Kivalina, Alaska

The tiny Native village is on the front line of climate change. It is home to 300 Inuits on a gravel bar along the Chuckchi Sea which is just a couple of hundred yards wide. The village leaders are suing global oil companies for the cost of moving their homes to higher ground. Each year, storms that reach their spit of land take more and more ground away. The village used to be protected by sea ice, but the ice comes in later and leaves earlier. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has implemented a faint solution: huge bags of sand and gravel which are already failing. Faced with catastrophic change, Kivalinans try to maintain their traditional way of life.