Pollution and Culture in Greenland :: Greenland Environment Ecology Pollute Essays

Greenland is contaminated with considerable amounts of pollution, caused by large-scale atmospheric circulations, especially in winter. The pollutants in the Arctic atomic number 18 primarily sulfur, which is extremely acidic, in both gas and aerosol form. Most of these pollutants are from anthropogenic sources deriving mainly from industrialized areas in the Eurasian continent. In summing up to threatening environmental stability, pollution is speeding the unraveling of traditional Inuit culture in Greenland.Climate change is affecting the entire world, yet Greenland is especially new to slight fluctuations due to its dependency of the natives traditional lifestyles on the environment. Melting spyglass and permafrost restrict access to hunting proves making a traditional way of life consisting of hunting seal and caribou more difficult.2 each four years, the Inuit living in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia convene the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC) to cover issues of concern. The ICC lobbied successfully to ban a dozen organic pollutants, carried north by winds, that do not evaporate in the Arctic cold. These pollutants were infecting meat and berries, staples of the Inuit diet, as well as the breast milk of nursing mothers.3 There are many more problems facing the sustainability of Greenland, such as trans-boundary pollution and the detail that the Inuit are not an effective lobbying group due to differences in culture, dialect, and lose of communication. In November of 2004, a report by 250 scientists warned that the Arctic is warming in two ways as fast as the global average, which threatens to wipe out some(prenominal) species including polar bears, and melt summer codswallop around the North gage by 2100.4 One of the reasons for the increased warming is that the dark water and ground in the arctic soak up more heat from the air than ice or snow. The levels of carbon dioxide today are about 379ppm and increasing, a comparable leve l to 55 million years ago when on that point was no ice on the planet due to the warmth of the atmosphere.5 If the Greenland ice cap melts, the sea level will rise six or seven meters. Although this is a worst-case scenario, it seems clear that steps must be taken to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in our atmosphere.Investigations of pollutants in Greenland during the prehistoric fifteen years show that the troposphere is burdened with high levels of trans-boundary pollution. The major anthropogenic contributors to this Arctic haze are central Europe, and northern Russia.