Polar Shift addresses how to sustain the Arctic's richness, beauty, and local and global value. It describes programs specifically created to protect this region: the great inventory of law, policy, and civil society activity targeting sustainability of the region. It presents the Arctic and its present environmental health, very broadly understood, and competing ideas of how it can be maintained or improved with specific recommendations. This is a book about the Arctic's past and how it was envisioned, about its environment, its people, and their cultures. Polar Shift describes how the changing of the Arctic matters and to whom. It discusses what is being done to address threats to the Arctic's environment, and describes an inventory of tools available to sustain the Arctic and its people.