Climate change impacts, adaptation, and the technology interface - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 124

• Mechanical high-efficiency snowmobiles - this industrial innovation has

been integrated into remote Aboriginal communities with many posi-
tive consequences. In fact, it has been adapted to serve many aspects of
traditional culture. The downside is its cost, thus making the hunting/
trapping economy more expensive.

• Access to global electronic media - here the effects are equivocal. Loss of

native language and traditional knowledge, intrusion of the highly com-
mercial youth 'culture' and the stimulation to participate in the 'trend
economy' are all often classed as deleterious. However, access to infor-
mation about other isolated communities can lead to the formation of
economic development partnerships with beneficial consequences to all
parties.

Inuktitut and other regional languages may in fact be assisted by some forms
of Western technology. For example, Microsoft Windows was available in
Inuktitut in 2006 and now 96 languages are represented in Microsoft's lan-
guage portal. Inuktitut Windows is part of Microsoft's new Local Language
Program. It allows users to localize both Windows XP and Office 2010 to a
specific language interface through a Language Interface Pack (LIP), that may
be downloaded free of charge.

Applied technology: three case examples
We should tackle the issue of assessing technological impact on a case-
by-case base, interpreting the results with regard to the community's own
value-response schemas as well as to external non-northern standards. Such an
approach does call for an expenditure of human and financial resources, but
the results could be the basis of a strategy for enabling remote communities to
minimize the negative consequences and amplify the positive ones. There are
many case study areas of interest to engineering in the push for sustainability.
Three such areas of applied technology are discussed below.

Distributed energy in the North
One suggestion is to address the problem of high cost and lack of reliability
of electricity in northern Aboriginal communities, which often receive their
power from small diesel-powered generators or find themselves at the end of
a long transmission line having unacceptable losses in both voltage and reli-
ability. One step towards this goal is exemplified by the Aboriginal Forum
that took place in Vancouver, BC, 31 May-1 June 2004, entitled 'Beyond
Oil and Gas: Developing Alternative Resources on Aboriginal Traditional
Lands'. Small community-based co-generation industries for the co-produc-
tion of thermal energy and electrical power generation can be designed and
operated based upon forest biomass or the residues of other forest industries