Informant38

The US Army Corps of Engineers says the cost of moving will be at least $100m (�70m). Residents hope the government will pay, although state and federal officials say no relocation fund exists.

And it is an upheaval many Americans might face in coming decades. In June, the Bush administration submitted a report to the UN acknowledging for the first time that climate change is real and unavoidable. In Alaska, signs of warming are everywhere. Sea ice volume has declined 15 per cent and thinned from 10ft to 6ft in places. When ice disappears, so do the staple foods � whale, walrus, seal and waterfowl, even polar bear. Glaciers are retreating by 15 per cent and losing half their thickness every decade. Alaskan meltwater accounts for half of the worldwide sea level rise of 7.8in (19.8cm) in the past 100 years.