Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Petrasek MacDonald, Joanna
• Harper, Sherilee L.
• Cunsolo Willox, Ashlee
• Edge, Victoria L.
• Rigolet Inuit Community Government

Titel

A necessary voice: Climate change and lived experiences of youth in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada

Ist Teil von

• Global environmental change, 2013-02, Vol.23 (1), p.360-371

Ort / Verlag

Amsterdam: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Quelle

Access via ScienceDirect (Elsevier)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• ► Inuit youth (12–25years) face serious impacts of climatic and environmental change. ► Inuit youth have experienced climatic and environmental changes in their lifetime. ► Climate change disrupts youth's abilities to practice land-based cultural activities. ► Climate change evokes strong climate-related emotional responses for Inuit youth. ► Youth should be meaningfully engaged in climate change adaptation work and research. Globally, youth voices and their experiences, observations, and perceptions about climatic and environmental change and variability are relatively absent in the published literature to date. To address this gap, the goal of this research was to explore the observations and perceptions of climate change held by youth (12–25years old) in the Inuit community of Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Canada. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with youth in Rigolet to gather data about climatic and environmental changes young people have observed, and the subsequent impacts of these changes on their lives, culture, and community. Youth reported observing and experiencing climatic and environmental changes throughout their lives, with reported impacts falling within five main themes: changing travel conditions and access to hunting; challenges to Inuit culture; a concern for Elder and senior well-being; strong climate-related emotional responses; and youth-identified potential adaptation strategies. More broadly, this research demonstrated that young people have valuable knowledge and perspectives to offer. In particular, researchers, community leaders, and policy makers are encouraged to meaningfully engage youth as crucial stakeholders in future climate change work, research, dialogue, and policy.