Series by Ernesto Paglia shows climate crisis in the Arctic – 01/03/2024 – Environment

Journalist Ernesto Paglia, 64, was walking through the small village of Qaanaaq, in Greenland, when he heard noises very characteristic of Brazilians’ favorite sport. He was intrigued because the temperature there could reach -35°C in spring, as he himself felt on his first trip to the site in 1995.

When he saw boys aged 10 to 14 playing football on the ice, he discovered, together with cameraman Marco Antônio Gonçalves, that the popularity of the sport in Danish territory came from the previous year, with Brazil’s fourth World Cup title.

“When we put the camera to film, they asked where we were from. When we said ‘we’re from Brazil’, they started shouting ‘Bebeto’, ‘Romário’ and even ‘Maradona'”, recalls the journalist.

Football below 0°C wasn’t the only thing that caught his attention, as he traveled 400 km over the ice to follow a hunt for Inuit, a people who have lived in the region for 1,200 years and whose culture is threatened by climate change.

The 1995 visit was followed by another, in 2007, in which it would not be possible to repeat the trip, due to the melting of ice in the Arctic. Last year, when Ernesto returned with the same team to the location for a third report, the region would have its hottest summer — between July and September — on record.

The records of these changes and the signals they give to the world arrive this Thursday (4) on the Globoplay platform, in the premiere of the documentary series “3x Arctic – The Ice Alert”.

While the first report had an adventurous feel, to show how a group of people live surrounded by ice all year round, the other two focused on the crisis caused by global warming, evident in the region due to the acceleration in melting and the increase in melting. accelerated

“In 1995 there was already awareness about the climate crisis, but it was less widespread than today. We had experienced Rio-92 and I remember a certain exhaustion of public opinion regarding the environment, there was a lot of talk about ecochatos.”

At the time, Paglia, accompanied by cameraman Gonçalves and Canadian biologist and guide Jim Allan, recorded the Inuit’s first spring hunt, after four months in the dark during the Greenland winter.

With dog sleds, the group traveled for 11 days over the frozen sea, with great risks at the slightest sign of breeze below 0°C. In April 2023, the trip lasted just one day, and covered 60 km, almost a quarter of the distance covered in 1995, because there was no longer any distance between the starting point, in the Qaanaaq region, and the seafront.

This change represents less sea ice, more rain and warmer temperatures on the Attic sea surface, as the water absorbs solar radiation and stores this energy, instead of reflecting it, as the ice sheet does.

“While the world discusses at COPs (UN climate conferences), such as the one in Dubai, ways to limit the planet’s average warming of 2°C, there the Inuit are already experiencing an average increase of 4°C to 5°C because of this phenomenon.”

That’s why, for the journalist, the Inuit are sentinels of climate change, warning of what’s ahead.

“What is being experienced today by Qaanaaq is what will hit our coast here, on our 8,500 km of coastline, tomorrow. That’s why I have said and repeat, the Inuit are, for us, as if they were the advanced trench of the climate.”

For a hunter interviewed in the series, the thaw shortens the distance between home and hunting. But the temporary advantage has had an effect on the way he has hunted, with doubts about the need to maintain a pack or even sleds.

With each passing year, the ice sheet that recovers during the winter becomes thinner. “You have, in the spring, a faster melting, a larger area of ​​dark sea,” says Paglia.

Added to this is the unpredictability of where the ice can crack with the churning of the water below, whether under a tent or under a sled. Or even in a remote area, but which may represent the separation of a group from the mainland.

That’s what almost happened in 2007, on Paglia’s second expedition to the Arctic. On the second night of the trip, an interpreter entered Ernesto’s tent and a cameraman and shouted that they needed to leave the place. “We had to collect equipment, take down the tent, gather filming equipment and fly out.”

The journalist dismisses any criticism about catastrophic predictions, and mentions that the climate crisis has already affected the way of life of Inuits in Canada. “It’s a people of 160 thousand people and few people keep packs and sleds pulled by dogs, because hunting doesn’t have the volume for it, it’s not justified. The hunter starts to do the math.”

Paglia recognizes the privilege of being able to budget and take a trip to the same Arctic region three times over 30 years, with Gonçalves and Allan, and says that it was exciting to see Qaanaaq again and the same people — one of the football boys in the Ice, now 40 years old, was the translator on the last visit.

“My feeling is that I have accomplished a mission. I hope it has an impact so that people realize that our presence on the planet depends on our ability to maintain the environment as it is, because the planet will survive. Dinosaurs lived for a long time and left” , says Paglia.