14 February 2007CBS5Tony Russomanno
The village of Shishmaref, Alaska, will soon be gone -- a victim of the most dramatic effects of climate change yet seen on Earth."The people who live there are the ones out there on the cutting edge of harm experiencing some of the kinds of problems that the rest of us are in for," said American Association for the Advancement of Science President Dr. John Holdren.The association is bringing Shishmaref villagers to San Francisco this week for a conference on global warming. It's an attempt by one of the world's largest group of scientists to put a human face on a warning that the White House refuses to accept."President Bush and Vice President Cheney have not really wanted to accept the mainstream results because they believed in their bones that doing anything about climate change would do serious harm to the economy," said Holdren.But Alaskans whose economy depends on seal hunting are seeing the harm from climate change right now as melting sea ice sends the seals farther north. Village adults who remember sandy beaches as children now must flee rising sea levels."The waves are lapping right up against the banks. It's taken away part of our childhood," said one villager.About 10,000 scientists will be attending the conference starting Thursday. It will end with a town hall meeting with the Alaskan villagers on Sunday and a statement from the association's board of directors that is expected to have the strongest language on global warming yet heard among a consensus of experts.The association's president contends the Bush-Cheney administraion will have put the nation eight years behind in solving the crisis."We have to elect political leadership who will take action at the national level and ultimately at the international level to address this problem," said Holdren. "And what that's going to entail, finally, is putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions."Dr. Holdren believes the next administration, Democratic or Republican, will finally take some action.
