Tribal leaders plan meeting on global warming

[Zorra]

Corinne Purtill
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 4, 2006 12:00 AM
snip---
Native American communities are witnessing firsthand the effects of a warming planet. Representatives of more than 50 tribes from Alaska to the Mexican border will gather on the Cocopah Reservation near Yuma on Tuesday and Wednesday for what organizers are billing as the first tribal conference on climate change.

They'll share information on the signs of global warming observed on reservations across the continent. Tribal leaders will discuss alternative energy and traditional, sustainable ways of life on their reservations. They also will talk about the effects of U.S. climate-change policy on their land and people.

"Native people have a close relationship to the land, culturally, spiritually, economically," said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Minnesota-based Indigenous Environmental Network and a conference speaker.

Climate change, he said, "is becoming a human rights issue."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1204tribal-climate12040.html

[xchrom]

1. cool.

i would love to see the emerging industries of sustainable energy blossom on reservations.

[Jcrowley]

2. K & R n/t

[YankeyMCC]

3. A "human rights issue"

well the affects are but I'd also call the ecological crisis a "human responsibility" issue.

The people still living close to the land due to poverty or culture are the ones the least 'disconnected' from the ecology and are the ones that are recognizing the truth of the immediacy of the problems and understand the root causes the most.

[donsu]

4. glad to see the tribes working together

nt

[Stargazer99]

5. And the white man called them savages

Seems to me the Indian tribes are more in touch with better ways to live than the "values" of the white man.

[Uncle Joe]

6. And here's more

"For many American Indian tribes, the effects of climate change, the rise in global temperature caused by heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, are not an abstract possibility. They are happening.

"I've seen whole banks of trees (along the Rio Grande) eroded away from a single flooding in the spring," Hena said. "I've seen birds going south when they should be going north."

Extended drought is shrinking water supplies and hammering wildlife on reservations in the Southwest and Midwest. Traditional ceremonies based on seasonal changes have been disrupted by prolonged summers and delayed rainy seasons.

Melting ice in the Arctic Circle is destroying the foundation of Inuits' homes and threatening entire villages with relocation."