right to be Cold."

[NormsRevenge]

The operative word is 'anti-US'.

The game is global warming.

[NormsRevenge]

Canadian Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier accepts the 2005 Sophie environment prize Wednesday in Oslo, Norway Wednesday June 15 2005, for drawing attention to the impact of climate change and pollution on the traditional lifestyles of the Arctic's indigenous people and others. The prize, a figure and $100 000, (82,600) was handed over by Norwegian minister of environment, Kut Arild Hareide.Watt-Cloutier was born in Nunavik, northern Quebec, and raised in a traditional Inuit family. She has been the chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference for the past decade. The organization, founded in 1997, represents about 155,000 Inuit in Canada, the United States, Greenland and Russia. (AP Photo/ Lise Aserud , Scanpix)

[JasonC]

Sovereign immunity. We decline to be sued. Next stupid leftist idea...

[NormsRevenge]

the only heat-trapping gases I'd be worried about are the ones coming out of both ends of the envirowackos and elitists.

[Windsong]

But..the whole enviro-neo-pagan-gaia movement is RELIGION to them. And we can't deny them their religious rights, can we? (sarcasm/off)

[SoDak]

Darn, I guess this means we have to pull the plugs on everything. We'll have to go back to being hunter/gatherer's just like the inuit.

[commonasdirt]

Having lived in Alaska for 30 years I can tell you that the main source of income above the artic circle is public assistance.....not subsistance hunting

[JasonC]

Well, we can't have a public accomodation of religion, now can we? Sauce for the goose...

[pillbox_girl]

How can I file a class action suit on behalf of the Wolly Mammoths? They've been irrevocably harmed by global warming too.

[SoDak]

She doesn't look very 'inuit', but goodness knows she couldn't possibly be in it for personal gain, could she? I wonder how many seals she's eaten?

[SandRat]

OK who put them up to this sweet piece of trash???!!!!! You Greenpeace? You CPUSA? maybe YOU France?!

[Bones75]

Arctic Ocean ice free by 2100?

Crap! If anyone needs me, I'll be hiding under the covers.

[skimbell]

Brit Hume had this story on Special Report tonight. He slammed Reuters for trotting this thing out again-it's the same story, same woman, same claims and same News agency for the third year in a row,

[Dilbert56]

Please, please let this suit go to trial. The "evidence" presentation will be entertaining to say the least.

Judge: You can measure temperature within +/- .7c ?
Fool: Yes
Judge: And it's risen .6c in the last 100 years?
Fool: Um, yes.
Judge: So you're not even sure it's risen.

[jackbill]

She said the Inuit aimed to file it before a U.N. meeting in Montreal in December.

Brit Hume said tonight that this Ditz made the same claim in 2004 and in 2003. File it, you dumb idiot. Get it over with, Ditz.

[joesnuffy]

The emergency rooms on the first and third of each month
tell the tale..

[Soliton]

I am not making this up. This woman lives in a town, Iqualuit, on Baffin Island founded by the US military. The name of the town, loosely translated, is "skid mark" as in pants.

Odd Fact: A common misspelling to Iqualuit, loosely translates to "Dirty streak in pants"

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=3f8usmorfsqi0?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Iqaluit%2C+Nunavut&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1&sbid=lc02a


Nuff said!!!!

[Frank_2001]

They'll always be "Eskimos" to me;)

[WOSG]

So let me get this straight -
she lives in some northern, frigid one horse town (or is it one-walrus town) and is complaining that her peice of frozen tundra might get too *warm*?!?!?

Some people really have to stretch to invent tragedy in their lives these days.