Inuits Transformed by Global Warming

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 5:00 a.m. ET

MONTREAL (AP)-- While Canada's isolated northern aboriginals are not sitting at the same table as the 180 nations attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference, they have a front-row seat to the chilling effects of global warming.

From eroding shorelines, to thinning ice and loss of hunting and polar bears, Canadian Inuits of the Arctic north have seen rising temperatures transforming their lives.

''Environmental changes of all kinds are coming at a rate and to an extent that may exceed the threshold of Arctic peoples capacity to respond,'' states a report released Friday on the sidelines of the conference that is reviewing and expanding on the Kyoto Protocol, which places greenhouse gas emissions caps on industrialized nations.