Climate Induced Community Relocation Summary

Climate Induced Community Relocation Robin Bronen brings about the question of what part government should take in the relocation of coastal communities facilitated by climate change and the adverse effects that it has on the environment. Including the loss of costal retreats due to the rising levels of the ocean as polar ice caps continue to melt. Mr. Bronen came to his hypothesis by researching four Alaskan Native communities that were being threatened by climate induced costal loss (Climate-induced). Currently there are no government framework in place to deal with the relocation of entire communities. This lack of a frame work hinders local, State and federal government from responding to these changing needs. It is Mr. Bronens

He points out that as of now there are no mechanisms in place to determine when such a relocation should occur. Not only that but it is not even determined who should make the decision on when to relocate a community. A further problem that Mr. Bronen points out is that forced relocation seldom if ever works out for those being relocated. Examples include the forced relocation of native Americans, the forced relocation of native Alaskan during world war 2,(Mobley 2012) as well as the forced relocation of communities were new damn have been built.(Ferris 2012) In each of these cases the population of the communities that were relocated were weaken culturally, economically and socially. Mr. Bronen determined after researching four Alaskan communities that were relocated that by including the residents of the communities in question in the decision making process the outcome of the relocation was much more successful. These communities were Shishmaref, Newtok, Kivalina, and Quinhagak (Esterberg