It’s been a while since we checked in with Shishmaref, the ancient Inuit village on a barrier island in the Chukchi Sea in arctic Alaska, the place that is steadily being eaten by the sea due to the ramifications of the Great Chinese Climate Hoax. It turns out that the folks in Shishmaref are having something of a rough autumn, as The Anchorage Daily News informs us.

"Major erosion is expected with this storm," the National Weather Service in Alaska said. The warning spells out specific threats to some villages, including Golovin and Unalakleet off the Bering Sea, and Kivalina and Shishmaref, perched on barrier islands in the Chukchi Sea. Rick Thoman, climate science and services manager for the agency, last week said storms that were once run-of-the-mill are increasingly dangerous in Western Alaska. With ocean temperatures well above normal, coastal sea ice no longer shields the coast as it once did this time of year, he said. Without the sea ice, wave action is stronger. The coastal flood warnings and advisories, posted on the agency's Facebook page, are in effect starting 3 p.m. Tuesday and lasting until 6 p.m. Wednesday. They generally extend from the Yukon River mouth to Point Hope in the north. The biggest surge is expected south of the Bering Strait, with sea levels expected to rise up to 12 feet above the high-tide line. But surges will also be strong in the Chukchi Sea to the north, with winds ranging from 35 to 55 mph.

Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the first damaging storm this month.

A storm and flooding a little more than a week ago severely damaged a road to the landfill in Shishmaref, prompting the village to seek a state disaster declaration. And a late-September storm surge damaged roads and other property in Utqiagvik, formerly Barrow, causing costly damage and leading to a state disaster declaration there last week.

There always have been severe storms in this area. The Chukchi Sea is where Pacific typhoons have always gone to die, and storms originating in the area can be almost as bad. Back before the Great Chinese Climate Hoax, these storms would pound themselves to death on the thick ice pack that was strong enough to resist them no later than the beginning of October. The land was relatively safe from erosion because of the strength of the permafrost. But, because of the Great Chinese Climate Hoax, the ice forms later in the year, and thinner, and the storms strengthen themselves before making landfall. Because the permafrost is disappearing, great chunks of places like Kivalina and Shishmaref gets pulled out to sea. I spent a week there a few years back. These are good people. They deserve better than to lose everything to a talking point, and on behalf of someone else’s profits.

In related developments, the Senate is poised to allow drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge and, up north, the premier of Alberta is knuckling Justin Trudeau to stick up more strongly for pipelines. Someone should invent a time machine so future generations can get together and lodge a massive class action suit against everyone who’s alive today.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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