An Alaskan Village Sinks Into the Sea

From Buzzflash: America's first community of climate change refugees is a town occupied by more than 300 Yup'ik Eskimos called Newtok. Their houses are literally sinking into the softening ground or being swept into the eroding banks of the Ninglick River, which empties into the Bering Sea. This writer described how the "vague sense of things being out of kilter forms itself into a vision of imminent disaster" as the permafrost -- which acts as a foundation for the entire village -- melts.

The town of Newtok may be small, but some 90,000 other Alaskans also live on permafrost and may soon find themselves in a situation similar to that of the indigenous people in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region. The residents of Newtok are merely closer to the water than other Alaskans; with seawater gobbling up their land at up to 90 feet a year, all of the village's listing buildings will soon be swallowed up.