Arctic Voices

Resistance at the Tipping Point

by Subhankar Banerjee

Edited by Subhankar Banerjee

A pristine environment of ecological richness and biodiversity. Home to generations of indigenous people for thousands of years. The location of vast quantities of oil, natural gas, and coal. Largely uninhabited and long at the margins of global affairs, in the last decade Arctic Alaska has quickly become the most contested land in recent US history.

World-renowned photographer, writer, and activist Subhankar Banerjee brings together first-person narratives from more than thirty prominent activists, writers, and researchers who address issues of climate change, resource war, and human rights with stunning urgency and groundbreaking research. From Gwich'in activist Sarah James's impassioned appeal, "We Are the Ones Who Have Everything to Lose," during the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2009, to an original piece by acclaimed historian Dan O'Neill about his recent trips to the Yukon River fish camps, Arctic Voices is a window into a remarkable region. Other contributors include Seth Kantner, Velma Wallis, Nick Jans, Pamela A. Miller, Andri Snaer Magnason, Robert Thompson, George Schaller, George Archibald, Cindy Shogan, Marla Cone, Maria Williams, Jeff Fair, Peter Matthiessen, Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, and Nancy Lord.

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Paperback

$16.76

$23.95

Publish Date: 2013-10-22

ISBN: 9781609804961

Pages: 576

Ebook

$14.37

$23.95

Publish Date: 2012-07-03

ISBN: 9781609803865

Pages: 0

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Hardback

Publish Date: 2012-07-03

ISBN: 9781609803858

Pages: 560

“One of the great strengths of Arctic Voices is that it shows how Alaska and the Arctic are tied to the places where most of us live. In this impassioned book, Banerjee shows a situation so serious that it has created a movement, where 'voices of resistance are gathering, are getting louder and louder.' May his heartfelt efforts magnify them. The climate changes that are coming have hit soon and hard in the Arctic, and their consequences may be starkest there.”

– Ian Frazier, New York Review of Books

“The Earth and her beings have been speaking. But we failed to listen. Arctic Voices compels us to listen. We will stay deaf at our peril.”

– Vandana Shiva, author of Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development

“A marvelous work, a marvelous land—hear the voices that call us to save these jewels of our planet.”

– James E. Hansen, author of Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity

“Part of our failure to recognize the dangers at stake is that the Arctic still tends to be perceived as a big barren desert of ice, apolitical and disconnected from our political concerns, up for grabs. The book Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point offers an encyclopedic approach to reframe such understandings.”

– Manuela Picq, Al Jazeera

“Their reverence for, and connection to, the earth—its animals, water, mountains and land—is beautifully described in Arctic Voices, and each essay is as much a prayer as a call to activism.”

– Eleanor J. Bader, Truthout

Over the past decade Subhankar Banerjee has been a leading international voice on issues of arctic conservation, indigenous human rights, resource development, and climate change. In 2003 he published Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a photo book of his fourteen-month long journey in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Through a Lannan Foundation grant, 10,000 copies of the book were donated to libraries and policy makers across the country. He is also editor of Arctic Voices: Resistance at the Tipping Point and was recently Director’s Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Fordham University in New York. He has received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from New Mexico State University and a Cultural Freedom Award from Lannan Foundation. Banerjee lives in New York City.