WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 music 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:10.000 Well thank you I'm very excited that I could be here. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:14.000 It's been 10 years since I graduated so I got my degree in political science. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:17.000 I'm originally from Nome, Alaska. 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:23.000 My grandparents had camps at Salmon Lake, Kuzitrim, Teller, and Nook. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:32.000 And what that meant was they traveled seasonally to get the different food resources at teach of the camps. 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:37.000 And it was in the 50s when the government made the laws that all kids had to go to school 00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:39.000 that they had to get a home in Nome. 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:43.000 So with that that's where my dad ended up going to school. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:50.000 And when he had married my mom who was from Washington they lived in Nome and that's where we were raised. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:54.000 So I'm Inupiaq. They way that 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.000 How many of you are familiar with native corporations? Alaskan Native corporations? 00:00:59.000 --> 00:00:63.000 So some of you. Are any of you from Alaska? From Fairbanks? 00:01:03.000 --> 00:01:05.000 You're from Oregon but you're familiar. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:14.000 So growing up in Nome growing up Inupiaq, the town history is that it was established because of the gold miners. 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:18.000 But really there was the native activity happening long before that. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:24.000 And it wasn't until the Army Corps of Engineers accidentally excavated a site 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:36.000 it wasn't until that happened in like 2006, 2007 that there was a recorded excavation of the native presence there. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:40.000 So up until then even though my grandpa had said that's where the old people are buried 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:43.000 there was no acknowledgment that natives had been there before. 00:01:43.000 --> 00:01:51.000 So Inupiaq people are in Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. So they migrated over. 00:01:53.000 --> 00:01:59.000 So how we identify ourselves is based on our language. So I'm Inupiaq that's the language group. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:01:64.000 I'm Koyukmute which is the traditional place in Norton Sound. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:11.000 So the way to look at where people come from it's their regions. 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:17.000 So it would be Norton Sound or Bering Strait is where I'm from. And Koyukmute is the community that my grandpa was from. 00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:20.000 And my grandma, he was from Mary's Igloo my grandma was from Shishmaref. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.000 And so at some point in our family history we just choose one. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:26.000 And so ours is Koyukmute. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:31.000 So that's the traditional way of identifying ourselves, with our place. 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:37.000 And an overview of where my grandparents came from and how they were raising their family. 00:02:37.000 --> 00:02:43.000 And then how I was introduced to living in the city. So Nome was a mile long and it had six streets. 00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:52.000 Well it had A through N and then one through six and a bypass and the the high school was three miles out. 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:60.000 And the population was 3500 they say it's about 3700 now and it's about 1000 miles from the nearest mall. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:06.000 And I should've shown a bigger map but it's very close to Russia. 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:15.000 So I left Alaska to go to school because I didn't understand the conflict between state, local, and federal politics 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:22.000 and why when an issue came up people would say it was one of those entities faults or they would complain about that. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:27.000 So I was fortunate to come to Western and graduate with my degree in political science. 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:35.000 And those paper that you have to write they're one of the best gifts that the professors could ever give you. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:41.000 And Dr. Henkel commenting, what's the significance? 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:45.000 If you could just develop your writing pattern to say something and then state why it's significant 00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:48.000 that will carry you a long way in graduate school. 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:54.000 So I graduated from Western in 2006. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:57.000 Let's see this is my second year of graduate school. 00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:62.000 So I worked at the museum for eight years before it was transferred to the University of Oregon. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:06.000 And then last year I started a graduate program in community and regional planning. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.000 So it's a two-year program. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:17.000 And what's really amazing is that the questions that I had that prompted me to go to school are finally getting answered in graduate school. 00:04:17.000 --> 00:04:20.000 And I didn't realize that the program was community and regional planning. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:25.000 That that's where the decisions are made and what communities look like, Western communities. 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:30.000 So to know what the cultural issues and concerns are that I grew up with 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:38.000 and seeing how the community did or did not respond to those local needs is very interesting. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:45.000 So how this all ties in to native communities and climate change is that 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:52.000 we all know that the climate has been changing for a long time and it's been indigenous people that have noticed the changes. 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:55.000 And that they rely so closely on the land. 00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:58.000 You remember I had said that my grandparents had gone to those different communities. 00:04:58.000 --> 00:04:61.000 And so for different seasons. 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:10.000 What happens is when there's the first freeze there's a willow green it's called surra. Surra's the willow. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:15.000 It is prepared to grow at the time that it freezes. It's ready to grow. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:20.000 So as soon as the snow melts the leaves open. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:23.000 And so that's when that plant could be harvested. 00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:28.000 So you could have just a land of white but that willow is right there ready to be harvested. 00:05:28.000 --> 00:05:32.000 And then as soon as the snow melts off from the rocks 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:38.000 then there's this other little tiny shoot you could hardly see it and I've been gone so long that I might not recognize it. 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:45.000 It's mashu. It's the Eskimo potato. So as that shoot comes up then you can come and harvest the root. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:52.000 And so then from there there's a series of other plants that become available for harvesting. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.000 So that's what's happening on the land. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:62.000 And then on the sea as the winter storms subside and there becomes leads in the water 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:06.000 so when I was growing up the Bering Sea froze. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:11.000 So it would freeze so you could walk to Russia if you wanted to. Some people have. 00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:19.000 When the currents change, the temperatures change, the ice shifts, and there are what become leads. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:24.000 So when the ice shifts just enough there will be these leads where it's open water. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:27.000 And that is the time to go walrus and seal hunting. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.000 So spring walrus and seal hunting. 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:34.000 So people would take their equipment to go onto the frozen Bering Sea. 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:40.000 And so my grandparents they would use the dog teams and then nowadays people would use their snow machines. 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:44.000 And they would tow their boats and you can see lots of videos of that type of activity being done. 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:47.000 And the walrus and the seals would be harvested. 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:52.000 And the springtime animals are very good 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:59.000 because the fat that can be taken and preserved is different than the fat that you would get in the fall-time. 00:06:59.000 --> 00:06:68.000 And then from there you get the sea mammals. And then you've seen the geese in the spring and in the fall. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:11.000 You see when the sky is just filled with those geese. 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:16.000 Those are cackling geese. When they leave in the springtime they're going to Alaska. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:20.000 And then when they come back they're coming back from Alaska in the fall. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 So what happens is when the geese arrive 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:29.000 then all of the sea mammal hunting has been completed and then it's time to get the geese. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:32.000 And after that then it's the other land animals. 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.000 So there's just this natural cycle. 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:42.000 And then the geese they leave. So then the geese come, you get the birds, then they lay their eggs and you get some eggs, 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 and then you just go on to the different animals that are present. 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:51.000 And then the fish. And then the geese leave so before the geese leave that's your last chance to get some. 00:07:51.000 --> 00:07:58.000 But then before it freezes you have another opportunity to get the walrus and the seal before the cold long winters. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:07:64.000 And what's happened with the hunters is that they recognized that the ice was changing. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:10.000 And so when the early conversations about climate change were happening some of those hunters' voices were being heard 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:12.000 but nothing was really being done. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:15.000 They weren't taken seriously. 00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:19.000 Because like my uncle he had a seventh grade education. 00:08:19.000 --> 00:08:23.000 My grandpa didn't have any education and my grandma went to third grade. 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:28.000 So when they started talking about these changes that they were seeing, what would they know? What could they possibly know? 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:36.000 They didn't have any education no college education and absolutely no experience with any type of environmental issue. 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:38.000 So what could they possibly know? 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:42.000 And so little changes like that just continued to happen. 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:46.000 And so it got to the point where 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:53.000 I think it was in the 70s that there was a big notice of how the winter storm patterns were changing. 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:58.000 And people were noticing this and that just when the ice would come in, 00:08:58.000 --> 00:08:62.000 have you seen the graphics of the polar ice cap? 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:09.000 And how it used to be you would see a map where below the arctic circle it would be solid white 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.000 and now you can see that it's much less. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:18.000 Well what's happening with that ice cap is there's a permanent ice cap and it just kind of moves around in the current 00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:29.000 And as the temperatures got colder then the ice pack grew and pretty soon the whole Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean was frozen. 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:35.000 And what the hunters were noticing is that the condition of the ice was not stable. 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:39.000 And now what they're finding and you can see it in a model is how the ice kind of shifts. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:45.000 So what is the old safe ice doesn't even come to the shore anymore. 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:51.000 And so it's creating some pretty drastic problems with the hunting conditions 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:55.000 what people were first complaining about but it's also changing the storm patterns 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:62.000 in that there's more open water longer because that really strong ice pack is not coming to the shore. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:09.000 And so that's where you're getting the coastal erosion and that's what I'm very interested in through my graduate program. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:13.000 I'm looking at the climate change adaptation plans 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:16.000 and what the barriers are to implementation. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:23.000 Right now there are 30 communities in Alaska that are facing relocation. 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:26.000 And going back to the 70s one of the communities was Shishmaref. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:32.000 And so they tried to talk with the government about the changes that they were seeing and it was kind of falling on deaf ears. 00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:36.000 and so after about 20 years and they were saying look, 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:40.000 you've seen the pictures of the buildings falling into the ocean into the Bering Sea. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:45.000 Usually those are Shishmaref. Or Kivalina. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:50.000 That's where President Obama went last year. That's the areas where those communities are. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:55.000 But what they had done is they had tried to talk with the local governments about what's happening 00:10:55.000 --> 00:10:60.000 and they asked them to intervene and to come and study what's happening. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:04.000 And it really didn't happen until the 80s and the Army Corps of Engineers came in 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:07.000 and they did an assessment and they recognized yes things are changing. 00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:12.000 But the responses would be too expensive and so it just kind of sat. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:15.000 It was just an assessment that just sat and nothing happened. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:22.000 And then 10 years later the tribal community they did their own assessment again 00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:28.000 they were able to get more attention from some scientists that did recognize that there were these changes. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:33.000 And so they did another plan and it was an assessment of what was happening. 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:38.000 That just kind of dwindled away and nothing happened until last year. 00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:45.000 But unfortunately what's happened is that now everybody knows about Shishmarek 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:48.000 and nothing's been done about Shishmarek 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:53.000 and so now there's 29 other Alaska communities that are in the same situation as Shishmarek. 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:58.000 And so what do we do with these communities and climate change? 00:11:58.000 --> 00:11:64.000 Well one you look at the population of each of these communities and you have maybe two to 500 people. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:09.000 And when you're looking at policy decisions and where funding goes 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:20.000 what's the significance of doing anything doing these multimillion sometimes billion dollar projects to benefit 200 or 500 people? 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:27.000 So it's very difficult but these are the situations that these native communities are in 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:34.000 where just like my grandparents relying on the different resources of the different times of the seasons where there's this unpredictability 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:39.000 but then this Western government this Western structure of living has been established. 00:12:39.000 --> 00:12:44.000 Remember my grandparents didn't want to come to Nome. They had to, to put their kids in school. 00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:52.000 And so now I'm part of this community and this culture that relies on all these modern amenities which I'm very grateful for 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:56.000 but what do we do when you can't just up and move your community? 00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:62.000 What do you do when funding agencies don't want to pay for whatever you need to do 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:05.000 and what's happening to these communities? 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:10.000 The one big thing that I remember is it was in January of like 1980 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:16.000 then I was only like five years old and just really developing knowing what I remember. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:21.000 But my uncle had gotten married and he was getting married at this community hall that was right along the Bering Sea. 00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:28.000 There's a rock sea wall. And all that anybody could talk about was it was January and the ocean wasn't frozen yet. 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:32.000 And so that was my first encounter with abnormal. 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:36.000 In that it was January and the ocean wasn't frozen. 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:41.000 And even though I had grown up with all these Western amenities and Western education 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:48.000 there were still things that I relied on with the natural clock. School gets out when the geese arrive. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:54.000 That's it. In May in Alaska even today. School is out in May because so many people leave. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.000 They're going hunting anyway. 00:13:57.000 --> 00:13:63.000 So that's when we get excited when we start seeing the geese not because oh boy we get to go hunting but oh boy school's getting out. 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:09.000 But then also the sun starts to come up longer which I wanted to point out. 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:13.000 I think it was just last week that Barrow said goodbye to the sun. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:17.000 So if you're not familiar with that they have like 70 days of darkness. 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:23.000 So they have like 70 nights. That's just like a fun fact I wanted to bring to your attention. 00:14:23.000 --> 00:14:30.000 And what you could always count on and it was related to Halloween that August things start to freeze, 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:35.000 it starts to get dark and then things start to freeze and after that first frost is when you gather the cranberries 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:37.000 because that's when they're the most delicious. 00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:42.000 And then from there it's just like miserable, cold, nothing. There's nothing left to harvest. 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:48.000 You might get a fish here and there but you got to wait for the creeks and the rivers to freeze so you could get the fish. 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:51.000 You got to wait for the ocean to freeze so you could get the crab. 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:57.000 But what you could always rely is that it would be frozen by Halloween. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:14:62.000 So that all the mud puddles would be frozen. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:06.000 And you could just go do all the trick-or-treating without all that mud 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:12.000 and it would be cold enough that it wouldn't be rain it would be snow and that's just not happening anymore. 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:19.000 So there are so many changes that are happenning that it's really difficult to think about where to start. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:23.000 And if you look at Western models of climate change and climate impacts 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:28.000 then they're looking at what are the impacts on the land, what are the impacts on the plants, 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:34.000 what's it doing with the temperature, what's it doing with humidity, and all of those are true 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:41.000 but when you're living your life based on the natural resources that the land provides then it looks different. 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:48.000 It looks different from, yeah there's too much rain so the rain is taking the flowers off of the berries. 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:50.000 So there's the little things like that. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:57.000 So just to give you some context when I grew up we had canned milk or powdered milk 00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:59.000 and so often we chose not to have milk. 00:15:59.000 --> 00:15:65.000 One of my favorite foods as a kid was having Raisin Bran with Tang. 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:11.000 Because I just despised powdered milk so much I just despised it. 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:16.000 So I'd rather have Tang and Raisin Bran. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:22.000 And so even if I preferred or the people today prefer to have fresh milk it could be eight dollars a gallon. 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:27.000 On sale, maybe you might get two for 12 dollars on sale. 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:34.000 My uncle he would come and stay with me in Oregon for long periods of time and he would just get so excited about the meat. 00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.000 How many of you buy ham hocks? 00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:42.000 How many of you even get excited about ham hocks? Or do you know what ham hocks are? 00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:46.000 It's just a big old joint of a pig. 00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:52.000 And you boil it and you cook beans with it and if you like that it's deliciousness. 00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:59.000 And so you could imagine by your lack of interest in them how much they would cost here, probably like five bucks. 00:16:59.000 --> 00:16:65.000 Ox tails that was another 30 to 50 dollars for ox tails. 00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:08.000 And here we could go to the butcher and they're like five bucks. 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:14.000 They don't even have a price for them. They just say what they'll sell them to you for depending on how many they have that day. 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:23.000 Yeah and so Peggy is saying not very long ago that type of meat was free. 00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:28.000 But you'd figure if the animal is killed and harvested here, 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:32.000 do you still have cows? 00:17:32.000 --> 00:17:38.000 One of the things that just cracked me up is he used to have cows well they were beef 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:43.000 and that was a problem that I had growing up is they're not all cows. 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:47.000 So are they beef cattle? 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:57.000 Something, you know what I'm talking about. So they're the cows that you would kill for food, right? 00:17:57.000 --> 00:17:60.000 And you see different movies where you could like tip them. 00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:03.000 Have you all seen those of tipping? 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:08.000 And so Dr. Henkels was talking about how it was time to butcher his cows. 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:13.000 And I was just thinking and trying to figure out, how is he going to hunt those things? 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:16.000 laughter 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:21.000 And then I got to thinking well how to you hunt a cow when you could walk up to them and people just tip them over? 00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:29.000 So little things like that completely baffled me because there was really not that much beef that we grew up with. 00:18:29.000 --> 00:18:32.000 You know I grew up with moose and caribou. 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:36.000 Halibut and king crab, salmon, all of these things. 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:40.000 And so those are the primary staples, the seal, the walrus, the whale. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.000 All of those things that come from the land based on these seasons. 00:18:44.000 --> 00:18:51.000 And so if you wanted anything else even bread the stores run out of bread, like just Wonder Bread. 00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:56.000 You could see pictures online of people just taking pictures of the empty racks 00:18:56.000 --> 00:18:60.000 if there's severe storms, well I'll back up a little bit. 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:06.000 So remember getting to Nome it's a thousand miles from Anchorage so you have to fly on a jet. 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:10.000 That would be like today, well I won't even compare that. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:16.000 But you have to fly on a jet. So the mail, all the supplies, all the groceries, 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:20.000 they either come in on jet or they come in on barge. 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:25.000 And the impacts that climate change are having is, I could go back. 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:31.000 Significant impacts that they're having is remember, 00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:34.000 traditional houses were subterranean. 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:42.000 They were dug out and then there was a sod cover and then the snow would kind of just drift over it, and reinforce it, and insulate it. 00:19:42.000 --> 00:19:50.000 And there was just one little, it's called an iuq, it's a vent where the smoke would come out and just kind of allow for circulation of air. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:53.000 And then you see like the igloo entrance. 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:56.000 That snow shelter is emergency shelter. 00:19:56.000 --> 00:19:63.000 But that entrance that Kunitaq is a pathway for you to go in so you could take off your wet stuff 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:07.000 so the cold and the wind doesn't come in to the center of the house. 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:12.000 But that house was a subterranean one. It wasn't the stereotypical snow house. 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:21.000 So you take this environment, this community, this people, who lived very sustainably in a subterranean house, 00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:26.000 and then what's happened is that Western culture came and put it upside down. 00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:36.000 And when they put the houses directly on the soil just under those normal circumstances of the 40s, 50s, 60s, early 1900s even, 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:39.000 those normal circumstances of development, 00:20:39.000 --> 00:20:45.000 the houses were causing the permafrost to melt and so then they became unstable. 00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:49.000 And so the solution was to build the houses on stilts. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:57.000 And so now you have all of the infrastructure that is built on permafrost, do you know what permafrost is? 00:20:57.000 --> 00:20:63.000 It's like four to six feet below the top of the ground is frozen. 00:21:03.000 --> 00:21:07.000 So these houses are on stilts to prevent the permafrost from melting. 00:21:07.000 --> 00:21:13.000 With climate change what's happening is these houses and the people are relying on oil. 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:18.000 And what I'd like to say about those subterranean houses 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:22.000 and where I come from with that is the 10 years of working with the Arctic collection 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:27.000 and teaching people about the adaptations of Arctic people and technology. 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:32.000 And so those subterranean houses they were heated and lit by a seal oil lamp. 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:34.000 And you might have seen some of those. 00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:42.000 So then you take the houses that are upside down that are heated by wood, which is funny in the arctic. 00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:51.000 One of the definitions of the arctic is it's measured by the treeline where trees stop growing in dense populations. 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:56.000 So you think about these wood burning stoves and where does that resource come from? 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:60.000 How much will there be? So it's oil. It's oil and propane 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.000 that heat these houses. And if you remember 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.000 was three years ago, there was this big international activity 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:12.000 that, because, the climate was changing, the season 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:21.000 the predictability of the ocean was unpredictable so the barge carrying the last load of fuel to Alaska 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:25.000 could not make it, because it froze over. 00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:28.000 And so the US had to negotiate with China 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:32.000 and Russia for ice breakers and help to 00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:36.000 move oil into these communities. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:44.000 That's a huge impact. So what happened is when the prices of gas and oil were dropping here, I think it went up to eight dollars a gallon. 00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:48.000 there so, you know, that's one impact 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:52.000 and there's the environmental impacts, there's the economic impacts, and 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.000 that's just for housing, and we've already talked a lot about the impacts on 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:61.000 food and the costs. So if you go back to 00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:05.000 how things get there, it's either barge or it's by air. 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:10.000 And what happens when it's too stormy and the planes can't fly or land 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:16.000 usually they can get to Nome, they can get to Kotzebue, they can get to Barrow 00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:20.000 but if they can't bring everything, if everything 00:23:20.000 --> 00:23:24.000 comes to Nome, then there's all these villages that can't be serviced. 00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:28.000 And that was another point that I wanted to make, 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:32.000 there are two hundred and twenty-nine tribes in Alaska, and so each of these tribes 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:36.000 when you're talking about Alaska communities and climate change 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:40.000 you're talking about two hundred and twenty-nine tribes that 00:23:40.000 --> 00:23:45.000 have their own group of indigenous people that are trying to respond to these major changes. 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:52.000 And the needs, and the impacts by each tribe are different, and the resources available to respond are different. 00:23:55.000 --> 00:23:64.000 So that's the environmental, the economic, the kind of the ecological with the access to the food. 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:12.000 Do you have any questions about that? The question is what are the native corparations doing to respond or help these communities 00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:20.000 respond to climate change. So I'm going to talk a little about the structure of the native corporations, but then also finish saying how it's different between 00:24:20.000 --> 00:24:24.000 those urban and rural, and in Alaska it's so much different 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:28.000 in that most of the educated policy makers are 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:32.000 in the urban areas, and so they might have 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:36.000 little or no contact with the people in the urban areas, just as the people 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:44.000 in the rural areas may not have much contact or even interest in those urban issues, even though they all trickle down. 00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:48.000 And so, you know you've all heard about the election? 00:24:48.000 --> 00:24:49.000 laughter 00:24:49.000 --> 00:24:56.000 And seriously that's my point, that's exactly my point. And the day after the election, 00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:59.000 one of my Facebook friends, who lives in one of these rural communites, 00:24:59.000 --> 00:24:64.000 her question was, "What's the difference between Clinton and Trump?" 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:08.000 and I want to bring that to your attention, because it's real. 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:12.000 There are people that are so isolated 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:17.000 that what happens in State and Federal government is so opposite from what they need, 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:23.000 like that twenty-five dollar case of water that you experienced? That's normal. 00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:28.000 If it's there, it's expensive. Like the eight dollar gallon of milk. 00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:36.000 or, the bread. Bread usually doesn't go not high priced, you just can't get it. The eggs might be 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:40.000 the onions, I mean the onions that you throw away here, that you see people taking 00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:44.000 off the shelves, those are being sold for three to five dollars. 00:25:44.000 --> 00:25:52.000 And people are getting them, because that's what's there. 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:56.000 And in Nome it's a lot different then it is for the villages. 00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:60.000 Going back to the structure of the native corporations, there are thirteen native corporations 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:08.000 so going back to the Government structure, Alaska became a state in 1959, so that's not that long ago. 00:26:08.000 --> 00:26:11.000 And before then, it was a territory 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:16.000 And so it was pretty much a do as you need to territory. 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:20.000 And one of my favorite books is about Sadie Brower Neakok 00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.000 Marget Blackman was a professor at University of Washington, and she wrote about Sadie. 00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:28.000 And Sadie talks about what it was like to be a magistrate 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:32.000 the first magistrate, she was a woman, there was no question about 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:36.000 a woman being a magistrate, the first magistrate. She was the magistrate in Barrow. 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:40.000 And the way that the society was structured, her community was structured, 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:48.000 often she held court in her kitchen. While she was butchering a seal, or whatever meat was available. 00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:56.000 You know, just contrast that with the history of government in the United States, and what it looks like in these Alaskan communities. 00:26:56.000 --> 00:26:60.000 It's different now. It's more structured now that it's a state. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:05.000 So in Alaska, it's the biggest state in the nation, right? It's twice as big as Texas. 00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:16.000 One percent of the property is owned by other. The rest is owned by the federal, state government, or the native corporations. 00:27:16.000 --> 00:27:21.000 That's completely opposite of what we see for property in the rest of the United States. 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:25.000 So the native corporations, when they had to fight for that, 00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:32.000 and so it was the Alaska native claim settlement act, in I think it was 1971. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:40.000 So up until, let's see, Civil Rights was 1964? I can't believe I drew a blank on that. 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:48.000 So there's Civil Rights, Native American rights didn't come until after the Civil Rights. 00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:57.000 So, if you could imagine that. So what happened was these native activists, some have visited this campus. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:27:60.000 Were lobbying in Washington D.C. for rights. 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:08.000 Because they were non-existent. Like I had said before, how the city of Nome refused to acknowledge that natives had a presence in that community. 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:17.000 Until the Army Corps of engineers, and to tell you, they were expanding the port, so the Army Corps of engineers came in, and they contracted with local workers. 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:22.000 Year one of that project they excavated that site, and they covered it over. 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:30.000 Year two of that project, they excavated the site, and the locals said "No, you're not covering it over again." 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:42.000 So if you search the Army Corps of engineers, and this Nome site, here they are with smiles and pictures of this wonderful find, this great historic culture treasure that they saved. 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:51.000 So, what you see is not the way that it always happens. And so, that's the way the natives were being treated. 00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:59.000 And so the lobbyist going to D.C. was very significant in that they were able to get this Alaskan Claim Settlement Act. 00:28:59.000 --> 00:28:68.000 And that put some of the land in trust, and also developed these native corporations that would have these lands. 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:19.000 That would manage these lands for the Tribes. So there are thirteen. There are twelve in the state, and the thirteenth is called the "thirteenth region". 00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:27.000 It's for Alaskan natives that were not in the state in 1971, and so they would have this region to identify with. 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:31.000 My region is, Koyukmute, is where I am. 00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:41.000 And then, also it was a 1924 Indian reorganization act, I think you read about that? 00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:49.000 Through the Indian reorganization act, those two hundred twenty-nine federally recognized tribes were established. So that was a government thing. 00:29:49.000 --> 00:29:56.000 Creating those two hundred twenty-nine tribes. Because remember, we identified ourselves in our own way. 00:29:56.000 --> 00:29:62.000 And so what happened was, each of those tribes then fall under this jurisdiction of a region. 00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:07.000 And so what that means, you know about the government to government relations? 00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:12.000 So for that structure, it happens to be in my region, which I'm most familiar with. 00:30:12.000 --> 00:30:17.000 It applies to the other twelve regions, but they have different names, and people have different personal experiences. 00:30:17.000 --> 00:30:22.000 They have different issues than what are in North and South. 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:32.000 Bering Straits Native Corporation, that's my region of the thirteen, Bering Straits Native Corporation is my region. 00:30:32.000 --> 00:30:36.000 So they manage the lands, and they also had a corporation, 00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:45.000 so you could look at these thirteen corporations, and see what their subsidiaries are, and you could also see the difference in economic activity. 00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:53.000 And so Bering Straights Native Corporation as handling the lands and types of research, and some of those govenment activities 00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:58.000 They find different ways to respond to your question in lobbying with the government, 00:30:58.000 --> 00:30:64.000 the state, and the local and federal government in making sure that these services are available. 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:14.000 Or if there's an issue. In our region, the problem was Evergreen Aviation, which is Oregon based, they had the contract for bringing the mail to Diomede Island 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:19.000 and so they were unable to renegotiate, or they didn't want to travel in certain times, 00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:24.000 so the community of Diomede, which is just a rock's throw away from Russia 00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:28.000 because there's Little Diomede and Big Diomede, and Big Diomede is Russian. 00:31:28.000 --> 00:31:36.000 They were not getting their medical supplies, they were not getting their groceries, they were not getting their mail, they were not getting out, nobody was coming in. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:45.000 And so is it right for one company to have that much power in controlling what does and does not happen within a community? 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:52.000 So, those are the type of big issues that the native corporation steps in and tries to work on. 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:60.000 And they're the ones that would provide resources for the tribe and the tribal council so that the could be empowered to address those local issues. 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:10.000 Like the price of water. Most of the tribes have a tribal store, and that is meant to compete with whatever private store would've been there. 00:32:10.000 --> 00:32:15.000 It makes things a little bit more manageable. But going back to those thirteen corporations, 00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:22.000 what happened is the government structure said "Okay, we're going to create these thirteen regions, these thirteen corporations, 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:25.000 you're going to have this land, and then you're going to have this economic component. 00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:32.000 And so they gave all this power to these people who had very limited access to education. 00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:35.000 And so how well do you think they were able to run those businesses? 00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.000 Based on the mainstream models of business. 00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:43.000 A lot of them had problems so they went back and they restructured. 00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:49.000 So the question that I hear is pretty much the adaptations to climate change and how culture is preserved. 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:53.000 I didn't get to introduce but my son Andrew is here. 00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:58.000 And he's got headphones on and that's typical of that generation. 00:32:58.000 --> 00:32:63.000 So whether they're in Oregon or whether they're in Alaska that's it. 00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:07.000 Is there a desire is there an interest to even participate in the culture? 00:33:07.000 --> 00:33:15.000 I think we all can relate to when we were teenagers we might not have been really thrilled to do what our grandparents were doing. 00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:20.000 But as we get older we come to appreciate it we just appreciate it more 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:26.000 and it has more meaning and we can duplicate what we saw them doing the best that we can. 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:32.000 And so there's just the impacts from climate change but then there are also non-climate stressors. 00:33:32.000 --> 00:33:36.000 Whether it be pollution, mining, fishing, 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:45.000 different land uses that are interfering already with access and availability of these natural resources. 00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:52.000 And then on top of that you have these fast cultural, social changes throughout the world. 00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:58.000 And Google and Facebook and all of these things that the last generation didn't even have. 00:33:58.000 --> 00:33:64.000 So these are all having impacts in these Alaskan Native communities. 00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:08.000 And so how do we respond? 00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:17.000 And so one thing that I grapple with is there are these climate change adaptation plans that I'm evaluating and I appreciate that 00:34:17.000 --> 00:34:23.000 and then there's native rights and there's sovereignty and I appreciate that. 00:34:23.000 --> 00:34:30.000 But what I grapple with is if we have this right to continue with the seal hunt or the whale hunt that's more than ceremonial. 00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:37.000 Because where it is the price of food is still so high these are our primary staples of food that we're talking about. 00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:39.000 Q 00:34:39.000 --> 00:34:45.000 What happens with the pollution because all the pollution goes up to the arctic and it falls down. 00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:49.000 And so some of these animals are poisonous. 00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:56.000 You know you look at, I haven't seen what all the recent studies are, but with the earthquake in Japan 00:34:56.000 --> 00:34:62.000 and the nuclear waste the Japanese current goes right up to the Arctic. 00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:06.000 Dr. Spring has heard me talk about this before. 00:35:06.000 --> 00:35:13.000 If you go on the New York side they have geothermal heat in New York. That's great that's green right? That's wonderful. 00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:16.000 What happens in the winter when it's cold people turn on their heat 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:23.000 and then the water gets released this hot water gets released into the waterways at a time that it's not meant to have warm water. 00:35:23.000 --> 00:35:29.000 So in the Atlantic current, what's the current that goes up that way? 00:35:29.000 --> 00:35:34.000 It goes into the Atlantic Ocean and then it goes up into the Arctic 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:41.000 and what's happening is the water's freezing because salt water doesn't freeze the way that fresh water freezes. 00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:44.000 And so it's having an impact on the ecosystem there. 00:35:44.000 --> 00:35:52.000 And so even if there is the desire to continue these hunts that occur on the open water they're not accessible. 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.000 The quality of the food might not be good. 00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:59.000 During World War II there was a lot of radioactivity happening in Alaska 00:35:59.000 --> 00:35:65.000 so there was a period when people had to stop eating the caribou or they had to get regular radiation tests 00:36:05.000 --> 00:36:10.000 and if their radiation levels were too high they were told not to eat anymore reindeer for a period. 00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:15.000 And this happened to Paul Jensen the founder of the Jensen Arctic Collection. 00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:22.000 So even if the rights are maintained to continue the hunt even if the climate allows these continuations of the hunts 00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:27.000 What's the quality of the food? And what are these other impacts on culture? 00:36:27.000 --> 00:36:34.000 And then to top it off what's the greatest thing about climate change and the melting of the arctic ice cap? 00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:40.000 It's the Northwest Passage. That's like the best thing for the economy isn't it? 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:48.000 And so what happens to these communities that have 200 to 500 people when you have these massive cruise ships. 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:53.000 So last year was the first time that a massive cruise ship went through the Northwest Passage. 00:36:53.000 --> 00:36:60.000 And so what I had read is that the average ticket was 20,000 dollars. 00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.000 So these passengers what kind of interaction do you think they had with these native communities? 00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:10.000 You know what's the impact? Who's going to benefit from that, from that type of activity? 00:37:11.000 --> 00:37:16.000 And so here you have these native communities and I haven't said it 00:37:16.000 --> 00:37:21.000 and you hear a lot about this in climate change discussions 00:37:21.000 --> 00:37:27.000 that the entities that cause climate change or the things that have caused climate change 00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:33.000 have disproportionate impacts on people affected by climate change. 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:38.000 So we can ignore the impacts of climate change in our daily life. 00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:44.000 We can go to the store, we could go buy whatever we want, we don't have to worry about where it came from, 00:37:44.000 --> 00:37:49.000 the impacts that it has, the availability, the accessibility, the pollution, all of that it doesn't matter. 00:37:49.000 --> 00:37:54.000 But any indigenous community across the world is suffering some sort of impact 00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:60.000 just by the consumption and the creation of these things that we take for granted. 00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:05.000 And they don't have the resources to protect themselves or even respond. 00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:13.000 And so that's what I'm looking at. I'm studying five climate change adaption plans from five different tribes. 00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:16.000 Three are in Alaska and two are in the Pacific Northwest. 00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:21.000 And I'm specifically looking for the barriers to implementing the plans. 00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:24.000 And so far what I've found is funding. 00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:29.000 So like I said who wants to fund a project that's going to benefit 200, 500 people? 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:38.000 And if you have to relocate 30 communities just in Alaska 00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:44.000 that's multimillions and into the billions of dollars. 00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:49.000 Where is that revenue coming from? How is that going to be generated? Where is that funding going to come from? 00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:56.000 And then how will those communities sustain themselves and is it right to ask those communities to move? 00:38:56.000 --> 00:38:63.000 And that's one thing, you know just like with my grandma and my grandpa moving into Nome to put their kids into school. 00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:07.000 Was that right? Should that continue? 00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:14.000 Those are big issues. Not related to barriers to implementing the climate change plans. 00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:22.000 But it's funding. Funding, the non-climate stressors, the requirement to network. 00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:29.000 And then it depends on the types of actions. So one of the options for these communities is called defend in place. 00:39:29.000 --> 00:39:36.000 So they're going to stay where they're at and they're going to do everything they can to alter nature to protect their environment. 00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:43.000 And so going back to arctic history and the Reorganization Act and exploration into the Arctic 00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:52.000 there were Western explorers who got into these environments and they didn't have the supplies or the knowledge they needed to survive. 00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:56.000 And so it was the indigenous people that rescued them, 00:39:56.000 --> 00:39:62.000 clothed them, fed them, kept them alive until they could be reunited. 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:05.000 Or put on the next ship. 00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:11.000 And so Sheldon Jackson was the education general for Alaska, 00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:17.000 Oregon, Washington, and I think Idaho in the late 1800s. 00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:25.000 Sheldon Jackson. And so by his account the natives were starving. 00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:30.000 But what was really happening was that there were more explorers up there and they were starving. 00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:38.000 And they didn't like the seal meat. They didn't like the whale meat. They didn't like the fermented seal flipper or whatever was available. 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:45.000 And so he found a way to get the United States government to contract with the Sami 00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:54.000 the indigenous reindeer herders of Northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland to come to the United States with their reindeer. 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:61.000 So they would bring their reindeer to Alaska and they would teach the natives how to herd. 00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:04.000 And reindeer are domesticated caribou. 00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:12.000 And they have reindeer in Russia but the story is that Sheldon Jackson did not like the way that they did their husbandry. 00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:17.000 So he abandoned the Russians coming over with their reindeer and preferred the Sami. 00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:23.000 And so the Sami came with the reindeer and Western capitalism took over. 00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:25.000 The white people were owning the reindeer. 00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:31.000 And they were competing with the beef market and so the US government had to intervene 00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:34.000 because the reindeer were becoming the new beef. 00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:41.000 And so the federal law was that no non-natives could own reindeer. 00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:50.000 And what happened is these nomadic reindeer herders from Norway, Sweden, and Finland had Western appearances. 00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:53.000 So they became displaced. They lost their herds. 00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:57.000 In lieu of this training and bringing their reindeer they were promised their own herd. 00:41:57.000 --> 00:41:65.000 So they were supposed to be able to sustain themselves. So they became a displaced population by those regulations. 00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:12.000 And so some people continued with the reindeer herding but it's just very difficult. 00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:16.000 It's not an indigenous activity to herd the animals. 00:42:16.000 --> 00:42:20.000 It's more natural to go with the natural cycles. 00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:25.000 And then that's another significance of climate change is those natural cycles are so unpredictable. 00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.000 We used to like to say how my uncle got electricity. 00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:32.000 It used to be last year. Now it's been six years. 00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:39.000 But imagine just six years ago getting electricity in your house, and still not having running water. 00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:49.000 If that's an essential why are there communities in America that don't have that basic infrastructure? 00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:55.000 Why are there barriers to getting that infrastructure? 00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:60.000 And that reminds me another big impact a huge climate change impact 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:08.000 and it's related to the disproportionate impacts that climate change has on indigenous people, is the health impacts. 00:43:08.000 --> 00:43:14.000 So there's just a tremendous amount of health impacts that are happening 00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:19.000 physically and emotionally and all of that with climate change. 00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:30.000 Can you imagine hearing oh yes you need that. Or like you need oil to heat your house, 00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.000 OK we're going to do everything to get it for you but you're going to have to pay eight dollars a gallon. 00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:40.000 Where maybe your median income was 20,000 dollars maybe 18,000 dollars. 00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:49.000 So imagine needing something like that, and not being in control of even the prices. 00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:53.000 You all are amazing. You're very attentive and I appreciate that. 00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:56.000 applause