Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point [Hardcover]

Subhankar Banerjee (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 3, 2012

"One of the great strengths of Arctic Voices is that it shows how Alaska and the Arctic are tied to the places where most of us live. In this impassioned book, Banerjee shows a situation so serious that it has created a movement, where “voices of resistance are gathering, are getting louder and louder.” May his heartfelt efforts magnify them. The climate changes that are coming have hit soon and hard in the Arctic, and their consequences may be starkest there."—Ian Frazier, The New York Review

A pristine environment of ecological richness and biodiversity. Home to generations of indigenous people for thousands of years. The location of vast quantities of oil, natural gas and coal. Largely uninhabited and long at the margins of global affairs, in the last decade Arctic Alaska has quickly become the most contested land in recent US history. 

World-renowned photographer, writer, and activist Subhankar Banerjee brings together first-person narratives from more than thirty prominent activists, writers, and researchers who address issues of climate change, resource war, and human rights with stunning urgency and groundbreaking research. From Gwich'in activist Sarah James's impassioned appeal, "We Are the Ones Who Have Everything to Lose," during the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009 to an original piece by acclaimed historian Dan O'Neill about his recent trips to the Yukon Flats fish camps, Arctic Voices is a window into a remarkable region.

Other contributors include Seth Kantner, Velma Wallis, Nick Jans, Debbie Miller, Andri Snaer Magnason, George Schaller, George Archibald, Cindy Shogan, and Peter Matthiessen.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Earth and her beings have been speaking. But we failed to listen. Arctic Voices compels us to listen. We will stay deaf at our peril."
—Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya and author of Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development

"A marvelous work, a marvelous land—hear the voices that call us to save these jewels of our planet."
—James E. Hansen, director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and author of Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity

"One of the great strengths of Arctic Voices is that it shows how Alaska and the Arctic are tied to the places where most of us live. In this impassioned book, Banerjee shows a situation so serious that it has created a movement, where “voices of resistance are gathering, are getting louder and louder.” May his heartfelt efforts magnify them."
—Ian Frazier, The New York Review  

“Part of our failure to recognise the dangers at stake is that the Arctic still tends to be perceived as a big barren desert of ice, apolitical and disconnected from our political concerns, up for grabs. The book Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point offers an encyclopedic approach to reframe such understandings.”
—Manuela Picq, Al Jazeera 

“Their reverence for, and connection to, the earth—its animals, water, mountains and land—is beautifully described in Arctic Voices, and each essay is as much a prayer as a call to activism.”
—Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout  
 
 "Just in time, then, comes Banerjee's latest volume, Arctic Voices, a wakeup call from 39 artists, writers, biologists, Alaska Natives and activists [...] the eyewitness accounts and reports in Arctic Voices question the wisdom of relying on fossil fuel fixes, urging restraint in our approach to the nation's last great wilderness area."
—Michael Engelhard, High Country News

"Right from the beginning I’m emotionally connected with this book [...]"
—The Environmental Blog

About the Author

Over the past decade SUBHANKAR BANERJEE has been a leading international voice on issues of arctic conservation, indigenous human rights, resource development, and climate change. In 2003 he published Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a photo book of his fourteen-month long journey in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Through a Lannan Foundation grant, 10,000 copies of the book were donated to libraries and policy makers across the country. In 2010 Banerjee founded www.climatestorytellers.org and in 2011 he was appointed Director's Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton Unversity.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 560 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press; First Edition edition (July 3, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 160980385X
• ISBN-13: 978-1609803858
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.7 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #318,620 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > History > Arctic & Antarctica

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Ice, Oil, and Activism: a Call for Environmental Justice in the Far North September 4, 2012

By Reinhard Hennig

Format:Hardcover

While I am writing these words, Shell is preparing to drill for oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas near the coast of Arctic Alaska. Gazprom has an offshore oil rig already in place in the Pechora Sea. Few days ago, Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil announced that they plan to drill on a large scale in the Barents Sea from next year on. All of this is done despite the known fact that even if we only burn the already discovered oil reserves, the aim of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius can never be reached; that it simply is not possible to recover oil from a spill in the harsh weather conditions of the Arctic; and that both ecosystems and people in the far North are under immense pressure already now: Climate change is proceeding twice as fast there as elsewhere. This summer, Arctic sea ice was at a record low, causing troubles not only for animals such as polar bears and seals, but also for traditional hunters, who depend very much on the ice. Less sea ice, thawing permafrost soils and more extreme weather also mean increased erosion, which - together with rising sea levels - threatens many coastal communities in the Arctic.
Arctic Voices, edited by Indian-born American writer, photographer and activist Subhankar Banerjee, is therefore an urgently needed book. The more than 30 different contributions and a large number of (partly coloured) photographs impressively clarify what is happening in the Arctic at the moment. These texts, written by scientists, anthropologists, writers, members of indigenous communities, and activists, limit themselves however not to lamenting the described disquieting developments. They also demonstrate that resistance exists, and that it, despite many throwbacks, often can be successfull. While most of the contributions were written specifically for Arctic Voices, some are extracts from other books, such as Marla Cone's Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic (2005). It addresses the paradoxical fact that people and mammals such as polar bears and whales in the Arctic, despite living far removed from most sources of chemical pollution, suffer the world's highest contamination through mercury, PCBs, and pesticides such as DDT. Arctic Voices is thus not least a plea for environmental justice: It is not the inhabitants of the Arctic who are responsible for global warming and pollution, but they are among those who suffer the greatest losses.
The volume represents a broad scope of different voices, and definitely manages to inspire both further reading and action. One disadvantage is, however, that most contributions only deal with Arctic Alaska, although the described problematic developments are common in the entire Arctic. There is one article on Iceland, and another one on Siberia, but what about Greenland, Norway, and Canada? Despite this unnecessary self-restriction, Arctic Voices can be highly recommended for everyone interested in nature, culture, and resistance in the far North.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark at first but worth the effort February 13, 2013

By Michael W. Konrad

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

As indicated by the title, this book is a collection of different stories by various authors describing history of the Arctic from hundreds of years ago to the present. The beginning of this book is so depressing that you may want to just give up. The indigenous people of the Arctic have been treated badly in the past and now they have to try and live through global warming and oil exploration. The facts aren't always nice, but they are the facts. As the book progresses it lightens up a little so you can keep on to the end. It's well worth it, for you get a real feeling of the Arctic.