DEVELOPING A LEGITIMATE CARBON TRADING PROGRAM

Stephen M. Sachs, IUPUI, “Developing a Legitimate Carbon Trading Program To Appropriately Abate Global Warming”

Carbon Trading, as an approach to global warming, is a controversial issue. It involves setting permissible levels of carbon emissions and requiring those who wish to emit carbon to have permits to do so, which can be traded – or sold – so that an entity wishing to emit carbon into the atmosphere can purchase permits to do so from other carbon emitters, or obtain them, as offsets, in return for acting to take carbon dioxide out of the air, such as by planting trees or other plants that transform CO2 into oxygen and carbon, or protecting existing forests or other carbon reducing plants, or by supporting other means for taking carbon out of the air.

In my view, there are two aspects to of Carbon Trading and offsetting that need to be considered in making policy about them. Supporters argue that this can be an effective method for reducing carbon pollution. By providing incentives for compliance, which in cases of offsetting, may have additional positive benefits, such as protecting rain forests (including providing incentives for protecting them – which in some cases may be necessary for insuring their preservation). Objectors point out, that carbon trading and offsetting do not directly reduce carbon emissions, as they allow those who purchase carbon credits to continue their pollution. Moreover, they correctly point out that some of the organizations, such as the World Bank, who run and favor such programs, have very bad records of promoting the increase of carbon pollution, and have fostered development in forests which both reduces their carbon absorbing capacity and often is destructive of the rights and lives of Indigenous people.1

Both views need to be taken into account in deciding what to do about carbon trading and offsetting. As Osborne and Gaebler have pointed out,2 there are limits to how much regulation can be achieved by simply ordering compliance. Providing incentives, such as in pollution credit trading, can increase compliance, while reducing the costs of regulation, as has been illustrated with controlling pollution a in a number of cases, particularly in limiting acid rain causing pollution in U.S. power plants in the 1970s.3 Moreover, offsetting can produce desirable results, in itself, such as preserving rainforests and encouraging development of appropriate carbon absorbing technologies. Similarly, carbon trading can result in reduction of C02 in the atmosphere if it operates so that for you to continue operating you carbon polluting power plant at its current level, you have to pay me to close my coal powered plant, and replace it with a wind farm. The key is to operate such programs, legitimately and appropriately, by people who are trustworthy (and many would not consider the World Bank to be so), so that carbon pollution is actually sufficiently reduced, with the achievement of other desired benefits at a sufficient level, while keeping negative side effects (any action has at least some negative and some positive effects) within acceptable parameters, an indeed, enhancing, rather than destroying the rights and well being if Indigenous peoples.

An appropriate carbon trading and offsetting program, as part of a broader carbon emissions reduction policy, would require a number of elements, including the following: 1) The regulating/administering body or bodies must function to assure they are trustworthy, have adequate information – and ability to collect information - (both for determining regulation and enforcement/application of policy) to operate effectively, and to have the power (with a fair adjudication-appeals process) to enforce/carry out policy.

2) The levels of total carbon pollution permitted – and the amount of carbon pollution credits given each and any entity – would have to be appropriate. Since time will be required to make the carbon reduction without undo cost, the allowable levels will need to be reduced over time. In calculating the appropriate levels, it must be realized that the need for reduction is so high that appropriate reductions cannot be achieved without significant cost – and there must be a willingness to pay them, as investments, to avoid later catastrophic costs.

3) It must be insured that the trading – offsetting is real, and only continues in the program so long as the actual trade or offset actually functions in practice. For example, if a tribe and nation are paid to preserve or expand a forest, the offset remains in effect only so long as the forest continues to exist (or expand) at the transaction level. If that forest is reduced below that level (or fails to grow at the transaction rate), for whatever reason, the offset credit must simultaneously be reduced at the same rate (and similarly the measuring involved must be accurate, with no double counting – for example a new tree grown as an offset can only count once, and not used in another offset as well). This should create a pressure for leaving forests undeveloped, and help stop mining, lumbering, farming and other activities within them, which would reduce their carbon absorbing capacity.

4) There must be fairness in who receives the benefits of carbon trading and offsetting. For example, if a forest in a carbon trade is in the territory of an Indigenous people, they should receive the benefit of the offset, which if it were in monetary terms, would have a secondary benefit for the country their territory is in. If in the Indigenous people concerned’s view, the nation’s action is needed to assist in protecting or expanding the forest – or if some incentive is needed to insure the national (or sub-national) government’s appropriate action – a reasonable and small portion of the benefit received might go to the state.

5) As in any trading arrangement, nothing should be done without the consent of the parties involved. For example, if the trade or offset involves Indigenous territory, that Indigenous people must be a full partner in the negotiation. Moreover, where the forest concerned is in the land of an Indigenous people, the arrangements for management and control of the forest must rest with those people. If they need assistance, they can contract for it, if necessary using a portion of the payment they receive for the offset.

6) As in any other program – especially one involving the environment – since everything is connected (but each location is different), a carbon trading and offsetting program must be set up and operated on the basis of properly and carefully considering the full range of relations that are involved, and taking into account the full range of impacts of the functioning of the program, making appropriate adjustments for new developments and new information obtained, over time – especially as not all conditions and impacts can be foreseen). One set of those relationships involves the people concerned. Where Indigenous people are involved, the arrangements of such programs must enhance their rights and welfare, and not diminish them.

7) Carbon trading and offsetting can only be one part of a much larger greenhouse gas reduction effort. To begin with, there simply are not enough available offsets to meet the need. Much more has to be done, and rapidly accomplished, to meet the great need for lowering the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, while minimizing negative side effects. Public regulation, and public and private investment are needed in reducing emissions with existing technology (e.g. higher efficiency standards, substituting green technology for polluting technology, expanding efficient public transportation, and encouraging less energy using and polluting life styles and actions), and in developing and applying new appropriate technologies.
It is important to note that, in its three years of operation, the European Union carbon trading system has experienced major difficulties because it has not met all of these standards, resulting in a rise in the levels of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, instead of a reduction.4 Reports indicate that this occurred because two many carbon trading permits were allocated (violating the second requirement for a valid system) at the beginning, and then further increased, as a result of national governments – who had the responsibility for issuing permits within their jurisdiction – succumbing to lobbying by industries (violating the first requirement). EU regulators are now attempting to overhaul the dysfunctional aspects of the market, reducing the number of permits and charging more for polluting. The EU is considering moving permit issuing from national governments to the EU, which it is hoped will be less susceptible to lobbying pressure from industry. Energy intensive industries are resisting the changes, as are some of the poorer EU nations who are concerned that reducing carbon emissions will undercut their economic development.

The EU carbon trading program is also under attack from environmentalists who object to EU – and other – atmospheric carbon emitters from using large numbers of permits from the UN offsetting program, which sends funds to developing countries, supposedly to reduce their airborne carbon output. Serious questions have been raised about the effectiveness of that program. Clearly, the UN offsetting system needs to be fixed, or shut down.

All perspectives in the debate over carbon trading and offsetting have important contributions to make in developing an appropriate trading-offset program that can play a positive role in a comprehensive climate change policy, if all the concerns and factors are properly taken into account, both at the beginning and as the policy unfolds. This includes wealthier nations and regions assisting poorer ones in fighting climate change and other environmental degradation. For Indigenous forest people, a proper carbon trading and offsetting program can increase their rights, assist in preventing imposed development in their territory, and enhance their welfare. It all depends how the program is established and operated, Clearly no trading and/or offsetting program should be allowed to operate that does not function properly, in terms of adequately reducing carbon emissions, avoiding creating other environmental degradation, fairly distributing costs and benefits, and respecting the rights and welfare of the people involved, including Native people.

FOOTNOTES

1. RED Declaration (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation) FYI, REDD means (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation), “Protecting the World's Forests Needs More Than Just Money,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XIX, No. 1, Spring 2008). See also the statements of Indigenous and Environmental groups on the proposed World Bank Carbon program in the same issue of IPJ in “Ongoing Activities: International Activities.”

2. David Osbourne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1992), Ch. 10.

3. For early examples see, Citizens Power, Vol. 18, No. 2, Fall 1992, published by Citizens Action Coalition, 3951 N. Meridian St., Suite 300 Indianapolis, IN 46208, which contains several articles on this topic. Osborne and Gaebler Reinventing Government, pp. 299-395 touches on this issue in environmental regulation and discusses some other incentive based approaches to environmental regulation.

4. James Kanter, “The Trouble with Markets for Carbon,” The New York Times, June 20, 2008, pp. C1 and C5. From 2005 to 2006, factories engaged in carbon trading in the EU increased their carbon emissions by .04%, and from 2006 t0 2007 by .07%. In Brittan, the energy intensive iron and steel sector over the three years increased CO2 pollution by more then 10%, while the cement industry raised carbon output by over 50%.

ONGOING ACTIVITIES AND RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

By Steve Sachs


Al Gore’s organization, Together We Can Solve the Climate Crisis, with almost 1.5 million members, and growing, has been working on action to overcome global warming and related environmental problems. For details go to: http://wecansolveit.org. OneSky was working this “to convince every Member of Congress that America is ready for bold climate solutions. The path to a prosperous and equitable new energy economy is clear -- we simply need our leaders to act.” Tor details go to: http://action.1sky.org/t/1981/signUp.jsp?key=261

Care2 (http://www.care2.com) is working to build the political will to do something about global warming, and has been running a campaign to tell the presidential candidates to be climate leaders. “After a decade of stalling, we need real leadership on climate change. To seriously address climate change and cut carbon emissions in line with the current science, we must create millions new green-collar jobs, prevent the construction of new dirty coal-fired power plants and establish a more secure, prosperous and vibrant America.” In early August, Care 2 was involved in a petition campaign urging President Bush “to take immediate action to end the genocide in Darfur, Sudan and the crimes against humanity in eastern Congo and northern Uganda. While there is no magic formula to end these crimes, I believe there is a strategic one. We can stop genocide and crimes against humanity now and in the future, through the "Three P's": Promoting Peace, Providing Protection, and Punishing the Perpetrators. The 3 P's for Sudan: * Promote a comprehensive peace process with high-level diplomacy. *Protect innocent civilians through the UN/AU peacekeeping force. *Provide information to the International Criminal Court and support multilateral targeted sanctions to punish the perpetrators. The 3 P's for eastern Congo: *Establish a permanent office in eastern Congo to ensure U.S. leadership in the peace process. *Support MONUC - the UN's peacekeeping force in Congo - in protecting the innocent civilians caught in the conflict. *Call for the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into rape as a war crime in eastern Congo to begin punishing those most responsible.”
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WORLD DEVELOPMENTS
Steve Sachs

Environmental Developments

Bill McKibben, “Civilization's last chance: The planet is nearing a tipping point on climate change, and it gets much worse, fast,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2008 (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-mckibben11-2008may11,0,4443965.story), reports, “A few weeks ago, NASA's chief climatologist, James Hansen, submitted a paper to Science magazine with several coauthors. The abstract attached to it argued -- and I have never read stronger language in a scientific paper -- that ‘if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.’ Hansen cites six irreversible tipping points -- massive sea level rise and huge changes in rainfall patterns, among them -- that we'll pass if we don't get back down to 350 soon; and the first of them, judging by last summer's insane melt of Arctic ice, may already be behind us. So it's a tough diagnosis. It's like the doctor telling you that your cholesterol is way too high and, if you don't bring it down right away, you're going to have a stroke. So you take the pill, you swear off the cheese, and, if you're lucky, you get back into the safety zone before the coronary. It's like watching the tachometer edge into the red zone and knowing that you need to take your foot off the gas before you hear that clunk up front. In this case, though, it's worse than that because we're not taking the pill and we are stomping on the gas -- hard. Instead of slowing down, we're pouring on the coal, quite literally. Two weeks ago came the news that atmospheric carbon dioxide had jumped 2.4 parts per million last year -- two decades ago, it was going up barely half that fast.” The one counter finding is that the Greenland Glacier is melting more slowly than recently reported. It has now been found that the huge run off of water from glogal warming caused melting ceases during the coldest months. However, the melting of glaciers in Antarctica appears to be releasing DDT, frozen into the ice prior to the ending of widespread DDT use in the 1970s, according to a study published in Ma.y by Heid Geisz in the Journal of Environmental Science. On the hopeful side, a study by M. Debora Iglasias-Rodrigez and Paul Halloran in the Journal of Science, in early April, found that the cocolithopore algae, a cornerstone of the ocean floor food chain, unlike many speceas, grow better in more acidic waters brought on by more carbon dioxide in the air. Like many species, warmer oceans are friendly to its growth. It is higher CO2 levels, not warming oceans, that are harmful to many ocean species.

CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENTAL DECAY, AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENTAL DECAY, AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE:

INDIGENIZING THE GREENING OF THE WORLD

Stephen M. Sachs
Professor Emeritus UPUI
ssachs@earthlink.net

Western Social Sciences Association Meeting
Denver, CO, April 23-26, 2008
Third+ Draft: 4/11/08

CLIMATE CHANGE, ENVIRONMENTAL DECAY, AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE:

INDIGENIZING THE GREENING OF THE WORLD


Stephen M. Sachs

I. The Broader Context Of Global Warming and Connected Climate Change for the Whole Earth & Each Place

The whole Earth, and, in its own way, each location on this planet is in the midst of a great change that is effecting everyone, though in many instances poor people, and especially Indigenous peoples are experiencing the negative aspects of the great change most directly. Global warming, and the immense climate change that it may bring – depending upon what all of us do, as well as on natural forces upon which human beings have already had a significant impact – is only part of the environmental changes that are occurring, which include the human consumption of many resources to the point of fully diminishing the practicality of their continued availability – including the extinction of huge numbers of species of plants and animals – and major economic, social and political transformations, as the whole web of relations on the Earth alters. Given the timing of unfolding events, and the fact that the old Mayan Calendar completes its cycle in 2012 (or there-about, depending on how one reads it), the Hopi prophesies may be correct, that we are completing the Fourth World, and about to commence entering the Fifth. Though as the Hopis say, the prophesy is not fixed. How it unfolds, what happens, in what way and to what degree, and when, depends upon the consciousness of each of us, and how we manifest that consciousness in action.1

Global warming and related climate change are part of a complex of interrelated developments now impacting the entire planet, and particularly Indigenous peoples, but with differing effects, depending on location.2 This is bringing huge changes in the interrelated system that comprises the world, and its myriad of interconnected subsystems, having not only physical aspects and effects, but also major economic, social and political consequences and aspects – that impact and interact with the whole of human, and indeed all, life on the Earth. The major interacting elements. The first of these, and the major focus of this paper, is global warming and other environmental degradation bringing climate change.

With the three reports of the UN Intergovernmental Commission on Climate Change, last year, it became clear (though not in much of mainstream Unites States mainstream media), that there is rare, close to unanimous scientific consensus, that global warming, and the climate change it is a major contributor to, are real, and that human activity, especially in increasing the amount of green house gasses in the atmosphere, is the primary cause. Among the numerous effects of global warming is a melting of ice caps and glaciers that is raising sea level. If this continues at the current rate, it would approach a two foot rise by 2100.

An expert panel of the U.S. National Research Council announced in March, in agreement with a similar recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency, found (available at nationalacadamies.org) that rising sea levels and other effects of global warming threaten roads, airports, rail lines and other important infrastructure, and that mitigating action needs to be commenced. The EPA report also noted that natural features near coastlines, such as wetlands, and water supplies are in danger of becoming contaminated by salt water, as oceans rise, and that costal erosion will increase (as has progressively been occurring in Brittan). The Miami Dade Climate Change Taskforce found that a two-foot ocean rise, which the UN Intergovernmental Task Force predicted by 2100 (and which recent findings of increased glacier melting indicated is likely to be exceeded well before then) “would make life in South Florida very difficult for everyone.” The multiagency draft report of the National Geological Survey, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of transportation (on line at: climatesciences.gov/library/sap/sap/4-1/public-review-draft), focusing on the area from Montauk Point, Long Island, NY to Cape lookout, NC, considered three estimates of ocean rise by next century, 16” (a rate which has already been exceeded), two feet (which is considered optimistic) and three feet. The daft report projects that with a rise of close to two feet, 70% of the property in area ports, such as Wilmington, DE, would be impacted. and would put at risk of inundation almost 2,200 miles of major roads, and 900 miles of railroad, in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The report stated that a three-foot ocean rise would be catastrophic for wetlands and other costal features, but that a number of recent reports have projected higher increases in ocean level by the next century.

But warming and melting are accelerating, so that the rise in ocean level could be much greater, and occur far faster. Moreover, recent studies show that glacier melting is not steady, but may increase suddenly, including causing huge sections of ice to fall into the oceans very quickly. At this time two massive glaciers are unstable, in Greenland, and in Antarctica. If either of them falls into the sea, it would raise sea levels 20 feet, If green house gas levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, accelerating already increasing warming, no one knows if that might happen in a few years or take decades, or longer. If all the glaciers melt, the oceans would raise almost 200 feet, and with warming expanding the water, eventually somewhat more than that. It is clear that even if of all the rise were over a long period, so people had time to move, millions of people would have to migrate.

Rapid melting of glaciers in mountains near large populations, and to a lesser degree of mountain snow packs, poses additional serious problems. The first is flooding from increased run off. The second, is that the water that millions of people around the world depend on to flow continually in warmer months (or year round in warmer climates) from slowly melting ice and snow, would no longer be stored, and would not be available – at least not in anything near current quantities – for the rest of the year.

Warmer oceans, also produce less plankton, which absorbs carbon dioxide, so that its decline would contribute to further global warming (as does the release of CO2 and methane when frozen tundra warms and melts). Moreover, being at the bottom of the ocean food chain, decreased plankton would reduce the numbers of fish and other species. The huge carbon dioxide increase in the atmosphere is making the oceans far more acid, 30% above the previous norm at this point. The acid is reacting with calcium, which is crucial for many ocean species of plants and animals. It is the reason that almost all of the world’s coral reefs have been killed in the last few years or are dying. That is an indicator of the negative impact on a great many ocean species, whose death and reduction will have further impacts on other species, including human beings. In the long term, some species may thrive in warmer, more acid waters, but that is already disrupting ecosystems, and sea food that much of the world relies on, and the species that do well in those conditions may, or may not, be helpful to people.

The warming is also causing more extreme weather (though that may change eventually as the temperature differences between the coldest and warmer areas – which drives much of the Earths weather – decline), some of which has been having devastating effects on people, such as Hurricane Katrina, more numerous and stronger tornadoes, and longer severe storm seasons. It is also changing climates, at the extreme increasing drought in some areas, and expanding the spread of deserts, particularly in parts of Africa – while increasing rainfall in others (which in the long term may be a benefit, but in the short run causes flooding in places formerly safe from inundation). While some of the changes in climate may be beneficial, or neutral, in the long run, the disruption of ecosystems is chaotic for at least the medium term, including for agriculture. Moreover, while in many places warmer weather for longer periods will lengthen growing seasons, it also helps unwanted plants grow, and increases insect life – particularly in places where insects previously suppressed by hard winter freezes, will be able to thrive year round. As some insects carry diseases, warming is already spreading maladies, such as malaria, to new locations. Last August, the first outbreak of a tropical disease occurred in Europe, with the village of Castigkione, near Ravenna on the northeast coast of Italy, suffering, from chikungunya – a relative of dengue fever – carried by tiger mosquitoes now able to migrate from the Indian Ocean. Increased carbon dioxide in the air also has an uneven impact on plants. Some undesirable species, such as poison ivy, grow much faster than other plants – and are more toxic – as CO2 levels rise.

A great deal of climate change is already occurring, from global warming, and much damage cannot be prevented. The three reports of the UN, Intergovernmental Commission on Climate Change indicated that there is still a small window, of a few years, to begin greatly reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses over a umber of years, to avoid the worst effects of global warming. The reports warned that there were disastrous consequences for the world if immediate action were not begun and sustained. Those reports were written on the basis of a five year survey of scientific findings. Recent studies show, however, that many changes are taking place more rapidly than expected by those studies. For example, Arctic ice is melting much faster than previously predicted, and increasingly so. In 2007, 75% more ice melted in the Arctic, than melted in 2006. Developing nations expanding economies are also using oil and other fuels faster than anticipated, so that the actual production of carbon dioxide and other global warming causing gasses was near the highest, or worst, of the several possible projected levels considered by the commissions scientists.

Alarming effects, mentioned above, are already being seen in the oceans, as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere exceed levels not seen for 250,000 years, and threaten to reach levels not found on earth for 250,000,000 million years. The warming of the oceans is also near a major tipping point. Cold temperatures and high pressures in ocean depths trap huge quantities of methane – 14 times more global warming causing than carbon dioxide – in methane crystals on ocean bottoms. When oceans warm sufficiently, the methane looses its crystal form, and becomes gas, which escapes into the atmosphere. Already, last year, there were reports of ships crews smelling methane while far out at sea, Moreover, the huge movement of weight on the earths surface as ice caps and glaciers melt, and the oceans rise, is causing movements in the earth (such as rising land beneath melting Antarctic glaciers). This in turn is causing increases in seismic activity, including earthquakes. In some areas, such as in Iceland, but not in others, as, for instance, in the Mediterranean Sea region, this has brought about additional volcanic activity.

Unprecedented Population Growth and Over Use of Resources

The second major problem set is the combination of continuing population growth and over use of resources, and misuses of resources causing pollution or disease (as for example with much of fish farming, which if done correctly would be most beneficial, but is creating immense damage. For instance, in Chile, disease is spreading from fish farmed salmon to wild salmon, greatly reducing their numbers, while a similar occurrence is happening in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, with sea lice spreading from farmed to wild salmon). The UN Environmental Program released its Forth Global Environmental Outlook, in October, 2007 finding that the human population is living far beyond its means, while inflicting damage upon the environment which could pass the point of no return, as climate change, the problem of feeding a population growing to an unprecedented size, and species extinction are putting human existence at risk. “The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns.” Population, over the last two decades has expanded by 34% from 5 to 6.7 billion, while land available per person shrank from 19.5 acres in 1900 to 5 acres in 2005. In addition, much of the increase in population, especially in developing nations, is urban, so that cities and suburbs are expanding over farm land which is no longer available for agricultural production.

The combination of population growth with unsustainable consumption and climate change has brought about an increasingly stressed planet, on which natural disasters and environmental degradation more and more endanger people, plants and animal species. Last November, the UN Annual Human Development Report (hdr.undp.org/cg/en/) warned that the poorest nations progress toward a decent living will be reversed, unless richer nations quickly take adequate steps toward limiting global warming, and assist poorer nations in doing the same. On December 11, at the Bali world climate change talks, an agreement was signed establishing a fund to assist poor nations in adapting to climate change, but this is only a small beginning.

Meanwhile, according to the UN Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems in the last century (and increasingly worse now), half the world’s forests (which break down carbon dioxide into oxygen and water) were cut down – with tropical deforestation possibly exceeding 130,000 square kilometers a year (about the area of Wisconsin), half the planet’s wet lands were lost, 70% of the world’s fisheries were depleted, and 80% of grass lands and 40% of the earth’s land surface suffered soil degradation, with 40% of agricultural lands badly degraded. 20% of drylands are in danger of becoming deserts, as desertification is increasing. 58% of coral reefs are endangered by human activity. In many parts of the world the capacity of the ecosystem to provide food and clean water is declining, while threats to biodiversity and human health are increasing. The deforestation has serious implications, as Increasing cutting of forests has reached the point where the carbon release accounts for 20% of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions.3

The Energy Crunch: Oil Production Peaking as Demand Rises

The Third Major factor in the current global shift is that world oil production has, or is about to peak, and will begin – or perhaps already has begun – to decline, as world energy, and particularly petroleum, use continues to increase. The largest part of the rising demand is because of rapid economic growth in China and some other devloping counties. This is bringing growing energy shortages and rising costs for fuel, petroleum products, including fertilizer, and, as is discussed below, everything else. Fuel fueled inflation is beginning to be a world problem, which will grow until a combination of conservation – including a shift in lifestyle, localization of agricultural and manufacturing production, and increase of public transportation – and switch to alternative energy takes place. High energy prices, from the growing planet wide petroleum shortage, are increasing pressures to undertake seriously ecologically damaging energy development. For example, British Petroleum (BP) – an oil company noted for its real green policies, particularly emissions reductions – has broken its long standing policy against extracting oil in tar sands, to initiate strip mining (tar sands are too thick to pump) of 50,000 square miles of forest in the Canadian province of Alberta. The oil shortage is also driving increased global use of extremely polluting – especially of green house gasses – coal. Despite some reduction of plans to build new coal fired power plants in the U.S. – largely out of environmental concerns, and some U.S. generating plants switching from coal to natural gas (which may increase gas prices) – U.S. coal mining is on the increase, mostly for rising exports as the world price of coal has been rising. U.S. coal prices, which fell from 2000 – 2002, before rising for three years, and leveling off, jumped sharply last year, beyond their 2000 level, and continue to increase. The expanding production of biofuels is also a growing problem. Two studies published in Science, in February, find that almost all biofuels (e.g. methanol and palm oil) cause more greenhouse gas pollution than conventional fuels, when all emissions costs of production are taken into account. Moreover, the ecological damage from clearing land – whether rain forest (as is happening in the Amazon region and in several places in the Pacific) or scrub lands, for biofuel production is extremely destructive of natural ecosystems, while switching farm production from food to biofuel is a serious element in the expanding world food crisis.

World Wide Inflation and Food Shortages

The interaction of the above factors is causing global inflation, which will continue to increase, especially for food, and is contributing to expanding world food shortages. The rise in food prices of up to 40% in the last year has brought the United Nations to warn, in February, that it no longer has enough money “to keep global malnutrition at bay this year,” and will need an additional half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs. “The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition. Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) stated, “This is the new face of hunger. There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before.” “The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.” At the end of February, world wheat stores had dropped to their lowest level in 35 years. In the United States, mirroring the world market, in March. wheat prices had doubled over the proceeding six months, with corn, barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soy beans also steadily rising in cost. The growing world food crisis is likely to lead to increasing violence, including international conflict.

The Social and Political Questions

Taking everything together, it is clear that unless rapid political action is taken, including increasing international cooperation, to meet the intersecting crises rapidly and appropriately, the peoples of the Earth are headed for calamitous changes, including possibly horrendous rises in conflict. The mounting pressures of the great change are not unidirectional, however. Some of them push for actions that worsen and quicken the catastrophe. Others, thrust toward more harmonious ways of living with each other, the Earth and all its beings. The resulting political and social impacts, include pressures for: environmentally damaging – global warming increasing – energy production; increased land seizures (particularly of Indigenous lands) and deforestation for energy production, and political, military moves to grasp energy, food and other goods and vast migrations of people, unrest, and violence, on the one side. On the other: development of green energy, public transportation, conservation and local food and other production - (and lower energy use) reducing pollution and global warming causing emissions – limiting population, and increased collaboration and sharing of resources from local communities to around the world. Just what the results will be across the Earth, and in each place, depend upon what we human beings do. We face both danger and opportunity.

II. The Impact of Climate Change on Indigenous People

Climate change, from largely human induced global warming, and other environmental degradation from pollution and over use of resources, effects everyone on the earth, but in many instances is particularly impacting poor, and especially indigenous people. In the past, when faced with changing natural conditions, indigenous people could adapt. But that is much harder to do now. Using their traditional knowledge, indigenous people on Islands of Indonesia had foreknowledge of the tsunami that wreaked great havoc in the region, a couple of years ago, to escape inland before the great wave struck, and suffered no deaths or injuries. This is becoming more difficult to achieve, for two reasons. First, as climates and related conditions change, traditional knowledge is less applicable to the developing physical circumstances. Second, and more important, Indigenous people are more and more constrained in moving, as they are limited to: reservations, often shrinking traditional areas, or own land privately held that they may not be able to replace, if forced to move. Thus, as the combination of rising ocean, more intense storms, and the washing away of costal wetlands because of the dyking of the Mississippi River cause costal lands in Louisiana to be lost to the Gulf of Mexico, the tribes that live on that coast line have no where to retreat to. The United Houma Nation, the Chitimacha, the Pointe au Chien, the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muscogee, the Jena Band of Choctaw and the Chanta, who were the backbone of the Louisiana seafood, crabbing, oystering, shrimping, hunting, alligator and fur processing industries, not only endured serious losses of homes, boats and other property from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but suffered significant land loss, leaving them more threatened for the next major storm, which may completely obliterate their remaining land bases. Indigenous people living on costal Islands in the Brazilian state of Maranhao have been facing a similar problem, as rising oceans have inundated 15% of their land, over the last few years, forcing 150 of 200 families to flee the islands for higher ground. 4

The impact of severe weather on indigenous people was evident, in August,5 when the worst storm in memory crashed through Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, not only destroying houses, but felling thousands of fruit trees that are the livelihood of Mayan people. But that is only one effect on weather from global warming. Tribes, and other farming and herding people in Africa are losing irreplaceable arable and grazing land from the spread of deserts, while the warming weather is melting the glacier and snow pack on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, seriously reducing the water supply for an entire ecosystem. The same is a major threat elsewhere, including for indigenous people in several places in South America.

Drying weather, is presenting other problems as well. Across the United States west, fire seasons have become longer and more severe. Several tribes in Southern California received extensive damage from wild fire in the fall of 2003, including at San Pasqual, where the entire reservation burned, destroying 67 of 68 houses and killing at least two people,6 while the White Mountain Apache nation lost half of the timber, which is their largest source of income, in a fire, that burned 469,000 acres, in the summer of 2002, causing 70 sawmill and forestry workers to lose their jobs.7 In addition, the fire destroyed lands in which non-Indians pay a considerable amount to hunt. Reduced rainfall, combined with increasing overuse and pollution of existing water, threatens agriculture in much of the western, and parts of the mid-western, U.S. Last summer, for the first time in history, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa were forced to cancel their entire wild rice crop, because of low water. As of October 24, a series of fires were burning across seven counties in Southern California, engulfing thousands houses, threatening several major towns, forcing the evacuation of more than half a million people. More than 26,000 acres of land were scorched on the Yuina, Rincon, La Jolla, San Pasqual, Pala, Capitan Grande, Mesa Grande, Santa Ysabel, Barona, Jamul and Inaja-Cosmit reservations, destroying over 100 homes and much infrastructure, while other lands, structures and people remained threatened.8

The fastest warming and greatest shift in climate is in the arctic regions, with significant impacts on Indigenous peoples. In Alaska,9 rising sea levels and melting sea ice, glaciers and tundra have greatly increased flooding, to the extent that a 2003 Government Accounting Office Report found that more than 86% of the 213 Alaska Native Villages had experienced recent flooding, The flooding is worsening, and many of these villages will have to move or be abandoned. At the same time, the subsistence living carried out by many Native Alaskans is becoming increasingly more difficult, and is threatened. Warming climate is destroying the habitat for some plants and animals, while providing opportunities for others to move north, often further impacting habitats, occasionally in ways that are helpful to Indigenous people, but mostly which make Native life more difficult. A number of major mammalian species are seriously declining and may become virtually extinct, including walrus, some species of seals and polar bears. Migration routes and ranges of some animals are being affected. In Northwest Alaska, for instance, westward movement of Western Arctic Caribou has been crowding out reindeer from their usual territory. As a result, by 2001, eight of the 15 Native reindeer herders on the Seward Peninsula had been driven out of business. In addition, travel, including in the process of hunting and gathering, is becoming more dangerous, as exemplified by declining sea ice making the violent impact of storms more imminent, while thinning costal ice is becoming more hazardous, or simply less available for hunting, fishing and travel. This not only increases risk, but also the time and cost of food accumulating activities, whether for consumption or sale.

As climates and habitats change, the loss of ways of living, and of long important species not only has direct survival and wellbeing effects, it also undermines important aspects of traditional cultures. For Hopi and other Pueblo Indians in the Southwest, farming, and the cycles of seasons and crops have been at the center of their ceremonies, spirituality and way of being since the most ancient times.10 When drought made their homes in such places as Chaco canyon and Mesa Verde unlivable, between 1100 and 1400, they moved to more favorable locations, including to a number of places where Pueblos are now located along the Rio Grande, where traditional life and culture could continue with some adaptation. Today such a migration would not be possible, so that loss of traditional livelihood would cause a major increase in the movement of pueblo people from their homes for jobs at more distant places, while a few might remain at home making a living in non-traditional ways – assuming that climate change does not become so severe as to create a catastrophe well beyond this scenario.

A similar situation is developing in the Pacific North West, where salmon have been central to the livelihood and culture of a number of Indian peoples.11 Several aspects of climate change have been exasperating a serious decline in salmon from a variety of causes, including damming of rivers, pollution, urban development and over fishing. First, reduced snow pack and earlier spring melting, contributing to higher winter and lower summer stream flows have changed the hydrologic cycle, negatively impacting salmon reproduction. At the same time, the rising ocean has increased shore erosion, damaging costal habitat, while the timing and extent of fresh water mixing with ocean water in estuaries and along the cost also is degrading salmon costal habitat, even as rising temperatures bring new predators of salmon to the area, and there is the possibility that with warmer temperatures, the salmon may move away, to more northern areas. In March, the reduction of the west coast salmon stocks became so severe, that the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed closing the entire salmon fishery from Oregon to Mexico to salmon fishing.12

The overuse of resources, often exacerbated by, and sometimes causing activity exacerbating, climate change, is also impacting Indigenous people. This has already been referred to, briefly, concerning using up (and polluting) of increasingly scarce usable water, which is a world wide problem, and of over fishing of salmon, contributing to their decline and endangerment – a serious problem around the planet concerning many species, being worsened by global warming. The most serious problem is the increasing world wide demand for energy, and the consuming of declining petroleum reserves, with oil more difficult and expensive to find, extract and transport.

The expanding use of oil and other fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming. The peaking of readily available oil (and to a lesser extent, natural gas) is having a secondary effect that is negatively impacting many peoples, but especially the indigenous. One aspect of this problem has been a huge movement, particularly in the Americas, to produce biofuel, most often ethanol from corn, as a substitute (usually as an additive) for gasoline.13 First, this has raised the price of food, and particularly corn, an economic hardship on low income people, often including Native people. In Mexico this has manifested in the unprecedented rise in the price of the tortilla, a staple for those less well off, including most tribal people (though it has brought more income to many Indigenous and other small farmers, who had difficulty selling their corn in the face of subsidized competition from the U.S., after the institution of NAFTA). Second, particularly in Columbia, the rush to grow biofuel crops has brought about huge land grabs by wealthy interests, forcing many people off their lands, most notably persons of African descent, but increasingly Indigenous people as well. Indigenous peoples in Latin America, and elsewhere, also are concerned that construction of large hydroelectric dams will force them off their lands.14 In addition, as the quest for more farmland to produce energy brings deforestation, so it increases climate change, as carbon dioxide absorbing trees are cut down, while the burning of ethanol and similar biofuels adds to the production of green house gasses. The one climate change mitigating result of the growing world energy crises, is that it is encouraging the development of non-greenhouse gas emitting, alternative energy, in which tribal people are involved.

Over all, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, summed up the situation in reporting to the UN Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), October 22, 2007, that global warming and increasing exploitation of natural resources continue to bring about the dispossessing of Indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands, to the point that some small isolated communities are at risk of physically disappearing, in spite of recent progress in recognizing the rights of Indigenous people. Stavenhagen said that "Extractive activities, large commercial plantations and non-sustainable consumption patterns have led to widespread pollution and environmental degradation." The end result, he said, was that indigenous peoples, whose lives were closely linked to their lands, were dramatically affected by such trends, which had in turn led to their forced displacements. The Special Rapporteur stated that the shrinking of Indigenous territory has been intensified by the dynamics of the globalized economy and its attendant increase in water and energy exploitation.15

III. Indigenous Peoples’ Response to Climate Change

One of the major responses to global warming and the increasing energy crunch by tribes in the United States has been developing wind, photovoltaic and other forms of energy that do not contribute to global warming. The Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, an organization composed of federally recognized Indian tribes in the northern Great Plains, has been among those organizations supporting the growth of wind powered electric generation that has been developing among a number of Great Plains Tribes over the last few years.16 The Council was recognized at the Faktor 4-Festival in Basel, Switzerland, June 15, 2007, with a Special Award for its work assisting the establishment of the first commercial wind power generation on any reservation, with the 750-kilowatt turbine on the Rosebud Reservation, in South Dakota. The Three Affiliated Tribes, of Montana, began operating their first wind turbine on the Fort Berthold Reservation in the spring of 2006. The Morongo Band of Mission Indians are constructing a wind generation station to meet their own and surrounding community power needs,17 The Navajo Nation has included wind power in its energy development program, though there is controversy over its plan to also build a new coal fired electric generation plant, even though it will be much less polluting of the air (but not in terms of carbon dioxide production) than older coal generating facilities. The Hopi Nation is going ahead with both wind and photovoltaic electric power generation. Honor the Earth, in coordination with Solar Energy International, the Western Shoshone Defense Project, American Spirit Productions and the Battle Mountain Band of Te-Moak Western Shoshone provided free training and installation of a solar photovoltaic system in Western Shoshone territory near Elko, Nevada in April, 2005.18 Laguna Pueblo designer Dave Melton and Sacred Power Corporation of Albuquerque, of which he is co-owner, had brought electricity to 30 isolated homes on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, using wind turbines and photovoltaic cells, as of June 2005.19 Indigenous peoples in other countries are also developing renewable energy. For example. the Wayuu people of the Guajira region of Colombia's northeast Atlantic coast established the Jepirachi Wind Power Project, with assistance from the World Bank, through its Prototype Carbon Fund (PCF), with the utility company Empresas Publicas de Medelline (EEPPM) and support from the Ministries of Mines and Energy, in 2004. The project is expected to reduce carbon emissions by 1,168,000 tons over a 21-year operational period and will be a major factor in tribal development.20

Some tribes have been working to capture methane (a potent greenhouse gas, if allowed to escape into the air) from land fills, to use as fuel. A number of U.S. tribes are taking advantage of carbon credits, the planting of trees which absorb carbon dioxide, to offset the production of the greenhouse gas in power production and industry.21 The first to do so was the Confederated Tribes of the Coleville Reservation in Washington, 1990, who were paid by area power companies to reforest some of their land, Others include the Nez Perce Nation of Idaho, who reforested land cleared for farming in the Nineteenth Century, that was no longer used for agriculture, and the Lummi Tribe in Washington, who bought 1700 acres of logged land to replant with trees, selling the carbon credits to a power company. Trading for carbon credits, which is controversial because the company buying the credits does not reduce its carbon emissions, is also being participated in by Indigenous people in other countries. An innovative example is the June 2007 agreement by ConocoPhillips, whose new natural gas refinery agreed to pay the Aboriginal people of the Western Arnhem Land region of Australia A$1m ($US850,000) per year, for 17 years, to offset 100,000 tons of the refinery's own greenhouse emissions, with the Aboritnal People applying traditional fire management practices, that have been scientifically shown to reduce greenhouse emissions, compared to naturally occurring wildfires. Even without carbon credits, some Indigenous peoples have been reducing CO2 in the atmosphere by reforesting, such as the indigenous peoples of San Andres de Sotavento, in the northern tropics of Colombia, partnering in a project with CVS (Environmental Corporation of the Sinu and San Jorge Rivers), CORPOICA (Colombian National Agricultural Research Organization), and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), to regenerate degraded tropical savanna by establishing silvopastoral systems and reforested areas over 2,600 hectares. This will yield increased income and profits for landowners and a healthier ecosystem. The BioCarbon Fund acts as the broker for carbon trading and certifies the CERs.22

Other Indigenous peoples have been adapting to climate change, something they have had to do traditionally, as climates and local conditions have always shifted, but such a great change as is now occurring is beyond memory. In Bangladesh, villagers are creating floating vegetable gardens to protect their livelihoods from flooding. In Vietnam and on some Pacific islands, communities are helping to plant dense mangroves along the coast to diffuse tropical-storm waves. In Central and South America and the Caribbean, many people have shifted their agricultural activities and settlements to new locations, less susceptible to adverse climate conditions. This includes indigenous peoples in Guyana moving from their savannah homes to forest areas, during droughts, and planting their main staple, cassava, on moist floodplains which are normally too wet for other crops. During the 1995 drought, following traditional practice in such times, indigenous peoples in the Amazon region switched from their dependence on agriculture to reliance on fish. In the Arctic, Aboriginal people. have shifted to hunt alternative species when species such as geese and caribou have changed their migration times and routes. They have also adjusted to hunting marine species in open water, later in the year, under different sea and ice conditions. Other changes have included the freezing if foods where the traditional technique of sun-drying food have been impossible due to unseasonable wet weather, and waiting until there is sunny weather or drying the food indoors.23

Numerous Native people have been applying new technology to meet the new conditions. For example, In El Salvador and Guatemala, deforestation has made it too time consuming for women to gather wood, the primary source of fuel. Therefore, the use of clean, renewable energy, such as solar ovens, has been promoted among groups of women in their own neighborhoods, where they can learn how to use the devices from one another. The clean energy, replacing wood, slightly reduces global warming, while ending exposure to toxic smoke. 24

A number of Indigenous nations are undertaking research on how best to act in the face of climate change. For example, Ealat, the Reindeer Herders’ Vulnerability Network of Indigenous people in Norway, in collaboration with the Association of World Reindeer Herders, is undertaking a Study, Reindeer Pastoralism in a Changing Climate, to determine the ability of this ancient herding way of living to adapt to climate change, and to propose policy to government and the private sector that will increase the viability of Reindeer herding in the face of climate change.25 The Arctic Council is a high-level forum for cooperation, coordination and interaction between Arctic states, indigenous communities and other Arctic residents, focusing on some of the key challenges facing the Arctic region, particularly the need for integrated resource management to meet climate change.26 This includes a broad spectrum of research and policy proposal undertakings. Tribal colleges in the United States have also been engaged in research into how their nations can respond to climate change, in some cases in a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey created organization, Native View, while including study of the changing environment in their curricula – integrating traditional and western scientific knowledge – and doing what they can, with limited budgets, to make their campuses green, from recycling, to improving energy efficiency and reducing pollution.27 Meanwhile, Northwest Indian College now offers a Bachelor of Science in Native Environmental Science.28 Educational efforts among Indigenous peoples, also, are taking place elsewhere, such as educational undertakings by tribal peoples in Russia to adjust to climate change, in addition to developing a Native climate and environmental surveillance network to track changes in the arctic regions.29

Collectively, Indigenous people are beginning to take action on climate change and other environmental issues. The United League of Indigenous Nations was formed at the July 31 - August 2, 2007 Indigenous Treaty Gathering at Lummi Nation in Washington state, to deal with the environment and other issues. Lummi Nation Chief Jaret Cardinal, proposing approving the treaty, commented, “The time is right for the indigenous tribes to stand together to help combat the problems of global warming. The significance of this treaty is that we are being given the opportunity to do something. [...] Time is something we have little of if we are going to address the environment. If we are to truly have a strong voice, then we need to have global economies where international trade is required.'' At the beginning of April, of this year, Indigenous people from 11 Latin American countries, and Native observers from Indonesia and Congo, net in Manaus, Brazil, to form the International Alliance of Forest Peoples, working to give Indigenous nations a voice in international climate change discussions. A major concern is to stop deforestation. To that end, the alliance supports proposals for carbon credits to be paid by developing countries to insure that remaining forests are not cut down. When the forests to be protected are th lands of Native peoples, the alliance wants the payments to go to the Indigenous nations, and not the governments of the countries in which they are located.30

At the UN, Indigenous peoples have been participating in the processes set up under the Climate Change Convention. Having found it difficult to be heard in these proceedings, Native peoples have been developing an Intersessional Ad hoc Working Group on Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change to improve their participation. The UN NGO/DPI Conference, “Climate Change: How it Impacts us all,” last September, included two Indigenous sessions. The meeting of the UN Permanent Forum On Indigenous Issues, this May, has a focus on Indigenous people and climate change.31

A number of other Indigenous nations in the U.S. and elsewhere are taking similar steps to lesson climate change. Some Native Nations, continuing traditional ways of hunting. Gathering and agriculture, remain carbon neutral, and continue to be good stewards of the land. However, as the vast proportion of actions causing global warming and other environmental degradation is being caused by non-indigenous governments, their policies and private corporations, there is only a very small amount that Native peoples, governments and organizations can do directly to slow and limit climate change and other environmental damage. Perhaps the most important contribution that native people can make is by sharing Indigenous ways of thinking, so that well meaning actions do not end up making the situation worse, or creating new difficulties.

Traditional Indigenous Thinking and Climate Change

All traditional Indigenous people consider themselves to be part of nature, with a responsibility to keep it in balance, both for their own good, and for that of all other beings. From experience they understand the necessity of taking into account the short and long term effects of actions, being aware of the full set of relationships that are involved in all human activity. If the world’s leading public and private policy makers of the last two centuries had been Indigenous thinkers, climate change would not be a major world crises, today.

The key learnings from Indigenous thinking for the world in dealing with climate change are that everything is connected, but each location is unique.32 Actions and events have developing consequences over time, so that in making decisions, it is necessary to take into account the full range of relationships that are involved, considering how they will be affected over an unfolding, and lengthy, period of time. Western science has long focused on taking things apart, and reducing consideration of phenomena to focus on a limited number of factors, in order to isolate essential forces or rules. This approach has great power, but its reductionism tends to miss the interconnections that contemporary ecology, the cutting edge of physics, and developing chaos or complexity theory are beginning to demonstrate to the West, are the true nature of the world. It is an exceedingly complex, interactive system. Climate change and other ecological issues are essentially issues of how we use resources (broadly defined to include energy and matter, that which is animate and inanimate), including the chains of direct and indirect effects of finding, acquiring, transporting, processing, and applying those resources and disposing of (or allowing to disperse) the byproducts of that use. This requires analyzing holistically, in terms of complex systems with interacting subsystems, so that decisions are made in the course of examining the full range of relationships and interactions involved, over time. It involves understanding that every action has a wide range of effects that need to be taken into account. This means not only examining all of the physical aspects of an ecological problem over time, but the full range of human concerns as well: social, cultural, economic, political,.., in order to develop an appropriate balanced set of actions across time.

Another tendency of traditional western science and thought has been to develop general conclusions, and to apply them universally, often without thinking through how they properly apply in different circumstances. This has caused untold problems.33 For example business or technical consultants often take a program that worked well in one place, or a set of similar sites, and “can it”, simply presenting the program in other locales without first assessing the conditions and needs of that location. When those conditions and needs are different from what the presenter assumed, the program does not work. This is an especially serious problem in making cross-cultural transfers. For example, several years ago agricultural scientists developed a new variety of cotton that was more hardy and produced more cotton per plant than traditional varieties. They took it to villagers in one location in India, without asking what the local people used the cotton plants for. Most of the villagers decided to try the new cotton. But when the scientists returned five years later, they found only a small amount of the cotton being grown was the new variety. The reason was that the villagers used the plant both to produce cotton, and for fuel by burning the stalks. The stalks of the new cotton plants did not burn nearly as well as those of the old plants.

Traditional Native knowledge – which is good science by long careful observation - often understands what western science overlooks in dealing with particular places, and should be integrated with western science in deciding on specific actions (though this will become harder to do, as climate change makes the specifics of traditional knowledge, less relevant). In dealing with environmental issues, it is important to realize that what works in one place may not work, and may have negative results, in another. General principals – when correct – may generally apply everywhere, but to apply properly, they have to be adapted to the differing conditions of each particular place, including taking into account (so far as possible) how those conditions will change over time. Moreover, both locally and globally, it is impossible to anticipate all of the primary and secondary impacts of even the best conceived environmentally related action. Therefore, it is essential, continually, to monitor on going conditions and make well thought out policy and pragmatic changes and adjustments, as situations shift, and new information and understandings become available. This includes traditional Native detailed observation of changes in each place, to understand what is developing – which Indigenous people have always undertaken, to adapt to changing conditions.

In addition, it is important to be very cautious in taking new kinds of actions, and in putting new products and technologies into practice – even in laboratories - which might cause unknown, or unconsidered, negative consequences that may be difficult or impossible to reverse. Genetic engineering is but one example of a field in which even the research can have untold irreversible disastrous consequences, if great care is not taken to insure that experimentation is truly isolated from the rest of the world. And since it is impossible to be absolutely sure that a facility will be fully isolated, some development should not be undertaken at all, and other experimentation only carried out under the most rigorous security, after intensive research to show that the dangers and risks actually are acceptable, and that research or production is only carried out under clearly adequate protocols with multiple failsafes. If the world’s decision makers can take an Indigenous perspective on what needs to be done, there is still a good possibility that the worst potential effects of global warming and environmental destruction can be avoided, and much of the already occurring damage can be reversed or ameliorated.

Global Warming and What Can Be done About It: Applying Indigenous Thinking

Applying this Indigenous perspective, global warming needs to be understood as part of a complex interactive ecological system in which human action, particularly resource use, have a large impact. There is now almost complete scientific agreement that global warming, bringing horrendous climate change, that is already having serious impacts on human life around the planet, is primarily caused by human activity, resulting in carbon dioxide, methane and other green house gasses entering the atmosphere, that then trap heat. Scientific understanding of the various factors in global warming is developing. http://timeforchange.org/cause-and-effect-for-global-warming reports that the main greenhouse causing gasses are carbon dioxide (72%), methane – which is 14 times more global warming producing than carbon dioxide – (18%), and Nitrous oxide (9%), leaving 1% from other causes. The Sierra Club confirms that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. Changes in production or release of these gases will change the percentages of global warming that each cause, and each of these materials has a different tendency to cause global warming, and other effects – both harmful and beneficial. Thus, it is important to calculate the full range of effects from any action that effects their production. Switching from internal combustion engines to fuel cells, for instance, will reduce carbon, and in some cases, perhaps methane and nitrous oxide emissions, but it will increase production of water vapor. Some water vapor is currently put into the air from the exhaust of internal combustion engines. The question is, what is the net effect of making such a change? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1110_051110_warming.html states that recent studies show that global warming is causing an increase in evaporation of water (as water vapor), which absorbs and than reemits infrared radiation, thus further increasing heating. Without the water vapor in the air to trap it, the infrared radiation (heat) would radiate into space, having a cooling effect. Melting of ice in the Arctic – and elsewhere – is partly caused by increased particulate matter – mostly pollution from burning – which darkens the surfaces of ice and snow, raising the amount of heat absorbed by the ice and snow. (While increase of particulate matter in the air blocks some heat from solar radiation from reaching the earth’s surface, and causes cooling).

The relevant direct human action causing climate change is first the burning of fuels (and other burning) that result in the release of green house gasses, but such gasses are also directly put into the atmosphere by other human acts; and secondarily as a result of the warming that has been occurring because of people increasing green house gas levels in the atmosphere (such as the melting of permafrost in the Arctic releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and methane, and the heating of the oceans which reduces their capacity to absorb green house and other gasses – directly, and from the reduction, which occurs with raising sea water temperatures, of ocean plant life that transforms huge amount of carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon). 34

Global warming is also increased by human action, such as deforestation, that kills trees and other green plants that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon (used by the plants). Thus global warming can be reduced in several ways: 1) by reduction in the burning of green house gas producing fuels, by increasing fuel use efficiency, reducing fuel burning, and switching to non-green house gas producing sources of energy, including wind power, photovoltaic cells and other direct solar power, wave action, hydro electric power, ocean temperature differential power, atomic energy (which may be too dangerous to use because of possible meltdowns, and the problem of dealing with highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for as long as 100,000 years), geothermal energy, using hydrogen and possibly other non-green house gas producing fuels, using as fuels green house gases that would enter the atmosphere without producing energy for human endeavor, if not captured and burned (e.g. capturing and burning methane escaping from landfills), and capturing carbon produced by green house gas producing fuel use; 2) by increasing the number of trees (ending deforestation, and reforesting) and other carbon dioxide transforming plants. 3) increasing the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere, which blocks incoming sun light, and has a cooling effect. This, however, almost always has major detrimental side effects for human beings, including causing major health problems (to consider only the simplest of the many aspects of putting dust into the air).

As this last method of reducing global warming suggests, there is much more to the ecological problem facing human beings than simply reducing global warming. Human activity causes a great many other impacts on the environment, some of which tend to change the ecological system of the planet, and/or its local and regional subsystems, often negatively from a human perspective, and which in many cases have direct negative effects for human beings, including the production of a wide range of pollutants from simple dust, to toxic chemicals, radiation, and biological hazards. So while global warming is often considered the most obvious current environmental threat for humanity (though some would say that radiation from bombs, accidents and nuclear waste is a greater danger, or that human caused or spread disease is a greater threat), global warming cannot properly be looked at in isolation. It has to be considered as part of a larger set of relationships among human beings (physical, social, economic, political. Etc,), and considering human beings as part of the Earth’s environmental system and subsystems. Indeed, in that context, global warming is only one of the negative side effects of human activity that needs to be considered. For example, destruction of the ozone layer (leading to toxic levels, for many – and at some point virtually all – forms of life) of ultra violate radiation penetrating the atmosphere, as the result of the use of certain chemicals that escape upward and destroy the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere, is again increasing because of the growing use in some developing counties of refrigerants and propellants, whose use has been greatly reduced in the rest of the world.

One aspect of the global warming problem in particular, and of environmental protection generally, is resource use: the finding, processing, transporting, using of resources, and disposing of residual material in that whole process, including all the results (positive, negative and neutral), direct and indirect, of that activity. In the case of energy, the most used source world wide, oil, is approaching the point where demand overwhelms supply, largely because of the huge and growing increases in oil consumption by China and other developing nations. Compounded with interruptions and uncertainties about some major oil production, because of war and political instability, this has spurred the development of biofuel, particularly ethanol, most notably in Brazil and the U.S. While increasing ethanol production has economic, political and security advantages, ethanol production currently increases global warming, and other polluting, because its production requires significantly more energy than does gasoline and other oil product production. (That may change as more effort, money and energy is required to mine oil, whether in pumping steam into no longer free flowing oil wells, or in mining oil from shale and tar sands). Also, despite what some advertising claims, burning ethanol simply produces a different combination of pollutants than does burning gasoline. While it might make sense to have some increase in ethanol use as a bridge to develop non greenhouse gas producing energy, and to include economic and human concerns properly in the process of energy transformation, to overcome global warming and reduce dangerous pollution more generally, it is far better to emphasize non-greenhouse gas producing sources of energy (taking into account the pollution, including greenhouse gas production, and cost of such development – e.g. manufacture of photo voltaic cells is not entirely clean). The politics and public relations of powerful established economic interests, in many cases, resists changes that are beneficial to whole societies and the population of the planet. And that resistance must be overcome, and where possible transformed (as has been happening, as even some oil companies have been moving to “greener” business practices).

One of the ways of reducing green house gas emission, and major pollution, as well as scarce resource use, is to reduce automobile use, which is one of the major and fastest growing sources of pollution, including greenhouse gases. Increasing public transportation, including high speed trains between cities, will help this, and incentives and encouragement to use such transportation will further help (reduced fares, etc.). A problem in the U.S. is that automotive and truck use is governmentally subsidized, while railroads are not. Increasing automobile efficiency, introducing electric and highbred vehicles – which can be supported by subsidies and other incentives, while penalizing (e.g. taxes) greenhouse gas producing emissions, especially by highly inefficient engines. Encouraging, rewarding use of bicycles and walking can also reduce vehicle use. Careful urban, land use and traffic planning by governments, business and NGOs can also be a major method for reducing vehicle use, and resulting pollution. Also a shift toward doing as much local food and manufacturing production as possible, and away from transporting goods very great distances will be beneficial, and indeed, as fuel prices continue to rise, is likely to become economically necessary,

Production of power for electricity, manufacturing, etc., can also be switched from higher to lower polluting – particularly of greenhouse gases – while machines, devices, equipment, appliances, etc. can be made more energy efficient, and such use encouraged/subsidized/advertised. Similarly, using environmentally safer chemicals, as alternatives to those that are highly polluting (a movement already in progress), needs encouragement, and incentives, where it is not the most economical alternative, Providing public information about the problem and what people can do about it, with specific information about helpful products and actions, can be a major help in all aspects of dealing with environmental-human protection.

A major aspect of reducing greenhouse gas emission and other pollution and environmental degradation is the development of new and improvement of old technology, methods, energy sources, etc. A great deal of investment needs to be made in this area (and some of that is now happening) with the support of public and private funding.

Almost all of the aspects of the problem can be better met with increased intra and inter organization, and interpersonal, collaboration and efficiency. Government and private organizations and persons can play an important facilitating and communicating roll here (such as planning locations of facilities for shorter travel/shipping, coordination of research, sharing of information, timing of work shifts to avoid traffic jams, etc).

A critical aspect of protecting human life, economy, health, etc. by protecting the environment is in a variety of public policies at every level of government, from direct regulation (which should be smart regulation - as set out in Reinventing Government),35 subsidies, encouragements, penalties, planning, voluntary planning – encouraging collaboration/coordination, smart seeding of research and production of better products (e.g. the government ordering large numbers of a better product to bring the price down to make it competitive), spreading information, encouraging environmentally friendly activity, etc. To achieve this requires political action, including public expression (hence the need of public and private public education), by individuals, groups, corporations, and government entities.

Green business policies and actions are also an extremely important aspect of meeting environmental threats, including global warming. Government policy can encourage this, as must public caring about the issues and demand for green business activity. Education of business leaders and personnel is also critical. Understanding that moving in a greener direction can create jobs (some very well respected analysis shows clearly that moving to protect the environment will produce far more jobs and business opportunities than it destroys, though some vested interests do, and will continue to, resist that proposition). Already quite a number of firms, and in some areas chambers of commerce, see that their future is dependent on protecting the environment, while others now want to seem that they are acting in a green way (investigative reporting and environmental group research needs to expose false green claims, encouraging real green action). Professional organizations can play an important part by developing, publicizing, encouraging, and at times enforcing a green ethic.

Public education is critical, in schools, by government and community leaders, and by nongovernmental organizations, to insure that there is public demand for environmentally friendly public and corporate policy. It will help if people at large are informed and encouraged to take ecologically positive actions, from recycling and careful use of toxic materials, to efficiency in using energy and other resources. Small individual acts do help, when widely carried out. But the doing of them is important in developing a general green consciousness, a prerequisite for the development of necessary public policy.

These are a few of the many interrelated aspects, briefly presented, of meeting the massive environmental threat we human beings are bringing down on ourselves. In proceeding to take protective action, it is important to join Indigenous people in seeing that all the aspects of the problems involved are interrelated, and to analyze them and act upon them holistically, and so far as possible (with out co-opting oneself) work collaboratively to reclaim the circle of the world, to the extent realizable, minimizing the damage, so, as Native people say, life will be good for the seventh generation to come.

FOOTNOTES


1. Thomas E. Mails and Dan Evehema, Hotevilla: Hopi Shrine of the Covenant – Microcosm of the World (New York: Marlowe & Co,, 1995); and Thomas E. Mails, The Hopi Survival Kit (Stewart Tabori and Chang, 1997).

2. A compendium summarizing major climate change and related environmental events, often with references, is to be found in the beginning of the World Developments Section of the issues of Nonviolent Change, at: www.nonviolentchangejournal.org. Unless otherwise noted, the information presented in the rest of part I of this paper is from the Winter and Spring 2008 issues of NCJ.

3. See also World Resources 2000-2001: People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life: http://pubs.wri.org/pubs_description.cfm?PublD=3027; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: http://www.millenniumecosystemassessment; and United Nation Environmental Program: http://www.unep.org.

4. William G. Archambeault, "Louisiana Indians: Survivors in a Post Katrina and Rita Environment," IPJ, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 41-44. The information on Indigenous people having to flee flooding islands in Brazil is from Alexi Barrioneuvo, “Indigenous Latin Talks Add Voice to Climate Talk,” The New York Times, April 6, 2008, p. 6.

5. “World Developments: International Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, At: www.indigenouspolicy.org.

6. See the “Tribal Developments Section,” of IPJ, Vol. XIV, No. 2, fall 2003.

7. See the “Tribal Developments Section,” of IPJ, Vol. XIII, No. 2, fall 2002. Similarly, The Blackfeet Indian Tribe of Montana in the spring of 2007, was hoping to make $3 million to $4 million from salvage logging on 6,000 acres of land burned by recent forest fires, but its annual income from logging operations will fall from $90,000 a year to about $60,000 because of the lost timber. (See “Economic Developments”, in the last issue of IPJ). Another wild fire hit the reservation this summer.

8 Shadi Rahimi, “Raging wildfires burning up southern California reservations,” Indian Country Today, October 25, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415977; and Kirk Johnson and Jennifer Steinhauer. “Firefighters Get Control In Area As Questions Rise,” The New York Times, October 25, 2007, pp. 1 and 20.

9. Jonathan M. Hanna, Native Communities and Climate Change: Protecting Tribal Resources as Part of National Climate Policy (Boulder, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado, 2007, Report pending final review), Ch. 2. Similar problems are occurring for Indigenous people in the Canadian Arctic. See, Tenulle Bonoguore, “Inuit feel the effects of global warming,” Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press, October 11, 2006.

10. Jake Page, In the Hands of the Great Spirit: the 20,000 Year History of American Indians (New York: Free Press, 2003), pp. 78 – 89; and Frank Waters, Masked Gods: Navajo and Pueblo Ceremonialism (New York: Ballantine Books, 1950), Part I, Ch. 1.

11. Hanna, Native Communities and Climate Change, Ch. 2.

12. Felicity Barringer, “Collapse of Salmon Stocks Endangers Pacific Fishery,” The New York Times, March 13, 2008, www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/us/13 salmon .html

13. World Developments,” in Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Spring 2007 and Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007.

14. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz and Aqqaluk Lynge, “Impact of Climate Change Mitigation Measures on Indigenous Peoples and Their Territories and Lands,” (New York: United Nations Economic and Social Council, March 19, 2008), pp. 13-14.

15. The full article is at: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gashc3891.doc.htm.

16. Sarah Moses, “Seeking solutions for global warming,” Indian Country Today, http://www.indiancountry.com/index, Posted: December 8, 2006.

17. "Indian and Indigenous Developments: U.S. Developments: Economic Development", IPJ, Vol. XIV, No. 2. Fall 2003, developed from a statement by Morongo Band of Mission Indians of California Tribal Chairman Maurice Lyons reported in the E-mail Digest of Indigenous News (from Andre Cramblit: andrekar@ncidc.org).

18. As reported in “Economic Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVI, No. I, spring 2005.

19. Ibid.

20. Taupauli-Corpuz and Lynge, “Impact of Climate change Mitigation Measures on Indigenous Peoples,” pp. 18-19.

21. Jim Robbins, “Sale of Carbon Credits Helping Land-Rich, But cash Poor, Tribes,” The New York Times, May 8, 2007, p. D3.

22. The information about the Aboriginal people of the Western Arnhem Land region of Australia is from, Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, “Climate Change an Overview” (New York, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Division for Social Policy and Development, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, November, 2007), reprinted in Indigenous Policy, Vol. XIX, No. 1, Spring 2008, pp. 17. The information on the indigenous peoples of San Andres de Sotavento is from, Tauli-Corpuz and Lynge, “Impact of Climate Change Mitigation on Indigenous Peoples,” p19.

23. Ibid., p.10-11.

24. Ibid., p.11.

25. For more information on Ealat and the reindeer vulnerability research, contact Ealat Outreach, c/o the International Center fro Reindeer Husbandry, Boaranjarga 1, 9520 Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway, ealat@ealat.org, phone: Anders Oskal: +47 99 45 00 10. Swein Mathiesen: +47 90 52 41 16m www.ealat,org.

26. Visit: http://www.arctic-council.org/.

27. David Melmer, “Tribal colleges can play a role in fighting climate change,” Indian Country Today, posted: October 17, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415913; and . David Melmer, “ U.S. Geological Survey, tribal colleges partner for climate change research,” Indian Country Today, Posted: September 17, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415746.

28. “World Developments: U.S. Developments: Education and Cultural Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, At: www.indigenouspolicy.org.

29. Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, “Climate Change an Overview,” p. 12.

30. On the United League of Indigenous Nations, see “Ongoing Activities: U.S. Activities,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, At: www.indigenouspolicy.org. On the International Alliance of Forest Peoples, see Barrioneuvo, “Indigenous Latin Talks Add Voice to Climate Talk.”

31. On participation in the UNFCCC Processes: Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, “Climate Change an Overview,” pp. 13-15. On the UN NGO/DPI meeting, see, “American Indian and International Indigenous Developments,” Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, at www.indigenouspolicy.org. The UNPFII meeting details are available at: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/session_seventh.html.

32. For a discussion of the relevance of traditional Native thought to western science, and growing convergence of the two, see, Stephen M. Sachs, “The Cutting Edge of Physics: Western Science Is Finally Catching Up with American Indian Tradition,” IPJ, Vol. XVIII, No. 2.

33. Stephen M. Sachs and Deborah Escobel Hunt, "Appropriate Consulting with Indian Nations: Facilitating Returning to the Wisdom of the People," Proceedings of the 2000 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 2000).

34. For a short overview of appropriate ways to deal with global warming and other environmental degradations see Stephen M. Sachs, “Global Warming and What Can Be Done About It,” in Nonviolent Change, Spring 2007. NCJ regularly reports on major climate change and other environmental developments. A good ongoing source for environmental information is the World Watch Institute: http://www.worldwatch.org/.

35. See David Osborne and Ted Gabler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector, From Schoolhouse to Statehouse, City Hall to the Pentagon (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., 1992)


SOME INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTL WEB RESOURCES


The Arctic Council, including Indigenous groups, researches and reports on environmental conditions and change in the Arctic: http://www.arctic-council.org/.

Indigenous Environmental Perspectives: A North American Primer: http://www.eric.ed.gov/sitemap/html_0900000b800350be.html.

Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and its Transformations: Critical Anthropological Perspectives (Studies in Environmental Anthropology): http://www.amazon.com / Indigenous-Environmental / dp / 9057024837.

Indigenous environmental knowledge and its transformations: critical anthropological perspectives. (Applied Anthropology): http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3030/is_200206/ai_n7684033.

Indigenous Peoples Environmental Rights: Evolving Common Law Perspectives in Canada, Australia, and the United States from Boston College: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3816/is_200601/ai_n17178888.

The Indigenous Environmental Studies Program (IES) at Trent University, a collaboration between the Department of Indigenous Studies (INDG) and the Environmental and Resource Science/Studies Program (ERS/SP): http://www.trentu.ca/ies/.

Indigenous Environmental Knowledge and its Transformations: Critical Anthropological Perspectives. Edited by ROY ELLEN, PETER PARKES, and ALAN BICKER: http://links.jstor.org / sici?sici=0021-9118(2001...

An Indigenous Perspective on Corporate Rule. by Dave Wheelock. A recent Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) conference in South Dakota: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0804-09.htm.

CIER: Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources CIER: Sustainable First Nation communities and First Nations’ Perspectives on the Environment:

http://www.cier.ca / information-and-resources / publications-and-product...

INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVES: A North American Primer. A Discussion and Series of Case Studies of North American Indigenous Environment Issues: http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nl/9304/0142.html.

Environmental Health Perspectives, Location: Main Section of EHP Online: http://www.ehponline.org/qa/106-2focus/focus.html.

Indigenous Perspectives: Rethinking Governance and Stewardship ... Endangered Peoples – Indigenous Rights and the Environment: http://www.ihp.edu/syllabi/pdfs/cas_ph_475.pdf.

Science Daily: Indigenous Perspectives On Climate Change Needed, But environmental changes have a greater impact on indigenous people: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325152457.htm.

Order from the British Library: indigenous environmental knowledge and its transformations: critical anthropological perspectives (Ellen, Parkes): http://direct.bl.uk/research/23/1E/RN111602694.html.

Indigenous traditions and Ecology research resources: Defending Mother Earth: Native American Perspectives on Environmental Issues: http://environment.harvard.edu/religion/religion/indigenous/index.html,

Indigenous Perspectives on Climate Change. Environmental changes have a great impact on indigenous people: http://www.locustfork.net / blog / climate_change / indigenous_perspectives_...

Let me first discuss what we learned from examining indigenous perspectives, a major challenge in environmental studies: http://www.cicero.uio.no/fulltext.asp?id=3250&lang=en.

In order to ensure that indigenous perspectives were well-represented at a June 1997 conference on preventing desertification and promoting non-wood forest: http://www.cec.org/grants/projects/details/index.cfm?varlan=ENGLISH&ID=65.

Some of the earliest prolonged European encounters with Indigenous Australians ... Indigenous culture and the differing environmental perspectives of ...:http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/royal_botanic_gardens/garden_features/indigenous.

Abstract: This paper provides perspective on the growing research arena of indigenous knowledge in environmental education in southern Africa: http://www.eric.ed.gov/sitemap/html_0900000b80248c62.html.

Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation | Indigenous Peoples and Sustainable ... Indigenous Perspective and Relationships with the Environment: http://www.iisd.org/7thgen/environment.htm.

Indigenous Environmental Health: Report of the Fifth National Conference 2004. Keynote Address - Australian Indigenous Policy: A Personal Perspective: http://www.health.gov.au / internet / wcms / publishing.nsf / Content / ohp-ieh-conf2004.htm~ohp...

Indigenous Environmental Education: An exploration of traditional environmental education. Aboriginal Perspectives in Canadian Politics and Law: http://www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca/ofr/calendar/crs_abs.htm.

The Isiolo Declaration: Africa's Perspective on Environment and Development. The erosion of indigenous socio-economic systems, the adoption of values and ...:: http://www.unsystem.org / ngls / documents / publications.en / voices.africa / number5 / vfa5.04.htm.

Winona LaDuke, “Indigenous Environmental Perspectives: A North American Primer”:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v025/25.4teuton_c.pdf.

Environmental management expressions of distinct local indigenous legal systems: http://www.indiana.edu/~iascp/Drafts/robinson.pdf.

Beyond Bush Tucker: Implementing Indigenous Perspectives Through The Science Curriculum. Aboriginal Perspectives in Environmental Education:http://www.natsiew.nexus.edu.au/lens/perspectives/index.html

SRIC continues it work assisting the public on environmental issues: Indigenous Peoples and the State Indigenous Perspective on Colonialism: http://www.sric.org/voices/2001/v2n3/tgoldtooth.html.

The role of the environment in American Indian culture creates a holistic perspective that influences Indigenous institutions, such as criminal justice: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v026/26.2robyn.html/.

It was also hoped that some of the participants would actually give voice to indigenous environmental perspectives rather than presume scientific ecology: http://environment.harvard.edu / religion / publications / books / book_series / cswr / indigint.html.

Indigenous people are very interested in harvesting wildlife: Perspectives on Indigenous Peoples Management of Environmental Resources: http://www.aibiol.org.au/journal/flying.html.

Indigenous Perspectives: Rethinking Governance and Stewardship ... Kalpavriksh and International Institute of Environment and Development, 2001: http://www.ihp.edu/syllabi/pdfs/cas_po_386.pdf.

Arctic environment: European perspectives ... Indigenous peoples have managed the Arctic's resources in a sustainable manner for thousands of years but...: http://www.globio.info/press/2004-03-15.cfm.

Indigenous Environmental Perspectives. Roots of Our Future Conference: A Learning Circle on Global Equity,. Kawartha World Issues Centre, Peterborough, ON: http://www.athabascau.ca/indigenous/cv/leanne_simpson.pdf.

The First National Workshop on Indigenous Environmental Health: http://enhealth.nphp.gov.au/council/pubs/pdf/monograph1.pdf.

Indigenous Environmental Network "Unplug North America" campaign ... cultural perspectives on environmental justice: http://nativenet.uthscsa.edu/archive/nl/9510/0099.html.

Significant advances: The IFM will bring forth the Indigenous perspective on environmental monitoring so often lacking from purely scientific efforts: http://www.ipy.org/development/eoi/proposal-details.php?id=396.

Introduction: Cultural Perspectives on Time; Why is Indigenous Knowledge Important? Types and Uses of Indigenous Knowledge including on the environment: http://www.ens.gu.edu.au/ciree/LSE/MOD5.HTM.

This book provides a broad perspective on the intersection of indigenous peoples and the law, particularly within environmental law and international...” http://www.amazon.com / gp / redirect.html%3FASIN=089 / o / ASIN / 0890891478%253FSubscript...

Whether communities of color, tribes and indigenous peoples, and poor communities will continue to suffer disproportionately high exposures to environmental...: http://www.progressivereform.org/perspectives/environJustice.cfm.

Perspectives on Indigenous Education and teaching our young people. Practicing the Law of Circular Interaction: First Nations Environment and…” http://www.econet.sk.ca/eco-ed/indigenous_resources.html.

Relationship with the environment Indigenous. Perspectives: http://www.aries.mq.edu.au/pdf/IndigenousProject_Aug06.pdf,

Knowing Where We Are Going: New Perspectives on Community Outcomes · Empowering Indigenous Communities to Identify and Resolve Environmental Health Issues: http://www.health.gov.au / internet / wcms / publishing.nsf / Content / ohp-ieh-conf2004.htm~ohp...

What is the contemporary spectrum of indigenous-environmental perceptions? Indigenous Resistance: Divergent Perspectives on Mining in New Caledonia: http://www.uvm.edu/~shali/IEDC.doc.

National Environmental Perspectives: Indigenous Water Rights Briefing Paper: http://www.kairoscanada.org/e/ecology/water/ourWaterOurResponsibility.asp.

Tom Goldtooth, the executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network,

It is important to have an indigenous perspective within the SARD: http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/tg1.html.

Indigenous knowledge in environmental education processes: http://www.ingentaconnect.com / content / routledg / ceer / 2004 / 00000010 / 00000003 / art00005.

Various indigenous knowledge fields from a development perspective: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-84401-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html.

Environment and the indigenous rights in a new perspective: http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/Diana/fulltext/kast.htm.

National Indigenous Environmental Health Conference, 22 - 24 May 2007: http://www.healthinfonet.ecu.edu.au / html / html_environment / environment_physical_2.htm.

Further affirming Principle 22 of the Rio Declaration, which states that: "indigenous people and their communities .... have a vital role in environmental: http://www.carc.org/pubs/v21no4/declare2.htm.

Sea country – an indigenous perspective: http://www.environment.gov.au / coasts / mbp / publications / pubs / indigenous-perspective.pdf - similar pages

Implications of indigenous environmental learning in. Barbados: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9493.1990.tb00017.x.

Concepts of indigenous environmental knowledge in scientific…: http://www.springerlink.com/index/M71546N4L3071K3P.pdf.

Indigenous Peoples and Environmental Issues An Encyclopedia ... for students investigating how cultural differences and perspectives affect the environment: http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR2398.aspx.

environmental perspective, they can have very serious negative impacts on social ... Indigenous Peoples, due to the fact that globalization constitutes a…: http://www.conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-b7a54e.pdf

Perspectives on the Human Right to Decent Environment by the Representatives of Indigenous Peoples: http://www.arcticcentre.org/images/20040818133414.doc.

Current Information on the Environment

FROM THE SPRING 2008 ISSUE OF NONVIOLENT CHANGE

www.nonviolentchangejournal.org, Coordinating Editor: Stephen Sachs: ssachs@earthlink.net
ONGOING ACTIVITIES
Steve Sachs
Environmental Activities


Numerous U.S. peace organizations have been mobilizing for policies that counter global warming, and protect the environment, in addition to opposing the Bush administrations occupation of Iraq and threatening to attack Iran. This includes “Global Exchange (http://www.globalexchange.org) and Codepink (www.codepinkalert.org). Global exchange has been calling for an immediate moratorium on U.S. incentives for agrofuels, U.S. agroenergy monocultures and global trade in agrofuels, because “the increasing use of corn for fuel puts less on your plate, takes more out of your wallet, and doesn't necessarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions (http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZAmm26MDmoNNt862r4jY2FvrOscYHdeq). The organization’s freedom from Oil campaign “promotes a clean green energy economy for all Greening the blue-collar economy.” In January, Global Exchange held a youth rally outside the International Auto Show for green cars and green jobs, holding “The auto industry, as one of the top employers of blue-collar jobs, has a responsibility to streamline green from producer to product to purchaser. As Van Jones, a leading member in the green jobs movement said, ‘The new green economy being developed needs to lift all boats, not just the ones that already have spanking new oars, benches and no holes.’" Also, in Januaty, Global Exchange participated in a national teach-in, called Focus the Nation, that engaged U.S. students and communities with political leaders and decision makers to address global warming solutions. “The event served as a catalyzing force to help shift the national conversation about global warming towards a determination to face this global challenge.” The event involved over 1,800 higher and secondary education institutions, faith groups, civic organizations and businesses.

The same is true around the world. For example, The Nepalese Human Rights and Peace Society (HURPES) expressed serious concern, in January, over the effect of climate change and global warming, submitting a 10-point suggestion to the government of Nepal for taking necessary steps for the conservation of the environment. It suggested that the government formulate a national plan of action and implement it to control the effect of climate change and global warming and for continued reforestation to minimize the green house effect. The proposal also called on the government to include peace education, environmental education along with human rights in the syllabus and it is necessary to publicize to the population. For more visit: http://www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=34094.

A leading Japanese newspaper reported, in late January, that petitions from 90,000 Avaaz members to the Bali Climate Change Summit helped change Japan's policy on climate change. The paper stated that at a critical, high-level meeting on global warming, the Environment Minister held up Avaaz's "Titanic" newspaper ad from the Bali summit--showing Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda, with Bush, steering towards climate disaster... along with a call for tough 2020 emissions targets, signed by 90,000 Avaaz members. "The world sees Japan as a force resisting change! Are we okay with this?" the minister asked. The Chief Cabinet Minister suggested setting a target. Days later, Prime Minister Fukuda announced his decision: at last, Japan would set a 2020 emissions target! In mid-March, Avaaz, concerned about the fact that production of Biofuels is rapidly inflating food prices, especially in underdeveloped localities, while many biofuels require more energy to produce than they provide, while increasing CO2 and other pollution, engaged in an international e-mail campaign to the nations with the 20 largest economies, producing 75% of carbon emissions, about to take part in climate change discussions, in Chiba, Japan, leading up to the G8 summit this summer, urging the adoption of green global standards for biofuels. For more go to: https://secure.avaaz.org/.

Community solutions finds that oil production is now peaking, and “that While Plans A and B seek to maintain unsustainable levels of resource consumption through energy alternatives, Plan C advocates for cultural change. Plan A – More and dirtier fuels like tar sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquids, and “clean” coal (bury CO2) to keep up with growing energy consumption. Plan B – The "clean and green" approach proposes using large-scale renewables like wind, solar, biofuels and hydrogen to maintain our high energy way of life and keep us complacent and consuming. Plan C – Our strategy of culture change, conservation and curtailment. Through reductions in resource consumption, dramatic conservation and curtailment of energy use coupled with an increase in local community living we can survive peak oil and create a sustainable world in its wake. Plan C addresses many of today’s issues head on and reduces the impetus for war. “Our solutions look at how each individual can make a difference, reduce CO2 emissions, and help bring peace to the world”. For more go to: http://www.communitysolution.org.

In the United States, The Wilderness Society, paralleling the efforts of many organizations, holding that “Global warming is the greatest environmental crisis that we face, and we need solutions now!” is petitioning Congress, “As Congress prepares to set the policy agenda for 2008, I strongly urge you to make taking action to reduce global warming pollution a top priority. The National Academy of Sciences and thousands of scientists worldwide agree that the planet is warming and that human dependence on dirty fossil fuels - such as coal and oil - is the primary cause. The problem is so urgent that the next 10 years will likely decide the outcome. To reverse the dangerous effects of global warming, it is critical that we: - Gradually reduce global warming pollution 20% by 2020; - Allow for a "cap and trade" program to help businesses meet pollution reduction goals without suffering economic losses; and - Promote a greater reliance on clean, renewable energy sources. Solving global warming will place the U.S. at the forefront of developing and deploying the clean energy technologies that will dominate the 21st century. When we solve global warming, we will have established a more secure, prosperous, and vibrant America.” For more information go to: http://action.lcv.org.

The Wilderness Society is opposing A proposed land exchange between the Bush Administration's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Doyon Ltd., the largest private landholder in Alaska, because it could bring sprawling pipelines, drill pads, oil spills, roads and industrial traffic to the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. The proposal threatens the culture and subsistence livelihoods of people living in eight native villages located on and around the refuge and the wildlife that depend on the refuge for habitat. Doyon is a native-owned corporation and many of its own shareholders oppose the land exchange because of the threat it poses to the land, water, and wildlife of Yukon Flats-the place they call home. For more information go to: http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/yukon00/876i6kg9lwmkmi6? or http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/yukon00/forward/.

Earth Hour took place on March 29 2008, at 8:00 pm, local time, with numerous cities round the world turning off their lights for an hour as a statement for action on reducing global warming and climate change. Among the participating metropolises were Sydney, Australia, Chicago, Tel Aviv, Manila, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Brisbane and Toronto. For more information go to: http://www.earthhour.org/about. The Seven Generations Conference, named in honor of the American Indian traditions--that decisions are made with an eye towards their impact on the next seven generations – March 19 - 21, at the Boulder, CO, UCAR Center Green Campus, approached climate change from two perspectives; one rooted in indigenous experiences and one born of present-day science. The overarching goal is to look for opportunities for the two perspectives to point to shared strategies for understanding, adapting to, and mitigating climate change, with a particular focus on American Indian Lands. The Planning for Seven Generations Conference was sponsored by The American Indian & Alaska Native Climate Change Working Group, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The goal of the conference was, “Developing a collaborative way forward – one that honors indigenous and western ways of knowing about the Earth; Framing research questions to allow collaborative, multi-disciplinary, cross-cultural, community-based investigation and offer opportunities for student participation, and Exploring effective strategies for information and idea communication and dissemination, including leveraging cyber-infrastructure tools”. For more information Contact: Lena Gomez-Miller, UCAR/SOARS (303)497-8622, millerl@ucar.edu, http://www.cbp.ucar.edu/tribalconfhome.html.

Carbon Fund Blog carries climate change news, links to green blogs, and a green resource list, at: http://carbonfund.blogspot.com/2008/03/sky-is-falling.html. Carbon Fund is certifying carbon free products at: http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/businesses/category/CarbonFree. The fund also has an e-mail list serve.

In the state of São Paulo, Brazil, March 7, several hundred members and supporters of the international farmers organizations La Vía Campesina occupied a research site of the U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology firm Monsanto, destroying the greenhouse and experimental plots of genetically-modified (GM) corn. Participants stated that the act was to protest the Brazilian government's decision in February to legalize Monsanto's GM Guardian® corn, which was recently banned in France, Austria, and Hungary due to risks to the environment and human health. For more information go to: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5109.

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WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

Steve Sachs
Environmental Developments


Spring arrived with increasing concern about the environment. Community Solutions finds that Oil production is now peaking, and that by 2010 we will start not having enough oil and other fossil fuels to meet our transportation, heating and manufacturing "needs". This will bring inflation and major food shortages. Community Solutions says that, “We will be forced to localize, rely on resources nearby. There are good aspects of that,” once the shift is made, including healthier diets and less pollution, particularly less greenhouse gas production. However, unless we begin immediately to prepare appropriately for the energy shortages, we will fall into exceedingly difficult times.

2007 was the second warmest year on record, exceeded only by 2005. Around the world, the combination of rising energy (and hence transportation and food production) costs, agricultural land taken out of food production to produce biofuel, and population growth (particularly in developing nations) with increased urbanization spreading over agricultural land, has already brought a dangerous inflation in food prices, which can only increase massively over time. Julian Borger, “Feed The World? We Are Fighting a Losing Battle, UN Admits” The Guardian, February 26 (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/26/7304/) reported that the rise in food prices of up to 40% has brought the United Nations to warn, in February, that it no longer has enough money “to keep global malnutrition at bay this year,” and will need an additional half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs. “The shortfall is all the more worrying as it comes at a time when populations, many in urban areas, who had thought themselves secure in their food supply are now unable to afford basic foodstuffs. Afghanistan has recently added an extra 2.5 million people to the number it says are at risk of malnutrition. Josette Sheeran, the head of the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) stated, “This is the new face of hunger. There is food on shelves but people are priced out of the market. There is vulnerability in urban areas we have not seen before. There are food riots in countries where we have not seen them before.” “The impact has been felt around the world. Food riots have broken out in Morocco, Yemen, Mexico, Haiti, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory cost Burkina Faso, Italy and Uzbekistan. Pakistan has reintroduced rationing for the first time in two decades and put shipments of rice under guard. Russia has frozen the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil for six months, while China has put price controls on many of the same products. Thailand is also planning a freeze on food staples. After protests around Indonesia, Jakarta has increased public food subsidies. India has banned the export of rice except the high-quality basmati variety.” In the Philippines, on March 26, the President ordered a crackdown on rice hoarders, as rice shortages have been creating unrest. At the end of February, world wheat stores had dropped to their lowest level in 35 years. In the United States, mirroring the world market, in April, wheat prices had increased 130% since March of 2007, while soy process rose 87%., Corn, barley, sunflower seeds, and canola also steadily rising in cost. In developing countries, food has risen to consuming 60%-80% of people’s spending. Also, with agricultural product prices high, an increasing number of U.S. farmers are forgoing subsidies to rotate land to conserve it, and putting that land into production, which environmentalists fear will destroy wild life habitat, and cause other problems. The growing world food crisis is likely to lead to increasing violence, including international conflict. A UNESCO report, “International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development,” issued April 15 (Preliminary information is available at: http://farastaff.blogspot.com/2008/04/international-assessment-of.html, and a report in The New York Times is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/world/europe/16food.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin), found that, “Modern agriculture will have to change radically if the international community wants to cope with growing populations and climate change, while avoiding social fragmentation and irreversible deterioration of the environment,” according to Salvatore Arico, a UNESCO biodiversity specialist, summarizing the report by some 400 experts. The report states that modern agriculture has brought significant increases in food production, but that the benefits have been spread unevenly and at “an increasingly intolerable price, paid by small-scale farmers, workers, rural communities and the environment.”

Laura Carlsen, “Latin American Food Fights,” Americas Program Column, April 4, 2007 (http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5124), states, “For the first time since widespread famines devastated whole populations, serious doubts about global food supply have gripped societies throughout the world. The problem this time is not so much the quantity of food produced (if it ever was), but what productive land will be used for, who will feed us, and who will eat. In Argentina, soybean producers blocked roads to protest a tax hike on exports levied by the government of President Cristina Fernandez. Soybean producers have reaped a financial bonanza over the past years, harvesting high prices with the full support of the government and driving basic food producers off the land. As politicians and exporters hurled insults back and forth, urban consumers experienced food shortages due to interruption of food transport between the cities and the countryside. In Bolivia, cooking oil producers demonstrated against the government's temporary prohibition on exports. The Bolivian government of President Evo Morales has frozen exports until domestic demand can be met at affordable prices. Producers in the province of Santa Cruz used the occasion to reiterate demands for regional autonomy and intensify opposition to government social welfare policies. In Mexico, the biotech lobby moved one step closer to legalizing genetically modified (GM) corn in the country with new rules on a biosafety law made-to-order to their interests. Farmers' organizations warned that the measure threatens native corn varieties, livelihoods and the nation's food sovereignty. GM corn cross-pollinates naturally with native varieties, creating genetic contamination of varieties that indigenous farmers have developed over centuries. Their use also makes farmers dependent on transnational seed companies, instead of relying on millennia-old practices of seed-saving. Each of these conflicts is inserted in its own complex national political scenario. But they share something in common: they are part of a battle over the future of food and agriculture. As prices for basic commodities soar, small farmers, instead of reaping the benefits, find themselves facing a new set of threats to their livelihoods”.

A recent report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) cautions that global food prices will stay high. The report blames, in part, the biofuels boom for rising food costs. “With grains and oil seeds the key feedstocks for bio-fuels, the oil price rise exerted a strong push on agriculture commodity prices in 2007, which enjoyed their best performance for almost 30 years. As oil hit $100 per barrel in January 2008, soybean prices jumped to a 34-year high, corn prices approached their recent 11-year high, wheat prices were just below their recent all-time high, rapeseed prices rose to record highs and palm oil futures hit a historic high." The report concludes "Governments need to carefully consider the impact of bio-fuels on the poor.’ Other factors that have joined to create the crisis in the food supply include climate change, concentration in production and marketing, spreading urbanization, erosion and pollution of natural resources, higher demand for livestock and government policies that have made smallholder farming—still the source of most of the world's food supply—a ‘non-competitive’ (and therefore non-viable) economic activity.” Carlson recommends that as world food prices rise, “governments need to rethink their dependence on the international market for food and revisit policies that foment the use of land to produce cash crops for export.” “It's also way past time that institutions of global governance take a hard look at the human cost of allowing a handful of transnational companies to control so much of our global food supply. Mexico's tortilla crisis turned out to be more a problem of speculative control of supply than a real supply-and-demand problem.”

Rising fuel prices are driving inflation effecting everything, and especially transportation. Independent truckers in the U.S. – even more than large companies – have been feeling the pinch, and talked of a strike. U.S. airlines have been impacted, not only raising fares with fuel surcharges, but larger airlines have been cutting flights, in spite of level demand, while several small airlines have been forced out of business. In March, inflation increased in the 15 Europe nations using the Euro to a 3.5% annual rate.

The UN Environmental Program reported, in February, that as oceans heat up from global warming, world fish stocks will drop drastically, from that fact alone (mot counting already serious over fishing and pollution), potentially impacting 2.6 billion people directly, who derive their protein from the oceans. In the face of rapidly diminishing plant species, and the quickly falling number of varieties of each agricultural plant, on the planet, the Global Seed Vault has been built on a Norwegian island in the Arctic to store samples of the worlds food seeds and sprouts very securely in case of agricultural disaster, even in the far future.

The huge movement of weight on the earths surface as ice caps and glaciers melt, and the oceans rise, is causing movements in the earth (such as rising land beneath melting Antarctic glaciers). This in turn is causing increases in seismic activity, including earthquakes. In some areas, such as in Iceland, but not in others, as, for instance, in the Mediterranean Sea region, this has brought about additional volcanic activity. In March, a 160 square mile section of the Wilkins Ice shelf in Antarctica broke off, as a result of global warming – an indicator of the pattern of melting. The World Glacier Monitoring Service, at the University of Zurich and supported by the United Nations Environment Program, published a report, March 12, (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/earth/18melt.html?ex=1363492800&en=e19b4b86c09cae9f&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) finding that glaciers are melting at a faster rate than previously estimated. Most of the world’s mountain glaciers, many of which feed major rivers and water supplies, are shrinking at an accelerating pace as the climate warms. The report warned that the loss of glaciers would take away a summertime source of river water, drinking water and hydroelectric power in populous, relatively poor places like South Asia and the cities along the western slope of the Andes. “Millions of people depend on the runoff from mountain snow and ice in the warm seasons,” said Peter Gleick, who has studied water and climate for two decades and is the president of the Pacific Institute, a private research group in Oakland, CA (http://carbonfund.blogspot.com/2008/03/sky-is-falling.html).

Juliet Eilperin, “Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say,” The Washington Post, March 10, 2008 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/09/AR2008030901867) sites several recent scientific studies, including a paper coauthored by Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, find that to prevent dangerous rises in global temperature now, it will not be enough to reduce production of green house gases, and particularly carbon dioxide, to the levels of a few years ago. These studies find that human carbon dioxide emissions need to be reduced almost to zero by 2050 to stop global warming. This is far more than politicians around the world have so far been willing to consider. Similarly, Scientists argued in Nature, April 3 (http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001-pPULjeCv9VU2ZxH4mtlsI6WT2w2j6FOwAJYVhUtMnTBlwYSl56lOsoWGMaYJBOommWlqwY8JFExo8QPFrqGimmYj7DEtFU81B6Fknj_GCvAnwYm3wJRRVfpSRH3g4sSyqkXpHbOBE7-cQRBF-4HslChitOIpgzyHI6Z-KGYaxjy4EmAC1fmKA==), that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has seriously underestimated the breakthroughs needed to thwart climate change, calling the panel’s assumptions about future technological development.

The 5 day UN conference of 160 nations, a the beginning of April, taking a first step in moving to follow up on the Bali meeting in preparing a follow up to the Kyoto Treaty, which expires in 2012, for the first time considered regulating emissions from airplanes and ships.

In the U.S., the Senate is prepared to vote, in June, on legislation that would reduce U.S. emissions by 70% by 2050; the two Democratic senators running for president, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, back an 80% cut. The Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, supports a 60% percent reduction by mid-century. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is the Senate leader for moving climate legislation through the Senate, as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the new findings "make it clear we must act now to address global warming." "It won't be easy, given the makeup of the Senate, but the science is compelling. It is hard for me to see how my colleagues can duck this issue and live with themselves." Norway’s experience (Elizabeth Rosenthal, Lofty Pledge to Cut Emissions Come With Caveat in Norway,” The New York Times, March 27, 2008) indicates that it is not easy to make major cutback’s to become truly carbon neutral. Norway, already a relatively low direct greenhouse gas producing nation – leaving only a small space for easy reductions at home – pledged first, in 2007, to become carbon neutral by 2050, and then, in January, that it would produce no more greenhouse gasses than it absorbed, by 2030. The problem is that to do this Norway plans to rely predominantly on purchasing carbon credits from developing countries. But there are not projected to be nearly enough forests to replant or preserve, and inefficient existing power plants and factories to replace or upgrade, to balance anywhere close to the carbon emissions of the developed world. Some more expensive and more difficult actions need to be taken, to this writer, what is needed – along with careful analysis of what the best courses of action really are – is to see the necessary actions as investments, and not costs or losses. The BBC reported, April 2 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7326834.stm), that greenhouse-gas emissions from key heavy industries in the European Union rose 1.1% last year. Greenpeace said the figures showed that Europe‚s Emissions Trading Scheme, implemented to satisfy Kyoto Protocol requirements, is failing at its task of protecting the climate, while others said that, over the long term, it will succeed in cutting emissions by 8% from 1990 levels by 2012.

Once again, a new report, by the World Glacier Monitering Service, in March, finds that glaciers around the earth are melting at a faster, and increasing, rate, than previously projected, as global warming accelerates. An expert panel of the U.S. National Research Council announced in March, in agreement with a similar recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency, that rising sea levels and other effects of global warming threaten roads, airports, rail lines and other important infrastructure, and that mitigating action needs to be commenced. The report is available at nationalacadamies.org The EPA report also noted that natural features near coastlines, such as wetlands, and water supplies are in danger of becoming contaminated by salt water, as oceans rise, and that costal erosion will increase (as has increasingly been occurring in Brittan and Alaska). The Miami Dade Climate Change Taskforce found that a two-foot ocean rise, which the UN Intergovernmental Task Force predicted by 2100 (and which recent findings of increased glacier melting indicated is likely to be exceeded well before then) “would make life in South Florida very difficult for everyone.” The multiagency draft report of the National Geological Survey, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of transportation (on line at: climatesciences.gov/library/sap/sap/4-1/public-review-draft), focusing on the area from Montauk Point, Long Island, NY to Cape lookout, NC, considered three estimates of ocean rise by next century, 16” (a rate which has already been exceeded), two feet (which is considered optimistic) and three feet. The daft report projects that a rise of close to two feet, would impact 70% of the property in area ports, such as Wilmington, DE, and would put at risk of inundation almost 2,200 miles of major roads, and 900 miles of railroad, in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The report stated that a three-foot ocean rise would be catastrophic for wetlands and other costal features, but that a number of recent reports have projected higher increases in ocean level by the next century.

The World Bank, with support of developed nations, is launching a series of funds, totaling $7-$12 billion, for 'climate change mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries. The funds - the Clean Technology Fund, the Forest Investment Fund, the Adaptation/Climate Resilience Pilot Fund, and the Strategic Climate Fund – have been strongly criticized by developing countries and environment and development organizations. The world bank continues to fund new coal and other carbon fuel burning power plants, slightly more carbon efficient than existing facilities, and using carbon trading as a basis for saying the projects are green. “They are concerned that the funds will, once again, give wealthy Northern governments, and, in particular, their bank of choice, the World Bank, more control over funds intended to ‘help’ developing countries. (Daphne Wysham and Shakuntala Makhijani “World Bank Climate Profiteering,” Foreign Policy In Focus, March 31, 2008, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5110).” See also, Janet Redman, “The World Bank's Carbon Deals,” Foreign Policy In Focus, April 10, 2008, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5143, “The Bank is supporting some of the most polluting industries in Southern countries, while advancing little toward its goal of “reach[ing] and benefit[ing] the poorest communities of the developing world,” in its carbon market work. And, it’s doing even less to promote clean, renewable alternatives in the energy industry.”

A study published in Nature Geoscience, in February, found that the subsidence of land along the gulf coast, which combines with rising seas and increased numbers of severe storms to cause coastal lands to be swallowed by the gulf, is caused by compaction of peat in bogs. This finding will necessity a larger diversion of water than previously planned, if proposals to divert Mississippi River water to bring sediment – which used to be carried annually into the delta, before the river was dyked – are to be carried out so as to successfully stop the rapid erosion of the Delta. In Alaska, Kivalina, one of a large number of villages suffering flooding from global warming, filed suit in federal court, in February, against 5 oil companies, 14 electric utilities, and the largest U.S. coal company, have a responsibility for contributing significantly to global warming, and hence the village’s flooding problems.

Increased extreme, and previously rare, weather, consistent with global warming, has been continuing. This spring the Midwestern U.S. is again being hit by unusually severe storms bringing especially strong flooding. This winter much of the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific North West received record snow falls, easing drought, but causing traffic problems. The long-term drought is serious for the U.S. west. For example, a study by the Scrips Institute of Oceanography, made public in February, found that there is a 50% probability that vast Lake Mead, on the Nevada Arizona boarder, will effectively run dry by 3030, much sooner than previously projected.

A large area of China was shut down by an unprecedented snow storm, this winter, while Afghanistan, experienced the most severe winter of cold and snow in 30 years, bringing 462 known deaths, destroying 833 houses, and killing 316,000 cattle. A rare, and heavy, snowstorm, in January, brought life in Jerusalem and other Middle Eastern cities to a halt.

Some recent impacts of climate change include warming bringing the first outbreak of a tropical disease in Europe, with the village of Castigkione, near Ravenna on the northeast coast of Italy, suffering, in August, from chikungunya – a relative of dengue fever – carried by tiger mosquitoes now able to migrate from the Indian Ocean. Of as yet unknown cause, hundreds of bats, that eat insects, depressing their number, in caves and mines in New York, Masachusetts and Vermont, have been dying, of what has been named ‘white nose syndrome’, that biologists fear may lead to extinction of several bat species in the region.

Two new studies find that the approach scientists and policymakers have generally been using to described the problem of global warming in terms of halting the buildup of carbon in the atmosphere is not the best method. The new research says it more appropriate to focus on a temperature threshold as a better marker of when the planet will experience severe climate disruptions. The Earth has already warmed by 0.76 degrees Celsius (nearly 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Most scientists warn that a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could have serious consequences. Schmittner, lead author of a February 14 article in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, stated that his computer modeling shows that if global emissions continue on a "business as usual" path for the rest of the century, the Earth will warm by 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. He calculated that if emissions did not drop to zero until 2300, the temperature would rise by more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit, by that time.

High energy prices, from the growing planet wide petroleum shortage, are increasing pressures to undertake seriously ecologically damaging energy development. For example, British Petroleum (BP) – an oil company noted for its real green policies, particularly emissions reductions – has broken its long standing policy against extracting oil in tar sands, to initiate strip mining (tar sands are too thick to pump, they have to be mined) of 50,000 square miles of forest in the Canadian province of Alberta (for more see, Michael Moreci, “Beyond Propoganda: Oil Giant BP Greenwashes Alberta Sands,” In These Times, April 2008). The oil shortage is also driving increased global use of extremely polluting – especially of green house gasses – coal. Despite some reduction of plans to build new coal fired power plants in the U.S. – largely out of environmental concerns, and some U.S. generating plants switching from coal to natural gas (which may increase gas prices) – U.S. coal mining is on the increase, mostly for rising exports as the world price of coal has been rising. U.S. coal prices, which fell from 2000 – 2002, before rising for three years, and leveling off, jumped sharply last year, beyond their 2000 level, and continue to increase. The expanding production of biofuels is also a growing problem. Two studies published in Science, in February, find that almost all biofuels (e.g. methanol and palm oil) cause more greenhouse gas pollution than conventional fuels, when all emissions cost of production are taken into account. Moreover, the ecological damage from clearing land – whether rain forest (as is happening in the Amazon region and in several places in the Pacific) or scrub lands, for biofuel production is extremely destructive of natural ecosystems, while switching farm production from food to biofuel is a serious element in the expanding world food crisis. U.S. ethanol production is expected to rise to 11.4 billion gallons, this year, and if current trends continue, as much as 35 billion gallons by next year. It takes almost 20 pounds of corn (that otherwise would be used as food for animals or people) to produce one gallon of ethanol, which produces less energy than was required to produce that gallon of ethanol. Serious pollution from a number of U.S. Biodiesel plants has also been reported (see Brenda Goodman, “Pollution Called Byproduct of ‘Clean’ Fuel,” The New York Times, March 11, 2008). In South Africa, economic growth that has brought the nation to achieve one of the world’s top 25 GNPs, has outstripped increases in electric power production, to the point where continued economic development is imperiled, which would hurt the economies of the rest of Southern Africa and set back efforts to overcome poverty in the region. South Africa expects that it will take it five years to catch up in electricity production.

New technologies are being researched, and (hopefully) developed that will not only reduce carbon emissions, but remove existing CO2 from the process. One possibility being explored is taking CO2 out of the air (other than by plants, that do that naturally), but the problem is that currently conceivable ways of doing that require a great deal of energy. One way to do that, blowing air through CO2 absorbing liquid potassium carbonate, is being researched at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A group at the University of Southern California is working on a reverse fuel cell that mixes gas and water, and jolts it with electricity – that could be generated by wind turbines, or other carbon neutral methods - to produce ethanol, thus storing carbon. If the ethanol were then used as fuel, the whole process would be carbon neutral. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating developing “agrichar” crops that break down large amounts of carbon dioxide into carbon and water. The Solena group in Spain is experimenting with growing algae, which absorbs large quantities of CO2, and has a high energy value, in order to produce a carbon neutral biofuel. Solena had proposed building a 40 megawatt power plant in Kansas, using a variation on this technology, as an alternative to two proposed coal burning power plants that were recently killed by the governor’s veto. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy, because of rising costs, has canceled the FutureGen program, aimed at demonstrating how to use coal without increasing global warming, and to develop a hydrogen fuel cell. The department hopes to develop a new, less costly, clean coal and hydrogen fuel cell program. As businesses expand into green energy, and jobs expand in the field, a growing number of colleges and universities across the U.S. are initiating renewable energy degree programs.

Innovation has dropped the cost of solar photo voltaic cells for producing solar power, and one new cell is flexible so that it can mold directly to a roof. The biggest increaser in people using solar power on businesses and homes is innovative financing, in which the installing companies separate the tax breaks from the capital expense, to bring the initial cost down. In 2007 148 megawatts of solar capacity came on line in the U.S., 46.5 more than the 101 megawatts added in 2006. After a decade without any development, thermal solar power – using sunlight to create steam to produce electricity – is expanding in the U.S. South West, thanks to subsidies and falling costs (while other energy costs rise). Two prototype plants opened near Las Vegas, NV, this year, with capacity to power several large hotels. Ten additional thermal solar generating facilities are being planned for California, Nevada and Arizona, while eight such facilities are under construction in Spain, Algeria and Moroco, with nine more in various planning stages in these nations, as well as Israel, Egypt, South Africa and Mexico. Thermal solar power has the advantage that the heat it creates to generate electricity can be stored for hours or days, to generate power when the sun is not shining. An experimental boat, Suntory Mermaid II, powered by wave action (and photo voltaic cells for onboard electricity), is about to attempt a journey of 3780 miles from Hawaii to Japan without using its backup sails or conventional motor. The Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell has been following the quarter of a century green chemistry movement by environmentalists to find and develop alternative chemicals for processing and use that are less polluting or toxic, and often less expensive. Groundbreaking took place, in February, for the 2.3 square mile planned green city of Masdar, in Abu Dhabi, to be home for 50,000 people, that will be automobile free, built with energy conserving architecture, receive water from a solar powered desalination plant, grow produce in near by greenhouses, and recycle or compost waste.

In the United States, reflecting growing public concern on the environment, 44 prominent Southern Baptist Convention leaders, including the current President of the denomination, in March, announced a declaration calling on all Christians to return to a biblical mandate to guard the world God created, saying the convention’s official stance on climate change is to timid. In March the Environmental Protection Agency issued new clean air rules drawing both praise and blame from environmentalists. A tightening of rules on suit emissions from boat and train diesel engines was praised, as a step in the right direction, by environmentalists, who criticized new rules governing smog, concerning the amount of allowable ozone in the air, as two permissive. Meanwhile, in the absence of clear national policy, a debate has been going on in many states over what the regulations should be for, and what should be done to accomplish, the production of clean energy. Currently 18 states are seeking caps on carbon emissions, and 25 support mandates for renewable energy. For more see Felicity Barringer, “State’s Battles Over Energy Grow Fiercer With U.S. Policy Gridlock,” The New York Times, March 20, 2008, p. A19.

The U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service announced, in April, that because of the largest collapse of west coast salmon in 40 years, the salmon fishery from Oregon to Mexico would be closed for two years. A paper in Science, in February, by Scripps Institute of Oceanography researcher Tim Barnett, projects that the 1.7% increase of temperatures in the Western U.S., compared to 1% elsewhere, is expected to accelerate – with increased accompanying drying. Among the anticipated effects – including more intense fire seasons – are a drying up of small streams and an overheating of pools that will drastically reduce trout and other fresh water fish, and salmon will be further disseminated (For more see Jim Bobbins, “As Fight for Water Heats up, Prized Fish Suffer, The New York Times, April 1, 2008, p. D4). As an agency dispute continues between the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Reclamation over water levels in the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, a release of water was made at Glen Canyon, in early March, to preserve endangered fish. The park superintendent said that such releases were needed several times in the next five years to maintain the fish environment. The Island nation of Kiribati in the Gilbert Islands declared the worlds largest marine protected area, a 164,300 square mile ocean wilderness with coral reefs and atolls with huge quantities of fish and birds, in one of the worlds last intact ocean coral archipelago eco systems. In Jamaica, a campaign is in progress to stop people from fishing for huge shrimp on the Rio Grande River by dumping poison in the water – which makes for a quick catch when the dead shrimp float to the surface, with dead fish, and buyers do not know the shrimp are toxic.

Sarah Stuteville, “A warming world, overuse drain giant lake in a single generation,” Seattlepi.com (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/356178_water24.html), reports that global warming induced drought, and other factors are causing Lake Haramaya and other Ethiopian lakes, such as those in the Rift Valley including lakes Awasa, Abiyata and Ziway, to shrink rapidly. Other forces converging against these lakes include “erosion, population increases, irresponsible local farming practices and industrial overuse of the lake." These lakes are the major source of water in several areas of Ethiopia. Sarah Stuteville, "Northern Peru: Jungle Rivers Where the Sweet Water No Longer Flows," Pulitzer Center On Crisis Reporting (http://www.pulitzercenter.org/openitem.cfm?id=828) reports that “sloppy oil drilling operations,” by Occidental Petroleum, that “an international team of lawyers says the company’s waste disposal infrastructure violated industry standards when it was built, and that it left a quiet but killing stain,” has seriously polluted several rivers in Peru. A report last year, paid for by EarthRights International, finding that many rivers and streams in Occidental’s former area of operation where the Achuar Indigenous people live, are highly contaminated, and a majority of Achuar have toxins in their blood.

Increasing cutting of forests has reached the point where the carbon release accounts for 20% of the worlds carbon dioxide emissions. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which had slowed for a time, surged at the end of last year, increasing from 94 square miles in August to 366 square miles in December. In Mexico, illegal logging has cut deep into mountain forests in central Mexico, which is the breeding place for millions of Monarch Butterflies, now declining in North America. In Riau province, on Sumatra, 60% of the rainforests have now been felled, not only adding significantly to global warming, but very seriously injuring the area environment by destroying habitat and poisoning waterways, decreasing human food supplies in the course of disseminating plants and animals. Greatly increased logging in the Congo Rive Basin has been imperiling Sea Turtles well down the coast from the mouth the Congo River, in Gabon, where many logs have been drifting and piling up in huge mazes blocking migrating turtles access to beaches. It was reported, in February, that recent studies had counted 11,000 logs lodged on the coast.

China, which will almost certainly shut down industry around Beijing, temporarily, in order to have reasonable air quality during the Olympics this summer, has had it shown that Beijing officials have attempted to make it appear the city has less smog by shutting down air quality monitoring in two heavily air polluted areas, and adding three monitoring stations in less polluted districts. The Chinese government announced a detailed plan, in January, to limit pollution in its lakes by 2010 and return them to their natural condition by 2030, including limiting fish farms, strictly regulating release of waste water, improving sewage treatment and closing some heavily polluting factories. In February, the Chinese Environmental Protection Administration said that pollution was barely lessening behind the Three Gorges Dam (which by slowing down the Yangtze River, lessens its ability to rid itself of pollution, which becomes concentrated behind the dam), while pollution is worsening in some of the river’s tributaries.

>>>>>>>>+<<<<<<<<

REVIEW OF RECENT CLIMATE CHANGE MEDIA

Albert Bates, albert@ecovillage.org

I found the paper. "Climate Code Red" at http://www.carbonequity.info/climatecodered/summary.html to be useful reading. The author was also interviewed by Global Public Media, and that made for a more nuanced and approachable overview of his analysis: http://media.globalpublicmedia.com/RM/2008/02/SuttonBradford.20080218.mp3, with transcript at http://www.energybulletin.net/40619.html. Like many, he has been picking up on the impatient foot-tapping of Jim Hansen and other scientists and watching the climate change acceleration phenomenon with growing alarm. Hansen's recent webcast is available in PDF at https://admin.emea.acrobat.com/_a45839050/p89418435/. With the soundtrack it takes about 7 minutes.

If Hansen can be faulted, it is for not doing enough "what if" analysis. Science is about asking questions. One can go away from his lectures feeling like, no worries, there is still time, but in fact the observed indicators seem to disprove predictions for rates of change made just 10 years ago. IPCC-4 (FAR) is saying that positive forcing is much stronger than expected by IPCC-3 (TAR). Climate Code Red makes a strong case for FAR still understating the trend, which is an upwardly arching curve, not a straight linear progression. The more we warm, the faster we warm.

The Six Degrees http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8qmaAMK4cM cable-TV documentary provides another underscore for the importance of the discussions of tipping points. Among the useful extracts from Six Degrees was the Cheeseburger Footprint interview with Jamais Cascio, http://www.openthefuture.com/2008/02/cheeseburger_footprint_the_vid.html, a non-intimidating way of explaining the role of lifestyle and diet in climate forcing.

In late February there was also a marvelous study released by the Oil Independent Oakland Task Force: http://www.energyhttp://www.energybulletin.net/40650.html. The Oil Independent Oakland (OIO) By 2020 Task Force, composed of local, regional, and national experts including Richard Heinberg, developed a robust oil independence plan, consolidating measures from around the world that can be used locally to reduce oil consumption citywide. The action plan recommended bold initiatives to not only reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but to also establish Oakland as a national leader in the green economy and green jobs creation, while seeking to reduce Oakland's energy dependence.

Top Recommendations:

1. Adopt the Oil Depletion Protocol, thereby committing the City of Oakland to reduce oil consumption in the entire city of Oakland by 3% per annum;

2. Reconfigure the city into multiple Urban Villages that co-locate residential, commercial, retail, and possibly light industrial. This involves a number of major steps including updating the General Plan, design review guidelines, and broad-scale re-zoning; and

3. Develop and implement a Public Transit Master Plan, including re-installing the municipal streetcar system.

The Oakland report brings home the element of hope: we can make small changes -- just 3% per year -- and tip back. 7% per year would be a doubling (or halfing) every 10 years, so 3% suggests half emissions by c. 2030. Caveat: this may not be fast enough, but if taken with sink-enhancement efforts could turn us around to the right direction (net sequestration) sooner. If we plant one tree per person per day that is 6.5 billion trees daily, 2 trillion per year. Depending on how you calculate carbon stored by trees, roots and leaves, harvest or decomposition, and where you place these forests (I favor in the deserts) such an effort could re-balance our atmospheric overload well before mid-century, and possibly in less than a decade.

Albert Bates is director of the Ecovillage Training Center in Summertown, Tennessee and United Nations Representative for the Global Ecovillage Network. His website is found at http://www.thegreatchange.com. His latest book is The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing TImes (New Society Publishers).
MEDIA NOTES


Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, a comprehensive plan for reversing the trends that are undermining civilization, for single copies (bulk discounts available) is $17 paper, $30 cloth, from Earth Policy Institute, 1350 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 403, Washington, DC 20036 (202)496-9290, epi@earthpolicy.org, www.earthpolicy.org.

M.R. Islam, Nature Science and Sustainable Technology Compendium, Volume 1 focuses on technological solutions that promise sustainability in the long term including thermodynamic reversibility, negative entropy, direct applications of solar and wind energy, direct-use fuel cell, and other approaches whose essence is profoundly innovative: economically attractive, environmentally appealing and socially responsible ($95 Cloth) from Nova Publishers at: https://www.novapublishers.com/.

Fred Krupp and Miriam Horn, Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming is $24.95 cloth.

National Geographic's Green Guide magazine is available quarterly, in print for $15 a year, and as an e-mail: $12 annually from (800)-647-5463, https://secure.customersvc.com/servlet/Show?WESPAGE=ng/gg/gg110108/joindom.html&MSRSMAG=GG&MSCCMPLX=srbsub5.

A 25 minute documentary film on innovative solar technology that Tamara Peace Reseach is developing with the German physicist Jurgen Kleinwachter. Solar Power Village is available online at: www.solarpowervillage.info or in DVD format from the Tamera peace research centre in Portugal www.tamera.org.
USEFULL WEB SITES


UN NGO Climate Change Caucus, with numerous task forces, is at: http://climatecaucus.net.

Earth Policy Institute, dedicated to building a sustainable future as well as providing a plan of how to get from here to there: www.earthpolicy.org.

Carbon Fund Blog carries climate change news, links to green blogs, and a green resource list, at: http://carbonfund.blogspot.com/2008/03/sky-is-falling.html. Carbon Fund is certifying carbon free products at: http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/businesses/category/CarbonFree.

Grist carries environmental news and commentary: http://www.grist.org/news/,

The center for defense information now carries regular reports on Global Warming & International Security at: http://www.cdi.org.

CLIMATE CHANGE, RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL DEGREDATION AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

CLIMATE CHANGE, RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Stephen M. Sachs
Professor Emeritus UPUI
ssachs@earthlink.net

Published in Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007
(Links and additional references beyond footnotes are found at www.indigenouspolicy.org)

CLIMATE CHANGE, RELATED ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Stephen M. Sachs

Climate change, from largely human induced global warming, and other environmental degradation from pollution and over use of resources, effects everyone on the earth, but in many instances is particularly impacting poor, and especially indigenous people. In the past, when faced with changing natural conditions, indigenous people could adapt. But that is much harder to do now. Using their traditional knowledge, indigenous people on Islands of Indonesia had foreknowledge of the tsunami that wreaked great havoc in the region, to escape inland before the great wave struck, and suffered no deaths or injuries. This is becoming more difficult to achieve, for two reasons. First, as climates and related conditions change, traditional knowledge is less applicable to the developing physical circumstances. Second, and more important, Indigenous people are more and more constrained in moving, as they are limited to reservations, often shrinking traditional areas, or own land privately that they may not be able to replace, if forced to move. Thus, as the combination of rising ocean, more intense storms, and the washing away of costal wetlands because of the dyking of the Mississippi River cause costal lands in Louisiana to be lost to the Gulf of Mexico, the tribes that live on that coast line have no where to retreat to.1 The United Houma Nation, the Chitimacha, the Pointe au Chien, the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muscogee, the Jena Band of Choctaw and the Chanta, who were the backbone of the Louisiana seafood, crabbing, oystering, shrimping, hunting, alligator and fur processing industries, not only endured serious losses of homes, boats and other property from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but suffered significant land loss, leaving them more threatened for the next major storm, which may completely obliterate their remaining land bases.

The impact of severe weather on indigenous people was evident, in August (as reported above), when the worst storm in memory crashed through Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, not only destroying houses, but felling thousands of fruit trees that are the livelihood of Mayan people. But that is only one effect on weather from global warming. Tribes, and other farming and herding people in Africa are losing irreplaceable arable and grazing land from the spread of deserts, while the warming weather is melting the glacier and snow pack on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, seriously reducing the water supply for an entire ecosystem. The same is a major threat elsewhere, including for indigenous people in several places in South America.

Drying weather, is presenting other problems as well. Across the United States west, fire seasons have become longer and more severe. Several tribes in Southern California received extensive damage from wild fire in the fall of 2003, including at San Pasqual, where the entire reservation burned, destroying 67 of 68 houses and killing at least two people,2 while the White Mountain Apache nation lost half of the timber, which is their largest source of income, in a fire, that burned 469,000 acres, in the summer of 2002, causing 70 sawmill and forestry workers to lose their jobs.3 In addition, the fire destroyed lands in which non-Indians pay a considerable amount to hunt. Reduced rainfall, combined with increasing overuse and pollution of existing water, threatens agriculture in much of the western, and parts of the mid-western U.S. This summer, for the first time in history, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa were forced to cancel their entire wild rice crop, because of low water (as is discussed above). At this writing, on October 24, a series of fires is burning across seven counties in Southern California, burning thousands houses. threatening several major towns, forcing the evacuation of more than half a million people. More than 26000 acres of land were scorched on the Yuina, Rincon, La Jolla, San Pasqual, Pala, Capitan Grande, Mesa Grande, Santa Ysabel, Barona, Jamul and Inaja-Cosmit reservations, destroying over 100 homes and much infrastructure, while other lands, structures and people remain threatened.4

The fastest warming and greatest shift in climate is in the arctic regions, with significant impacts on Indigenous peoples. In Alaska,5 rising sea levels and melting sea ice, glaciers and tundra have greatly increased flooding, to the extent that a 2003 Government Accounting Office Report found that more than 86% of the 213 Alaska Native Villages had experienced recent flooding, The flooding is worsening, and many of these villages will have to move or be abandoned. At the same time, the subsistence living carried out by many Native Alaskans is becoming increasingly more difficult, and is threatened. Warming climate is destroying the habitat for some plants and animals, while providing opportunities for others to move north, often further impacting habitats, occasionally in ways that are helpful to Indigenous people, but mostly which make Native life more difficult. A number of major mammalian species are seriously declining and may become virtually extinct, including walrus, some species of seals and polar bears. Migration routes and ranges of some animals are being afected. In Northwest Alaska, for instance, westward movement of Western Arctic Caribou has been crowding out reindeer from their usual territory. As a result, by 2001, eight of the 15 Native reindeer herders on the Seward Peninsula had been driven out of business. In addition, travel, including in the process of hunting and gathering, is becoming more dangerous, as exemplified by declining sea ice making the violent impact of storms more imminent, while thinning costal ice is becoming more hazardous, or simply less available for hunting, fishing and travel. This not only increases risk, but also the time and cost of food accumulating activities, whether for consumption or sale.

As climates and habitats change, the loss of ways of living, and of long important species not only has direct survival and wellbeing effects, it also undermines important aspects of traditional cultures. For Hopi and other Pueblo Indians in the Southwest, farming, and the cycles of seasons and crops have been at the center of their ceremonies, spirituality and way of being since the most ancient times.6 When drought made their homes in such places as Chaco canyon and Mesa Verde unlivable, between 1100 and 1400, they moved to more favorable locations, including to a number of places where Pueblos are now located along the Rio Grande, where traditional life and culture could continue with some adaptation. Today such a migration would not be possible, so that loss of traditional livelihood would cause a major increase in the movement of pueblo people from their homes for jobs at more distant places, while a few might remain at home making a living in non-traditional ways – assuming that climate change does not become so severe as to create a catastrophe well beyond this scenario.

A similar situation is developing in the Pacific North West, where salmon have been central to the livelihood and culture of a number of Indian peoples.7 Several aspects of climate change have been exasperating a serious decline in salmon from a variety of causes, including damming of rivers, pollution, urban development and over fishing. First, reduced snow pack and earlier spring melting, contributing to higher winter and lower summer stream flows have changed the hydrologic cycle, negatively impacting salmon reproduction. At the same time, the rising ocean has increased shore erosion, damaging costal habitat, while the timing and extent of fresh water mixing with ocean water in estuaries and along the cost also is degrading salmon costal habitat, even as rising temperatures bring new predators of salmon to the area, and there is the possibility that with warmer temperatures, the salmon may move away, to more northern areas.

The overuse of resources, often exacerbated by, and sometimes causing activity exacerbating, climate change, is also impacting Indigenous people. This has already been referred to, briefly, concerning using up (and polluting) of increasingly scarce usable water, which is a world wide problem, and of over fishing of salmon, contributing to their decline and endangerment – a serious problem around the planet concerning many species, being worsened by global warming. The most serious problem is the increasing world wide demand for energy, and the consuming of declining petroleum reserves, with oil more difficult and expensive to find, extract and transport.

The expanding use of oil and other fossil fuels is the primary cause of global warming. The peaking of readily available oil (and to a lesser extent, natural gas) is having a secondary effect that is negatively impacting many peoples, but especially the indigenous. One aspect of this problem (reported in the last two issues of IPJ) has been a huge movement, particularly in the Americas, to produce biofuel, most often ethanol from corn, as a substitute (usually as an additive) for gasoline. First, this has raised the price of food, and particularly corn, an economic hardship on low income people, often including Native people. In Mexico this has manifested in the unprecedented rise in the price of the tortilla, a staple for those less well off, including most tribal people (though it has brought more income to many Indigenous and other small farmers, who had difficulty selling their corn in the face of subsidized competition from the U.S. after the institution of NAFTA). Second, particularly in Columbia, the rush to grow biofuel crops has brought about huge land grabs by wealthy interests, forcing many people off their lands, most notably persons of African descent, but increasingly Indigenous people as well. In addition, as the quest for more farm land to produce energy brings deforestation, so it increases climate change, as carbon dioxide absorbing trees are cut down, while the burning of ethanol and similar biofuels adds to the production of green house gasses. The one climate change mitigating result of the growing world energy crises, is that it is encouraging the development of non-greenhouse gas emitting, alternative energy, in which tribal people are involved.

Over all, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples, summed up the situation in reporting to the UN Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), October 22, that global warming and increasing exploitation of natural resources, continue to bring about the dispossessing of Indigenous peoples’ ancestral lands, to the point that some small isolated communities are at risk of physically disappearing, in spite of recent progress in recognizing the rights of Indigenous people. Stavenhagen said that "Extractive activities, large commercial plantations and non-sustainable consumption patterns have led to widespread pollution and environmental degradation." The end result, he said, was that indigenous peoples, whose lives were closely linked to their lands, were dramatically affected by such trends, which had in turn led to their forced displacements. The Special Rapporteur stated that the shrinking of Indigenous territory has been intensified by the dynamics of the globalized economy and its attendant increase in water and energy exploitation.8

One of the major responses to global warming and the increasing energy crunch by tribes in the United States has been developing wind, photovoltaic and other forms of energy that do not contribute to global warming. The Intertribal Council on Utility Policy, an organization composed of federally recognized Indian tribes in the northern Great Plains, has been among those organizations supporting the growth of wind powered electric generation that has been developing among a number of Great Plains Tribes over the last few years.9 The Council was recognized at the Faktor 4-Festival in Basel, Switzerland, June 15 with a Special Award for its work assisting the establishment of the first commercial wind power generation on any reservation, with the 750-kilowatt turbine on the Rosebud Reservation, in South Dakota. The Three Affiliated Tribes, of Montana, began operating their first wind turbine on the Fort Berthold Reservation in the spring of 2006. The Morongo Band of Mission Indians are constructing a wind generation station to meet their own and surrounding community power needs,10 The Navajo Nation has included wind power in its energy development program, though there is controversy over its plan to also build a new coal fired electric generation plant, even though it will be much less polluting of the air (but not in terms of carbon dioxide production) than older coal generating facilities (see On Going Activities Above). The Hopi Nation is going ahead with both wind and photovoltaic electric power generation. Honor the Earth, in coordination with Solar Energy International, the Western Shoshone Defense Project, American Spirit Productions and the Battle Mountain Band of Te-Moak Western Shoshone provided free training and installation of a solar photovoltaic system in Western Shoshone territory near Elko, Nevada in April, 2005.11 Laguna Pueblo designer Dave Melton and Sacred Power Corporation of Albuquerque, of which he is co-owner, had brought electricity to 30 isolated homes on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico, using wind turbines and photovoltaic cells, as of June 2005.12

Some tribes have been working to capture methane (a potent greenhouse gas, if allowed to escape into the air) from land fills, to use as fuel. A number of U.S. tribes are taking advantage of carbon credits, the planting of trees which absorb carbon dioxide, to offset the production of the greenhouse gas in power production and industry.13 The first to do so was the Confederated Tribes of the Coleville Reservation in Washington, 1990, who were paid by area power companies reforest some of their land, Others include the Nez Perce Nation of Idaho, who reforested land cleared for farming in the Nineteenth Century, that was no longer used for agriculture, and the Lummi Tribe in Washington, who bought 1700 acres of logged land to replant with trees, selling the carbon credits to a power company.

A number of Indigenous nations are undertaking research on how best to act in the face of climate change. For example, Ealat, the Reindeer Herders’ Vulnerability Network of Indigenous people in Norway, in collaboration with the Association of World Reindeer Herders, is undertaking a Study, Reindeer Pastoralism in a Changing Climate, to determine the ability of this ancient herding way of living to adapt to climate change, and to propose policy to government and the private sector that will increase the viability of Reindeer herding in the face of climate change.14 The Arctic Council is a high-level forum for cooperation, coordination and interaction between Arctic states, indigenous communities and other Arctic residents, focusing on some of the key challenges facing the Arctic region, particularly the need for integrated resource management to meet climate change.15 This includes abroad spectrum of research and policy proposal undertakings. Tribal colleges in the United States have also been engagedin research into how their nations can respond to climate change, in some cases in a partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey created organization, Native View, while including study of the changing environment in their curricula – integrating traditional and western scientific knowledge – and doing what they can, with limited budgets, to make their campuses green, from recycling, to improving energy efficiency and reducing pollution.16 Meanwhile (as reported above), Northwest Indian College now offers a Bachelor of Science in Native Environmental Science.

Collectively, Indigenous people are beginning to take action on climate change and other environmental issues. As reported above, The United League of Indigenous Nations was formed at the July 31 - August 2 Indigenous Treaty Gathering at Lummi Nation in Washington state to deal with the environment and other issues. Lummi Nation Chief Jaret Cardinal, proposing approving the treaty, commented The time is right for the indigenous tribes to stand together to help combat the problems of global warming. The significance of this treaty is that we are being given the opportunity to do something. [...] Time is something we have little of if we are going to address the environment. If we are to truly have a strong voice, then we need to have global economies where international trade is required.''

A number of other Indigenous nations in the U.S. and elsewhere are taking similar steps to lesson climate change. However, as the vast proportion of actions causing global warming and other environmental degradation is being caused by non-indigenous governments, their policies and private corporations, there is only a very small amount that Native peoples, governments and organizations can do directly to slow and limit climate change and other environmental damage. Perhaps the most important contribution that native people can make is by sharing Indigenous ways of thinking, so that well meaning actions do not end up making the situation worse, or creating new difficulties.

All traditional Indigenous people consider themselves to be part of nature, with a responsibility to keep it in balance, both for their own good, and that of all other beings. From experience they understand the necessity of taking into account the short and long term effects of actions, being aware of the full set of relationships that are involved in all human activity. If the world’s leading public and private policy makers of the last two centuries had been Indigenous thinkers, climate change would not be a major world crises, today.

The key learnings from Indigenous thinking for the world in dealing with climate change are that everything is connected, but each location is unique.17 Actions and events have developing consequences over time, so that in making decisions, it is necessary to take into account the full range of relationships that are involved, considering how they will be affected over an unfolding, and lengthy, period of time. Western science has long focused on taking things apart, and reducing consideration of phenomena to focus on a limited number of factors, in order to isolate essential forces or rules. This approach has great power, but its reductionism tends to miss the interconnections that contemporary ecology, the cutting edge of physics, and developing chaos or complexity theory are beginning to demonstrate to the West, are the true nature of the world. It is an exceedingly complex, interactive system. Climate change and other ecological issues are essentially issues of how we use resources (broadly defined to include energy and matter, that which is animate and inanimate), including the chains of direct and indirect effects of finding, acquiring, transporting, processing, and applying those resources and disposing of (or allowing to disperse) the byproducts of that use. This requires analyzing holistically, in terms of complex systems with interacting subsystems, so that decisions are made in the course of examining the full range of relationships and interactions involved, over time. It involves understanding that every action has a wide range of effects that need to be taken into account. This means not only examining all of the physical aspects of an ecological problem over time, but the full range of human concerns as well: social, cultural, economic, political,.., in order to develop an appropriate balanced set of actions across time.

Another tendency of traditional western science and thought has been to develop general conclusions, and to apply them universally, often without thinking through how they properly apply in different circumstances. This has caused untold problems.18 For example business or technical consultants often take a program that worked well in one place, or a set of similar sites, and “can it”, simply presenting the program in other locales without first assessing the conditions and needs of that location. When those conditions and needs are different from what the presenter assumed, the program does not work. This is an especially serious problem in making cross-cultural transfers. For example, several years ago agricultural scientists developed a new variety of cotton that was more hardy and produced more cotton per plant than traditional varieties. They took it to villagers in one location in India, without asking what the local people used the cotton plants for. Most of the villagers decided to try the new cotton. But when the scientists returned five years later, they found only a small amount of the cotton being grown was the new variety. The reason was that the villagers used the plant both to produce cotton, and for fuel by burning the stalks. The stalks of the new cotton plants did not burn nearly as well as those of the old plants. In dealing with environmental issues, it is important to realize that what works in one place may not work, and may have negative results, in another. General principals – when correct – may generally apply everywhere, but to apply properly, they have to be adapted to the differing conditions of each particular place, including taking into account (so far as possible) how those conditions will change over time. If the world’s decision makers can take an Indigenous perspective on what needs to be done, there is still a good possibility that the worst potential effects of global warming and environmental destruction can be avoided, and much of the already occurring damage can be reversed or ameliorated.19

FOOTNOTES

Note: This paper was published in Indigenous Policy, Vol. XVIII, No. 3, Fall 2007, At: www.indigenouspolicy.org. References in the text to earlier “in this issue”, or “these pages,” refer to that issue of Indigenous policy, and the one note that says the last two issues refers to that issue and Spring 2007.

1. William G. Archambeault, "Louisiana Indians: Survivors in a Post Katrina and Rita Environment," IPJ, Vol. XVII, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 41-44.

2. See the “Tribal Developments Section,” of IPJ, Vol. XIV, No. 2, fall 2003.

3. See the “Tribal Developments Section,” of IPJ, Vol. XIII, No. 2, fall 2002. Similarly, The Blackfeet Indian Tribe of Montana in the spring of 2007, was hoping to make $3 million to $4 million from salvage logging on 6,000 acres of land burned by recent forest fires, but its annual income from logging operations will fall from $90,000 a year to about $60,000 because of the lost timber. (See “Economic Developments”, in the last issue of IPJ). Another wild fire hit the reservation this summer.

4. Shadi Rahimi, “Raging wildfires burning up southern California reservations,” Indian Country Today, October 25, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415977; and Kirk Johnson and Jennifer Steinhauer. “Firefighters Get Control In Area As Questions Rise,” The New York Times, October 25, 2007, pp. 1 and 20.

5. Jonathan M. Hanna, Native Communities and Climate Change: Protecting Tribal Resources as Part of National Climate Policy (Boulder, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado, 2007, Report pending final review), Ch. 2. Similar problems are occurring for Indigenous people in the Canadian Arctic. See, Tenulle Bonoguore, “Inuit feel the effects of global warming,” Globe and Mail Update and Canadian Press, October 11, 2006.

6. Jake Page, In the Hands of the Great Spirit: the 20,000 Year History of American Indians (New York: Free Press, 2003), pp. 78 – 89; and Frank Waters, Masked Gods: Navajo and Pueblo Ceremonialism (New York: Ballantine Books, 1950), Part I, Ch. 1.

7. Hanna, Native Communities and Climate Change, Ch. 2.

8. The full article is at: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/gashc3891.doc.htm.

9. Sarah Moses, “Seeking solutions for global warming,” Indian Country Today, http://www.indiancountry.com/index, Posted: December 8, 2006.

10. "Indian and Indigenous Developments: U.S. Developments: Economic Development", IPJ, Vol. XIV, No. 2. Fall 2003, developed from a statement by Morongo Band of Mission Indians of California Tribal Chairman Maurice Lyons reported in the E-mail Digest of Indigenous News (from Andre Cramblit: andrekar@ncidc.org).

11. As reported in “Economic Developments,” IPJ, Vol. XVI, No. I, spring 2005.

12. Ibid.

13. Jim Robbins, “Sale of Carbon Credits Helping Land-Rich, But cash Poor, Tribes,” The New York Times, May 8, 2007, p. D3.

14.For more information on Ealat and the reindeer vulnerability research, contact Ealat Outreach, c/o the International Center fro Reindeer Husbandry, Boaranjarga 1, 9520 Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, Norway, ealat@ealat.org, phone: Anders Oskal: +47 99 45 00 10. Swein Mathiesen: +47 90 52 41 16m www.ealat,org.

15. Visit: http://www.arctic-council.org/.

16. David Melmer, “Tribal colleges can play a role in fighting climate change,” Indian Country Today, posted: October 17, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415913; and . David Melmer, “ U.S. Geological Survey, tribal colleges partner for climate change research,” Indian Country Today, Posted: September 17, 2007, at: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096415746.

17. For a discussion of the relevance of traditional Native thought to western science, and growing convergence of the two, see, Stephen M. Sachs, “The Cutting Edge of Physics: Western Science Is Finally Catching Up with American Indian Tradition,” IPJ, Vol. XVIII, No. 2.

18. Stephen M. Sachs and Deborah Escobel Hunt, "Appropriate Consulting with Indian Nations: Facilitating Returning to the Wisdom of the People," Proceedings of the 2000 American Political Science Association Meeting (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 2000).

19. For a short overview of appropriate ways to deal with global warming and other environmental degradations see Stephen M. Sachs, “Global Warming and What Can Be Done About It,” in Nonviolent Change, Spring 2007. NCJ regularly reports on major climate change and other environmental developments. A good ongoing source for environmental information is the World Watch Institute: http://www.worldwatch.org/.

Fall 2007 Post

FOR FALL 2007 ON ZIRAAT ENVIRONMENT WEB PAGE:

FROM THE FALL ISSUE OF NONVIOLENT CHANGE (www.nonviolentchangejournal.org):

WORLD DEVELOPMENTS

With the coming of fall, amidst a variety of ongoing crises, there are a number of important advancements and opportunities for moving to better situations, including concerning climate change, which is gaining increasing international concern. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, in February, that Climate change poses as much danger to the world as war, as he urged the United States to take the lead in the fight against global warming, and prepared to urge strong action against global warming at the then upcoming G8 summit. In May, Ki-moon appointed three well known international figures as climate change envoys, to strengthen global action against global warming. The final draft of the second report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was completed by scientists and officials from more than 100 nations in Bangkok, Thailand, in May, along the lines of the preliminary draft (reported in the winter issue of NCJ). The report called for immediate, substantial action across the world to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels, over the next 25 years. If current trends continue, the current levels, which have risen 70% since 1970, could increase by an additional 90% in that period. The report projected that to return to 2000 global carbon dioxide emission levels by 2030 would require a cost of $50 to $100 a released ton, equivalent to raising the price of gasoline $.25 to $.30 a gallon. It was estimated that carbon dioxide reduction might cause a small reduction in global economic activity, of perhaps 0.1% a year. (At the same time – and not necessarily a contradiction - other experts find that developing alternative energy and conservation technology will create jobs). A UN report. in March, found that poor nations will suffer the greatest injury from global warming, while wealthy nations focus primarily on their own risks (for details, see “Poor Nations Bear Brunt As World Warms, While Rich focus on Own Risks,” The New York Times, pp. 1 and 6).

As recent signs of climate change appear in Brazil, including an unprecedented, severe draught in the Amazon region and the occurrence of a hurricane for the first time in the southern region of Brazil, the government is reconsidering its environmental policy, and for the first time is willing to consider measures in international negotiations that it previously rejected, such as market based programs to curb carbon emissions resulting from massive deforestation in the Amazon. Carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. dropped 1.3% in 2006, over the record 2005 levels, according to preliminary Department of Energy data, released in May. The DOE indicates that the primary reasons for the decline are a moderate winter and high energy prices. A New York Times/CBS poll, published April 27, found that protecting the environment is a high priority for Americans, and in many instances were willing to pay more to improve it. Asked, “When a trade off has to be made which is more important to you, 52% said protecting the environment, 36% said stimulating the economy, and 8% answered both. On which should be a higher energy priority, 68% favored conservation, while 21% chose increasing production. 92% favored and 6% opposed requiring manufacturers to produce more efficient vehicles to reduce fuel consumption. 75% were willing to pay more for electricity if it were generated renewably, and 20% were not. 64% were willing to pay higher gasoline taxes to fund renewable energy research, and 33% were not. In order to reduce dependence on foreign oil, 64% were willing to pay higher gas taxes, and 30% were not. On the other hand, 58% opposed raising gas taxes to reduce consumption, which 38% favored, and 76% opposed a gasoline tax of $2, which 20% favored. On May 31, President Bush, for the first time proposed that “a long term global goal” should be reducing greenhouse gas emission, and called for international negotiations to do that, but gave no details, except that, at least for the time being, each nation should set its own goals – so that there would be no international mandatory limits to greenhouse gas creation. European officials and environmental activists expressed skepticism about Bush’s intentions. Meanwhile, in June, Maine became the third state to pass a law, signed by the governor, to cap carbon dioxide emissions. Maine, which produces 3% of the nation/s CO2, will cap emissions at 5.9 million tons in 2009, and reduce them by 10% by 2019. Congress is currently moving to increase funding for research in renewable energy and methods of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. While there are complaints that some of this funding is “green pork,” a number of promising projects appear likely to gain financing. One of the proposals being considered is producing electric power from coal – which is plentiful (but whose mining is usually quite polluting) - via transforming it into gas, and removing the carbon dioxide, on which the Senate Energy Committee held hearings in April. Among the other research to counter climate change are experiments to greatly increase carbon dioxide absorbing plankton in the ocean, primarily by dissolving large amounts of iron in the sea, which is a plankton nutrient. The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Surface Mining, in a move intended to increase mining of coal, issued a regulation (subject to 90 day review) that approves, and allows to expand, the previously legally questionable removing of mountain tops to mine coal, long used in the Appalachian Mountains, The main mining limitations in the regulation are vague, and already covered in existing law, requiring mining operations to minimize debris and cause the least environmental damage.

On August 17, temperatures hit an all time record high in Japan (105.6 degrees F. in the western city of Tajimi), as the death toll from the ongoing heat wave in the country reached 13, with almost 900 people hospitalized. Extreme weather in the United States this summer has killed dozens of people. Rescuers were looking for people swept away by flash floods from the remnants of tropical storm Erin, which dropped as much as 11 inches of ran in some locations along the Gulf Coast, August 17. The heat wave in the South and Midwest was blamed for at least 44 deaths, with more expected to be confirmed, as of August 22. At the Browns Ferry nuclear plant, overheated water in the Tenessee River forced the shutdown of on reactor and slow down, with reduced power production, of two others. So far, this is one of the few such cases, but there is concern that the reductions from overheated water may increase. David Lockbaum, a former Browns Ferry engineer, now with the Union of Concerned Scientists, stated, “This is an unforeseen impact of global warming. These plants do not do very well in extremely hot weather.” In late August, several places in the Midwest, including Ohio, suffered the worst flooding in almost a century. The Southeast has been suffering its most severe draught in over a century, seriously reducing crop yields and forcing premature cattle sales in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. The financial impact on many farmers has been severe. The heat and draught has increased fires, while low waters have reduced navigation on some rivers, while also limiting some hydroelectric power production. For gardeners, climate change has some benefits, as subtropical plants are becoming viable further into what has been the temperate zone, and also moving to formerly colder areas on their own. But milder winter and longer growing seasons are increasing and spreading insects that attack crops and carry diseases. Some types of beetles have been doing immense damage to trees, including to pine forests (as reported earlier in these pages). In addition, the emerald ash borer, an immigrant to North America from Asia, is destroying the white ash trees used for making baseball bats and may strike out, or seriously shift, that industry. The beetles are blamed for killing 25,000 white ash trees in Maryland, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio in the last five years. Unwanted vegetation - weeds – are also growing faster and spreading, and some intrusive species do especially well with higher carbon dioxide levels. For example, kudzu, the fast growing vine that has choked out whole forests in the south is growing faster, and spreading north. Poison ivy is not only growing faster, but is more potent, while some of the worst allergy causing plants, such as ragweed, are producing more pollen.

Some aspects of climate change are taking place considerably faster than previously believed. Geophysical Research Letters published a finding, in lat April, that Arctic sea ice is melting much faster than previously estimate, as a result of human induced global warming. Melting has increased to the point where it is possible that there will be no floating ice in the summer in the Arctic by sometime between 2050 and the early years of the next century. Measures made regularly every September indicate that the rate of loss of sea ice per decade has increased from 2.5% in 1953 to 7.8% today. The melting is also raising oceans and reducing land area. East Anglia, in Brittan has been losing land the sea from erosion for a century, but the rate of land loss has increased tremendously in the last few years. One farmer’s formerly 23 acre fiield, is now only 3 acres – too small to plant. The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report indicates that unless current trends are reversed, by 2080, 60 million people may be flooded out of their homes and jobs. A similar problem is occurring as deserts spread into fertile lands. A United Nations University report, published June 27, warned that the extensive desertification in parts of Africa and Asia, if not checked quickly, could create “an environmental crisis of global proportions,” triggering massive migrations and potential social, economic and political instability.

China, whose rapidly expanding coal powered, and increasingly polluting, economy surpassed the United States as the worlds greatest producer of greenhouse gasses this summer, released its first national strategy on climate change, in June. The plan rejects the imposition of mandatory caps on greenhouse emissions. China is already suffering from a variety of types of pollution – not only global warming increasing emissions – (though it has tried to hide reports of human and environmental losses from ecological degradation, including suppressing reports of statistical models that indicate that perhaps as many as 750,000 people die prematurely each year in China as a result of air and water pollution), and has begun to take steps to improve the situation, including a plan to reduce air and water pollution by 10% by 2010. U.S. Federal District Court Judge Saundra B. Armstrong, in Oakland, CA, ruled, August 21, that the United States government “unlawfully withheld action,” by close to two years, in not publishing a study, required by the Global Climate Change Research Act of 1990, on the impact of global warming, and ordered the government to publish a summary report by March.

Beyond global warming, negative effects of environmental change from pollution and overuse of resources continue. A survey by the Audubon Society of 20 common bird species in the United States shows that in the last 40 years these species have declined by an average of 68%. Bobwhites, for example, have declined from 31 million, 40 years ago, to 5,5 million today, while field sparrows are down from 18 million to 5.8 million. A study by Ransom A. Myers if Dalhouse University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, indicates that over fishing of sharks is likely having the secondary effect of destroying bay scallop fisheries in some parts of the North American eastern seaboard, as several species that feed on scallops, previously kept in check by sharks, have greatly expanded. African Penguin are also in decline, down from 1.5 million in southern Africa a century ago, to about 30,000 in 2001, the numbers have plummeted by almost 60% to around 18,000, the biggest recent cause being a migration of their main food, sardines, further north, whom they cannot follow. Meanwhile, the Zika virus, carried by Mosquitoes, which causes rash, join pain, pink eye and fever in humans – and has no specific cure or preventive vaccine – has been spreading from Uganda and South East Asia, where out breaks are rare, into Micronesia, where there were 42 confirmed, and 65 probable identified cases, a of the beginning of July.

Kelly Hearn, “Peru's Petroleum Play: Amazon Oil and Politics,” Pullitzer Center on Crisis Reporting (http://www.pulitzercenter.org/showproject.cfm?id=32) reports that The hydrocarbon industry is making a major push into the Tropical Andes, with “recent oil and gas finds turning the eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains and the adjacent Amazonian lowlands of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia into a hydrocarbon hotspot,” “In Peru and Ecuador, where biodiversity levels peak and activists say Big Oil has penetrated public institutions, the problem is especially acute: Over half of Peru’s pristine rainforests is now zoned for oil and gas, while 80 percent of the Ecuadorian Amazon is on the auction block”. This is very destructive of the environment, causing major harm to indigenous peoples.


FOR INFORMATION ON THE CURRENT WORK OF SOME ORGANIZATIONS ON ISSUES OF PEACE AND JUSTICE, SEE http://www.nonviolentchangejournal.org/

MEDIA NOTES

George Monbiot, Heat: How to Stop the Planet From Burning is $22 cloth from South End Press: www.southendpress.org.

Writings on the Environment by Mike Tidwell: The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America’s Coastal Cities (195 pp. for $14, paper from Free Press, New York);
“Exporting calamity: Katrinas for everyone; Coming soon to a coast near you.”: An article from: World Watch [HTML] (Digital for $9.95, www.amazon.com).

GLOBAL WARMING AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT

Steve Sachs, Coordinating Editor. Nonviolent Change

From what I have gleaned from teaching environmental and energy policy some years ago, and following developments in environmental research since, it is my understanding that global warming is part of a complex interactive ecological system in which human action, particularly resource use, have a large impact. There is now almost complete scientific agreement that global warming, bringing horrendous climate change, that is already having serious impacts on human life around the planet, is primarily caused by human activity, causing carbon dioxide, methane and other green house gasses to enter the atmosphere, that then trap heat. The relevant direct human action is first the burning of fuels (and other burning) that result in the release of green house gasses, but such gasses are also directly put into the atmosphere by other human acts; and secondarily as a result of the warming that has been occurring because of people increasing green house gas levels in the atmosphere (such as the melting of permafrost in the Arctic releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide, and 14 times more heat increasing methane, and the heating of the oceans which reduces their capacity to absorb green house and other gasses – directly, and from the reduction, which occurs with raising sea water temperatures, of ocean plant life that transforms huge amount of carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon).

Global warming is also increased by human action, such as deforestation, that kills trees and other green plants that convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon (used by the plants). Thus global warming can be reduced in several ways: 1) by reduction in the burning of green house gas producing fuels, by increasing fuel use efficiency, reducing fuel burning, and switching to non-green house gas producing sources of energy, including wind power, photovoltaic cells and other direct solar power, wave action, hydro electric power, ocean temperature differential power, atomic energy (which may be to dangerous to use because of possible meltdowns, and the problem of dealing with highly radioactive waste that remains dangerous for as long as 1000,000 years), geothermal energy, using hydrogen and possibly other non-green house gas producing fuels, using as fuels green house gases that would enter the atmosphere without producing energy for human endeavor, if not captured and burned (e.g. capturing and burning methane escaping from landfills), and capturing carbon produced by green house gas producing fuel use; 2) by increasing the number of trees (ending deforestation, and reforesting) and other carbon dioxide transforming plants. 3) increasing the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere, which blocks incoming sun light, and has a cooling effect. This, however, almost always has major detrimental side effects for human beings, including causing major health problems (to consider only the simplest of the many aspects of putting dust into the air).

As this last method of reducing global warming suggests, there is much more to the ecological problem facing human beings. Human activity causes a great many other impacts on the environment, some of which tend to change the ecological system of the planets, and/or its local and regional subsystems, often negatively from a human perspective, and which in many cases have direct negative effects for human beings, including the production of a wide range of pollutants from simple dust, to toxic chemicals, radiation, and biological hazards. So while global warming is often considered the most obvious current environmental threat for humanity (though some would say that radiation from bombs, accidents and nuclear waste is a greater danger, or that human caused or spread disease is a greater threat), global warming cannot properly be looked at in isolation. It has to be considered as part of a larger set of relationships among human beings (physical, social, economic, political. Etc,) and considering human beings as part of the Earth’s environmental system and subsystems. Indeed, in that context, global warming is only one of the negative side effects of human activity that needs to be considered. For example, destruction of the ozone layer (leading to toxic levels, for many – and at some point virtually all – forms of life) of ultra violate radiation penetrating the atmosphere, as the result of the use of certain chemicals that escape upward and destroy the ozone layer of the upper atmosphere, is again increasing because of the increased use in some developing counties of refrigerants and propellants, whose use has been greatly reduced in the rest of the world.

One aspect of the global warming problem in particular, and of environmental protection generally, is resource use: the finding, processing, transporting, using of resources, and disposing of residual material in that whole process, including all the results (positive, negative and neutral), direct and indirect, of that activity. In the case of energy, the most used source world wide, oil, is approaching the point where demand overwhelms supply, largely because of the huge and growing increases in oil consumption by China and other developing nations. Compounded with interruptions and uncertainties about some major oil production, because of war and political instability, this has spurred the development of biofuel, particularly ethanol, most notably in Brazil and the U.S. While increasing ethanol production has economic, political and security advantages, ethanol production currently increases global warming, and other polluting, because its production requires significantly more energy than does gasoline and other oil product production. (That may change as more effort, money and energy is required to mine oil, whether in pumping steam into no longer free flowing oil wells, or in mining oil from shale and tar sands). Also, despite what some advertising claims, burning ethanol simply produces a different combination of pollutants than does burning gasoline. While it might make sense to have some increase in ethanol use as a bridge to develop non greenhouse gas producing energy, and to include economic and human concerns properly in the process of energy transformation, to overcome global warming and reduce dangerous pollution more generally, it is far better to emphasize non-greenhouse gas producing sources of energy (taking into account the pollution, including greenhouse gas production, and cost of such development – e.g. manufacture of photo voltaic cells is not entirely clean). The politics and public relations of powerful established economic interests, in many cases, resists changes that are beneficial to whole societies and the population of the planet. And that resistance must be overcome, and where possible transformed (as has been happening, as even some oil companies have been moving to “greener” business practices).

One of the ways of reducing green house gas emition, and major pollution, as well as scarce resource use, is to reduce automobile use, which is one of the major and fastest growing sources of pollution, including greenhouse gases. Increasing public transportation, including high speed trains between cities, will help this, and incentives and encouragement to use such transportation will further help (reduced fares, etc.). A problem in the U.S. is that automotive and truck use is governmentally subsidized, while rail roads are not. Increasing automobile efficiency, introducing electric and highbred vehicles – which can be supported by subsidies and other incentives, while penalizing (e.g. taxes) greenhouse gas producing emitions, especially by highly innefficient engines. Encouraging, rewarding use of bicycles and walking can also reduce vehicle use. Careful urban, land use and traffic planning by governments, business and NGOs can also be a major vehicle for reducing vehicle use, and resulting pollution.

Production of power for electricity, manufacturing, etc., can also be switched from higher to lower polluting – particularly of greenhouse gases – while machines, devices, equipment, appliances, etc. can be made more energy efficient, and such use encopuraged/subsidiesed/advertised. Providing public information about the problem and what people can do about it, with specific information about helpful products and actions, can be a major help in all aspects of dealing with environmental-human protection.

A major aspect of reducing greenhouse gas emition and other pollution and environmental degradation is the development of new and improvement of old technology, methods, energy sources, etc. A great deal of investment needs to be made in this area (and some of that is happening) with the support of public and private funding.

Almost all of the aspects of the problem can be better met with increased intra and inter organization, and interpersonal, collaboration and efficiency. Government and private organizations and persons can play an important facilitating and communicating roll here (such as planning locations of facilities for shorter trvavel/shipping, coordination of research, sharing of information, timing of work shifts to avoid traffic jams, etc).

A critical aspect of protecting human life, economy, health, etc. by protecting the environment is in a variety of public policies at every level of government, from direct regulation (which should be smart regulation - as set out in Reinventing Government), subsidies, encouragements, penalties, planning, voluntary planning – encouraging collaboration/coordination, smart seeding of research and production of better products (e.g. the government ordering large numbers of a better product to bring the price down), spreading information, encouraging environmentally friendly activity, etc. To achieve this requires political action, including public expression (hence the need of public and private public education), by individuals, groups, corporations, and government entities.

Green business policies and actions are also an extremely important aspect of meeting environmental threats, including global warming. Government policy can encourage this, as must public caring about the issues and demand for green business activity. Education of business leaders and personnel is also critical. Understanding that moving in a greener direction can create jobs (some very well respected analysis shows clearly that moving to protect the environment will produce far more jobs and business opportunities than it creates, though some vested interests do, and will continue to, resist that proposition). Already quite a number of firms, and in some areas chambers of commerce, see that their future is dependent on protecting the environment, while others now want to seem that they are acting in a green way (investigative reporting and environmental group research needs to expose false green claims, encouraging real green action). Professional organizations can play an important part by developing, publicizing, encouraging, and at times enforcing a green ethic.

These are a few of the many interrelated aspects, briefly presented, of meeting the massive environmental threat we human beings are bringing down on ourselves. In proceeding to take protective action, it is important to see that all the aspects of the problems involved are interrelated, and to analyze them and act upon them holistically, and so far as possible (with out co-opting oneself) work collaboratively.

Included in the links here are excerpts on environmental, and particularly global warming developments, pulled from recent issues of Nonviolent Change, on the web at: www.nonviolentchangejournal.org