Climate Change Scientists Turn to Inuits for Research
Native people have long lived in harmony with nature, following the patterns of the weather for centuries. Now, science is listening. Scientific American reports that climatologists at the University of Colorado used information from two Canadian Inuit communities and scientific data in a recent study on shifting weather patterns. Scientists tracking weather for more than…
Native people have long lived in harmony with nature, following the patterns of the weather for centuries. Now, science is listening. Scientific American reports that climatologists at the University of Colorado used information from two Canadian Inuit communities and scientific data in a recent study on shifting weather patterns.
Scientists tracking weather for more than a decade recognized that native insight might eclipse the latest weather satellites and computer models. Elizabeth Weatherhead is an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado and lead author for this study. As she told Scientific American, “This is not the first scientific paper on Inuit knowledge. But it is the first paper linking that Inuit knowledge to more scientific approaches.”
And what have they found? The scientists looked at how much weather changes from one day to the next, and how long a weather pattern lasts. The Inuits, located in and near the Arctic, explained to Weatherhead and co-author Shari Gearheard that there are unexplained changes in weather patterns. The natural time scale to a weather event is becoming more erratic. In other words, it could be cold one day and warm the next—as opposed to usual three weeks of warm weather. Canadian Inuit tribes have noticed that their traditional forecasting measures are becoming less accurate. Inuits believe this is because the weather has become erratic.
Mead Treadwell is the chairman of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, and he says this report justifies new interest in indigenous observations about our world. As he told Scientific American, “If you lose the language that people have been speaking for 10,000 years as it has evolved, you lose a huge amount of information that is built up in the language … If something is named ‘a place where the caribou mate,’ that tells you the caribou were once there if they are not there now.” After all, a popular (though disputed) saying goes that Inuits have several words for snow. Why should science not pay attention?
This is not the first time scientists have turned to native people for information. According to Treadwell, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration twice changed its report of the Arctic’s bowhead whale population based on a report from indigenous people that revealed more whales than what was counted by the government.
Katherine Butler, a regular contributor to the Mother Nature Network, writes from Los Angeles.
Reddit user Girlfriendhatesmefor’s three-year-old pitbull, Otis, had recently become overprotective of his wife. So he asked the online community if they knew what might be wrong with the dog.
“A week or two ago, my wife got some sort of stomach bug,” the Reddit user wrote under the subreddit /r/dogs. “She was really nauseous and ill for about a week. Otis is very in tune with her emotions (we once got in a fight and she was upset, I swear he was staring daggers at me lol) and during this time didn’t even want to leave her to go on walks. We thought it was adorable!”
His wife soon felt better, butthe dog’s behavior didn’t change.
Girlfriendhatesmefor began to fear that Otis’ behavior may be an early sign of an aggression issue or an indication that the dog was hurt or sick.
So he threw a question out to fellow Reddit users: “Has anyone else’s dog suddenly developed attachment/aggression issues? Any and all advice appreciated, even if it’s that we’re being paranoid!”
The most popular response to his thread was by ZZBC.
Any chance your wife is pregnant?
ZZBC | Reddit
The potential news hit Girlfriendhatesmefor like a ton of bricks. A few days later, Girlfriendhatesmefor posted an update and ZZBC was right!
“The wifey is pregnant!” the father-to-be wrote. “Otis is still being overprotective but it all makes sense now! Thanks for all the advice and kind words! Sorry for the delayed reply, I didn’t check back until just now!”
Redditors responded with similar experiences.
Anecdotal I know but I swear my dog knew I was pregnant before I was. He was super clingy (more than normal) and was always resting his head on my belly.
realityisworse | Reddit
So why do dogs get overprotective when someone is pregnant?
Jeff Werber, PhD, president and chief veterinarian of the Century Veterinary Group in Los Angeles, told Health.com that “dogs can also smell the hormonal changes going on in a woman’s body at that time.” He added the dog may “not understand that this new scent of your skin and breath is caused by a developing baby, but they will know that something is different with you—which might cause them to be more curious or attentive.”
The big lesson here is to listen to your pets and to ask questions when their behavior abruptly changes. They may be trying to tell you something, and the news may be life-changing.
Throughout history, women have stood up and fought to break down barriers imposed on them from stereotypes and societal expectations. The trailblazers in these photos made history and redefined what a woman could be. In doing so, they paved the way for future generations to stand up and continue to fight for equality.
While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a shooter kills at least four other people.
When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target.
