Globe and Mail: "to the mainly Inuit people of Greenland, global warming is a gift from the heavens"

Inuit of Greenland have weather on their side - The Globe and Mail

....to the mainly Inuit people of Greenland, global warming is a gift from the heavens, and not just for the obvious reason. These children of hunters and fishermen have, for much of the past century, lived a version of the humiliating life of dependence that has befallen most of the ex-nomadic peoples of the world, struggling to hold on to traditions while living in enforced and subsidized marginality.

The retreating ice is salvation: It opens fields of treasure and promises to end that humiliation. Among the many troubled ex-nomads of the world, the Inuit of Greenland have the atmosphere on their side.

The leading exponent of this view is the most powerful woman in Greenland, opposition leader Aleqa Hammond.
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“We are probably one of the very few countries in the world that can say not only that climate change is not to our detriment, but that it has positive results – it makes it easier for us to have oil drilling offshore, more than ever before, because icebergs are smaller and less of a danger to rigs.

“And at the same time, the glacier is retreating and we can see the mountains now – before, they were all under ice. So now we can see with our own eyes if a mountain has something really interesting to look for. Before, we were drilling through the ice before we reached the ground, and it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Now you can see where the needle is.”

Ms. Hammond may have the most explicit version of this narrative, but she’s far from a radical by Greenlandic standards. Her view of the benefits of climate and environment is largely shared by her political nemesis, Prime Minister Kuupik Kleist, even if he presents it more diplomatically, taking care not to spook neighbouring governments. His party and hers are in almost total agreement on matters of energy and ecology and, between them, share more than 90 per cent of Greenland’s votes.