‘Arctic indigenous life and cosmologies face ice loss — and green colonialism’

Klaus Dodds is Executive Dean for the School of Life Sciences and Environment at Royal Holloway. He tells Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke, about global heating in the Arctic:
Given how our conversation with Klaus Dodds progresses, it is perhaps fitting that the Royal Holloway professor sits in front of a dazzlingly white board. He is in a college room but he takes TE to the vast ice around Greenland, sheeting the entire Arctic — which is under existential threat today. When asked how climate change is impacting the top of Earth, Dodds states, ‘The best way to start is to say the Arctic is no longer reliably frozen — earlier, we could say this region had short, intense summers and long, cold winters where ice was permanent.

That became a reliable platform for humans and animals — this is no longer true and the implications are incredibly wide-ranging. First, if ice is no longer as stable, humans and animals, like polar bears and seals, can no longer travel over it safely or use it to find food or give birth, as seals do on ice platforms, if the ice is thinner.’ It doesn’t stop there. Dodds elaborates, ‘Second, permafrost is no longer ‘permanently frozen’ — as it thaws, terrain subsides and buildings and infrastructure collapse. Alongside, coastal communities, which had a buffer of sea ice protecting them from storms, now confront violent waves and winds — in some cases, it’s no longer possible to live in certain spots.’

The loss of ice is profound. But the same ice is imagined very differently in diverse narratives. TE asks Dodds about his writing on Western versus indigenous representations of the Arctic cryosphere or ice world.

He replies, ‘In indigenous cultures, ice has a very special place — it is not considered an obstacle but an enabler. During winter, ice allows indigenous peoples to travel all over the Arctic. Secure ice was integral to dog sledging — there were almost ice highways, trails running across the Arctic, where indigenous peoples could move from one part to another and retain community networks. That contrasts sharply with Westerners, who tend to think of ice as a problem, something that needs to be removed to make the Arctic ‘better’.’

IM-PERMAFROST: Permafrost, spread over the Arctic, is ancient frozen ground — climate change is now making much of this terrain thaw, releasing massive amounts of both buried carbon as well as far more deadly methane, dangerously increasing global warming (Photos: Getty/iStock)
Dodds pauses and resumes with an ironical expression, ‘Now, it’s interesting how all this Western interest in the Arctic pivots around ice loss. Suddenly, Westerners are going, ‘Isn’t it tragic that we’re losing all this Arctic ice and the region is imperilled?’

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Before TE can feel some relief at this belated recognition, Dodds warns, ‘I think this leads to the idea that Westerners are going to ‘save’ the Arctic and indigenous peoples need ‘saving’ — while, in fact, indigenous peoples have shown over millennia that they’re able to adapt to the Arctic when its ice varied. Their cultural frameworks contain an extraordinary ability to live seasonally with ice and think of this as intimately connected with land, sea, air and all the living things that depend on it.’ Studying relationships with ice, says Dodds, who predicts the growth of ‘ice humanities’, reveals a lot. ‘You discover this is far more than scientific. It’s linked to histories, food and water security, identity, sport, culture — even cosmology.’

What about the ground beneath land ice? TE asks Dodds about what he terms ‘the material geopolitics of frozen soils’ in the Arctic. He explains, ‘This largely means permafrost — again, indigenous and Western views on these soils vary. I’d include Russia in this. For the former Soviet Union, permafrost was seen as a mysterious obstacle, frustrating the plans of Stalin in particular to industrialise the Russian North and expand agriculture there. An idea formed that the Russian Arctic needed to be warmed, so permanently frozen ground could be thawed and used more ‘productively’. Again, a big difference between indigenous and Western — including Russian — views is this idea of making the Arctic a ‘more productive space’. Indigenous worldviews see productivity in the seas and ice there. Frozen land is considered invaluable because you can establish temporary settlements. In contrast, for Westerners, frozen ground has always been seen as an obstacle, something that must be changed to become more advantageous.’ Dodds adds this casually but it encompasses an entire world of history, ‘There is this constant desire within Western worldviews to somehow make the Arctic something else.’

However, certain groups try to study the Arctic as it is. TE asks Dodds about scientific research in the most remote part of Earth. ‘Until the recent breakdown between Russia and the West following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Arctic was fairly renowned for international scientific collaboration — Western scientists, for example, got access to the Russian Arctic which is 50% of the region. They could do important circumpolar studies with long-term environmental monitoring. This has helped our understanding of the changes affecting the Arctic. However, such collaboration is much harder now.’ Dodds adds, ‘But I predict China, India and and Middle Eastern countries will become increasingly important scientific powers in this region.’

Science is intricately bound with technology though and the world is now hearing about how the Arctic — and Greenland — offers technological breakthroughs via mineral resources. Getting those minerals will involve the same drilling, mining and extractions which have denuded other parts of Earth. Can this region develop its own idea of sustainability? Dodds replies with alacrity, ‘We must ask — who gets to define ‘sustainability’? And what are we trying to sustain? Indigenous understandings of sustainability will look very different to what Arctic states might envision. For example, in Finland today, the indigenous Finnish Sami want to retain their autonomy over reindeer herding, etc.

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However, the government in Helsinki might say, with the Ukraine situation, Europe must end its dependency on Russian energy and increase mining and renewable energy production — and what better place than the Nordic Arctic with suitable weather? Hence, indigenous peoples are complaining these countries are conducting ‘green colonialism’, where environmental reasons are used as a proxy to exert control.’

As the whiteboard behind him remains resolutely icy, Dodds underlines his words verbally, ‘Sustainability can therefore never be divorced from politics.’