For the past week, The Anchorage Daily News has been publishing excerpts of The Whale and the Supercomputer : On the Northern Front of Climate Change, a book on the differing views of scientists and Alaska Natives on climate change in the Arctic.

Author Charles Wohlforth details how scientists at first were skeptical of the Native approach to the environment. A key example was scientific opposition to the bowhead hunt. Native whalers insisted the numbers of bowhead were higher than the official count. Only through cooperation, and time, did the scientists realize they were wrong.

"They were right," researcher Craig George says in the book. "They were right about all these things."

Long before climate change was even on the radar of scientists, Alaska Natives noted differences in their environment. They have watched temperatures in the Arctic rise, which in turn affects their subsistence lifestyle.

Get the Story:
Part One: The Whale and the Supercomputer (The Anchorage Daily News 4/27)
Part Two: Whalers take on world's scientists to save their culture (The Anchorage Daily News 4/26)
Part Three: An elder speaks (The Anchorage Daily News 4/25)
Part Four: Eskimos bear Witness to changing climate in the Arctic (The Anchorage Daily News 4/28)
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Relevant Links:
Charles Wohlforth - http://www.wohlforth.net