There was a story it today’s L.A. Times: An Alaskan island is losing ground. The small island of Kivalina has been shrinking for a long time — an 1838 explorer’s account said the island was about 3 times wider than it is now, but it is now being pointed at as the canary in the coal mine for evidence of global warming. The natural erosion has been going on for some time, but global warming appears to be accelerating the pace. What may be more telling than the vanishing shoreline is that the surrounding permafrost is fast melting. One resident discovered that his caribou and seal meat had rotted while in his cold cellar — a deep hole in the ground where meat is aged over the summer. The surrounding permafrost had melted and filled the pit with water.

Faced with the constant erosion of the protective seawall and the danger inherent with any coming storm, one resident stated “we’ve got to get off the island. It’s obvious.”