Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights

May 29, 2008

Hopi and Navajo truths confirmed by science in US censored climate report

By Brenda Norrell
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/

ARIZONA -- With the release of the US censored climate report -- that Bush and his corporate handlers censored for four years -- the words of the late Hopi spiritual leaders are mirrored forth.
Hopi Sinom, including Thomas Banyacya and Dan Evehema, foretold of a time when hurricanes, storms and wildfires would seize the planet if human beings did not care for Mother Earth. They also warned if the secret agenda of coal mining was carried out on Black Mesa, under the guise of the so-called Navajo Hopi land dispute and Navajos were relocated, that natural calamities would increase.
Just a few days ago in the Navajos' Chuska Mountains, I was listening to a traditional Navajo farmer talk about how dry the earth is. Looking at the dry pinon trees and dusty earth, she said it would be hard to get the corn and squash to grow this summer. The earth is so dry that it does not absorb water like it used to. Every year it gets worse.
The U.S. censored climate report, just released under court order, reflects this truth about the drought in the Southwest. The report also reveals the truth foretold by the Hopi spiritual leaders. Hurricanes and storms are increasing with global warming and changes in ocean air circulation.
Sadly, as the ice habitat of polar bears is melting, the Navajo Nation President and Council are pressing for another coal-fired power plant, Desert Rock, to produce more greenhouse gases to destroy more of the Arctic. The polar bears and walrus are now being driven from their homeland in the north largely because of coal-fired power plants, just as the Navajos were driven from their homeland in the south so Peabody Coal could seize the land for coal mines to feed power plants.
While it is a great day to see the voices of the traditional Hopi and Navajo converge with the facts of science, it is a sad day to see the destruction all around us. This was the reason for the Longest Walk, to bring attention to this destruction.
From the nuclear testing and gold mining on Western Shoshone lands in Nevada to the widespread oil and gas drilling on Ute lands in Colorado and the power plants on Navajoland, the damage to Mother Earth is pervasive.
In simple towns of working people across the west, power plants were being built wherever people were economically desperate and unaware of the illnesses that follow.
When the Bush Administration carried out torture, it violated the Geneva Conventions and committed perverse criminal acts.
By concealing the truth of global warming, so that power plants would be constructed and oil and gas drilling would increase rapidly in the mad rush for corporate profiteering before Bush's term ended, the Bush Administration committed a crime against humanity.
In reality, this was not just the genocide of American Indians and people of color, this crime crossed all racial lines and is now a crime against all of the people on this continent and all of humanity.

US Censored Climate Report:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_sc/storytext/sci_climate_science/27673504/SIG=10r1psip4/*http://tinyurl.com/4hojv5

Global warming and wildfires:
"In the last three decades, the wildfire season in the western United States has lengthened and burn durations have increased. Climate change has also very likely increased the size and number of insect outbreaks and tree mortality that help to fuel wildfires in the interior West, the Southwest, and Alaska. These trends are very likely to continue." [V.1.c]
Greenhouse gases and black carbons
"Several different types of gases in the atmosphere warm the planet by trapping energy that would otherwise be emitted to space. These ‘greenhouse gases’ include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, nitrous oxide, and several fluorine- and chlorine-containing gases.
"Black carbon aerosols introduce a warming influence. Deposition of black carbon on snow and ice also contributes a warming influence on the climate by decreasing surface reflectivity that would otherwise deflect more solar energy back into space."

Photo 1: Thomas Banyacya. Photo 2: Polar bear baby. Photos 3: San Juan Generating Station Photos 4 and 5: Indigenous Peoples protest the Desert Rock/Sithe Global power plant planned for the Navajo Naiton, during the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York. Photos Elouise Brown/Dooda (NO) Desert Rock.

brendanorrell@gmail.com

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