Sheila Watt-Cloutier receives Sophie Prize in Oslo

SIKU CIRCUMPOLAR NEWS SERVICE

Last Wednesday, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, collected the $100,000 U.S. Sophie Prize in Oslo, Norway.

The prize is named after Sophie’s World, a teenagers’ guide to philosophy that was a 1990s bestseller written by Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder.

Watt-Cloutier said she would use the prize to help write a book about Inuit called The Right to be Cold.

While in Oslo, Watt-Cloutier said ICC is moving ahead with its planned petition to the 34-member Organization of American States, which represents 34 nations in the Americas, from Chile to Canada.

The petition is seen as a way to put pressure on the United States to do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions.