When Global Warming Kills Your God
Adam Weymouth reports in The Atlantic on the indigenous Yup’ik fisherman in Newtok, Alaska, who are on trail for fishing king salmon in defiance of a ban enacted to protect the salmon’s declining population. The Yup’ik are challenging the ban on the basis of First Amendment rights, arguing that their faith necessitates salmon fishing. “This is climate change on trial,” State Trooper Michael Cresswell says. Rising water levels endanger many indigenous Alaskan villages, as well as their wildlife. “Their villages may be swallowed up by the sea … But if they stop fishing king salmon, the Yup’ik believe they’ll lose something far more fundamental than their homes,” Weymouth writes.