Eroding Alaska town sues oil, power companies

[IDemo]

Official: ‘We are seeing accelerated erosion because of the loss of sea ice’

AP-updated 7:26 a.m. MT, Wed., Feb. 27, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A tiny Alaska village eroding into the Arctic Ocean sued two dozen oil, power and coal companies, claiming that the large amounts of greenhouse gases they emit contribute to global warming that threatens the community's existence.

The city of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, sued Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC, seven other oil companies, 14 power companies and one coal company in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in San Francisco.

Kivalina is a traditional Inupiat Eskimo village of about 390 people about 625 miles northwest of Anchorage. It is built on an 8-mile barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and Kivalina River.

Sea ice traditionally protected the community, whose economy is based in part on salmon fishing plus subsistence hunting of whale, seal, walrus, and caribou. But sea ice that forms later and melts sooner because of higher temperatures has left the community unprotected from fall and winter storm waves and surges that lash coastal communities.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23367934/

[LSparkle]

1. Good luck -- Exxon Mobil still hasn't paid up for the Valdez disaster

and that's been almost 20 years ago ... According to Greg Palast, Exxon's tactic is to wait until all the plaintiffs have passed away so they can avoid paying out any of their precious profits to atone for the damage they've done. Sickening.

[zbdent]

2. somebody's not going to get their annual check from the oil companies ...