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Arctic Thaw Melts Away Old Habits in Far North
Freed by warming, waters once _______________ (1 – to lock) beneath the ice are gnawing at coastal settlements around the Arctic Circle. In Bykovsky, a village on Russia’s northeast coast, the shoreline ____________________ (2 – to collapse), ________________ (3 – to creep) closer and closer to houses and tanks of _______________ (4 – to heat) oil, at a rate of 4.6 to 5.5 meters a year. Eventually, homes _________________ (5 – to lose), and maybe all of Bykovsky, too, under ever-longer periods of assault by open water. “It ______________ (6 – to eat up) the land,” said Innokenty Koryakin, a member of the Evenk tribe and the captain of the fishing boat. Fyodor Sellyakhov, a native Yakut, adds, “The sea _________________ (7 – to wash down) the coast every year. It is practically all ice – permafrost – and it _____
_____________ (8 – to thaw).”
Scientists say that the __________________ (9 – to shrink) sea ice over the next century is inevitable and that humans need to adapt. For the four million people who live north of the Arctic Circle, in remote outposts and industrial centers, a _______________ (10 – to change) climate presents new opportunities. But it also threatens their environment, their homes and, for those whose traditions rely on the ice-bound wilderness, the preservation of their culture.
A push _________________ (11 – to develop) the North, _______________ (12 – to quicken) by the melting of the Arctic seas, carries its own rewards and dangers for people in the region. The discovery of vast petroleum fields in the Barents and Kara Seas __________________ (13 – to raise) fears of catastrophic accidents as ships _______________ (14 – to load) with oil and, soon, liquefied gas churn through the fisheries off Scandinavia, _______________ (15 – to head) to markets in Europe and North America. Land that ___________________ (16 – negative prefix /to touch) could be tainted by pollution.
Coastal erosion is a problem in Alaska as well, ________________ (17 – to force) the United States to prepare to relocate several Inuit villages at a __________________ (18 – to project) cost of $100 million or more for each one. Across the Arctic, indigenous tribes with traditions shaped by centuries of _________________ (19 – to live) in extremes of cold and ice are noticing changes in weather and wildlife.
155,000 Inuit scattered across Canada, Greenland, Russia and the United States ________________ (20 – to try) to balance tradition with the inevitable changes that are sweeping their lands. Their leaders claim that the United States, by __________________ (21 – to reject) a treaty requiring other industrial countries ________________ (22 – to cut) emissions linked to warming, is willfully threatening the Inuit’s right to exist. But some Inuit ask, how can they push countries _______________ (23 – to stem) global warming when the Inuit’s own prosperity is often tied to revenues from oil and gas, which are sources of greenhouse gases when burnt? “It’s how we do business that’s more important,” said Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the chairwoman of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. “There are more environmentally friendly ways in which we can do development and still live in a certain way, with a way of life and business that can balance both.”
While it is the people of the Arctic who ____________________ (24 – to feel) the melt and the rush for development most directly, the world, too, will have to give up something – its _______________ (25 – to treasure) notion of the Far North as a place of wilderness, simplicity and unspoiled cultures.
(After The New York Times, 2005.)