CLIMATE JUSTICE: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES,
GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE

"At one point the heat cover - it was above 100 degrees F, and it just killed all the fish in the lake through heat exposure. And we've experienced extreme heat waves. We've got four healthy seasons, winter, spring, summer and fall and now sometimes it comes too late - like right now it's coming too late. I've seen a lot of new growth of vegetation come into our area. Other insects and other birds and animals start coming in. Tree beetles came in and ruined a lot of trees in Alaska and they had to be cut down. And due to all the water draining, there's a high potential for forest fires. There have been a lot of forest fires in our area. Also a lot of ice is melting sooner when the end of the summer comes around."
- Sarah James, Gwich'in Alaska -

INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK

CLIMATE JUSTICE: INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, GLOBAL WARMING AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate Change is Real

"Projected climate changes during the 21st century have the potential to lead to future large-scale and possibly irreversible changes in Earth systems, resulting in impacts on continental and global scales." - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001

What is Climate Change?

• Climate change refers to the warming of the planet caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial activities.
• The 1990s was the warmest decade, 1998 being the warmest year on record.
• The increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years.
• Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions account for 64% of global warming greenhouse gases. 75% of human caused CO2 emissions come from burning of oil, coal, and gas.
• If it is not halted, climate change will most probably result in increased frequency and severity of storms, floods, drought, and water shortage; the spread of disease, increased hunger, displacement and mass migrations of people and ensuing social conflict and war.
• Climate change is seen as a political issue that must be dealt with both locally and internationally.

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What is Global Climate Change aka Global Warming?

Global climate change refers to the overall warming of Mother Earth caused by automobiles and industrial activities. It disrupts the stability that all life has depended on in the last 1000 years. It poses a serious threat to our way of life as Indigenous peoples who live close to the land and water and depend on her resources to sustain life and the future of our unborn generations.

Over the century, human activities of the industrialized world have caused excessive amounts of greenhouse gases to accumulate in the atmosphere. The burning of coal, oil, and gas and cutting down forests cause global climate change by releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This is causing global temperatures to rise, which affects all natural cycles that have sustained life on Mother Earth. Global climate change has caused severe disruption and change in water, land, air, and many other resources and living things. Extreme weather, such as frequent storms, floods, droughts, heat, snow, and rain are occurring in places that never happened before. With increasing global climate change people are hit by water shortages, new diseases, hunger, and displacement leading to social conflicts over resources. These events have devastated communities by wiping out their basis of survival, such as food, water, air, and shelter. Without the economic resources to defend themselves increasing global climate change leaves these communities vulnerable to its consequences.

Greenhouse Gases and the Greenhouse Effect

Greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide and methane are produced from the burning of fossil fuels. These gases when released into the atmosphere trap heat that results in keeping our Mother Earth's surface warm. This is called the greenhouse effect (GHE). It is the process that has kept Mother Earth hospitable for us to live in. Without the stable balanced amount of greenhouse gases, Mother Earth would be either too cold or too hot for us live in.

This greenhouse effect is named this way because of a similar effect produced by the glass panes of a greenhouse. Mother Earth's atmosphere is all around us. It is the air that we breathe. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere behave much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. Sunlight enters the Mother Earth's atmosphere, passing through the blanket of greenhouse gases. As it reaches Mother Earth's surface, land, water, and the biosphere absorb the sunlight's energy. Once absorbed, this energy is sent back into the atmosphere. Some of the energy passes back into space, but much of it remains trapped in the atmosphere by the greenhouse gases, causing our world to heat up.

Scientists point out that this stable balance has been changing because of increased greenhouse gas accumulation. This has changed the overall temperature our Mother Earth's surface. In the last century, specifically from the period of industrial revolution until now, the temperature has increased 1 degree. This temperature increase is significant because global temperature has been relatively stable for the last 1000 years. Temperature is predicted to rise even more as greenhouse gas emission increases in the world. This temperature change will bring devastating impacts to the natural cycles and resources on Mother Earth.

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What Are the Sources of Greenhouse Gases?

In the U.S., our greenhouse gas emissions come mostly from energy use. These are driven largely by economic growth, fuel used for electricity generation, and weather patterns affecting heating and cooling needs. Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, resulting from petroleum and natural gas, represent 82 percent of total U.S. human-made greenhouse gas emissions.

U.S. Anthropogenic Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Gas,
2001 (Million Metric Tons of Carbon Equivalent)

How is the industrialized world responsible for global climate change?

Global warming has increased drastically from all the industrial development activities that have occurred over the past century. Fossil fuels are burned continually while forests are being cut constantly for consumption. Forests absorb carbon. Cars that are driven that's powered by gasoline, the highly processed, packaged, and transported foods, the electricity that is used to power machinery, and millions of other high energy products all use fossil fuel energy or are powered by it. Coal-fired power plants are one the main sources of carbon emissions. Coal mining feeds the power plants. All these activities contribute to global warming. Excessive consumption of fossil fuels and related products especially in the United States and in other developed countries contribute to more emission of greenhouse gases than any other groups in the world. Through excessive consumption, fossil fuel industries continue profiting by exploiting these resources and people while emitting tons of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and increasing global warming. Despite having options to switch to renewable energy that does not hurt the environment as much as fossil fuels, industries continue investing highly into fossil fuel development for easy profit. The U.S. government continues to push forward a fossil-fuel dependent energy policy. Indigenous Peoples locally and globally have said these energy policies are unsustainable and a form of genocide and ethnocide against Indigenous Peoples.

• The mining and burning of coal to produce electricity, which produces SO2 and acid rain, kills the trees from the tops down and contributes to increased global warming.
• The damming of rivers to produce hydroelectric power that destroys and damages large ecosystems, impacting plant, animal, and human life and also contributes to increased CO2 in the atmosphere and global warming

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How Does Climate Change Affect Me?

• Indigenous Peoples, Pacific Islanders, and local land-based communities are the first to experience the devastating impacts of climate change like affects to hunting, fishing and gathering rights, land lost, food security, respiratory illness, infectious disease, and economic and cultural displacement.
• It touches on tribal sovereignty and treaty rights and is an Indigenous Nations security issue that affects the future generations to come. Climate justice is a human rights issue.
  
  

What are some of the Impacts of Climate Change on Indigenous Peoples in the U.S.?

Arctic region
• Those who live in the Arctic are experiencing shorter winters that disrupt the lifecycles of plants and animals that they depend on.
• The Yupik people see the winter ice pack receding sooner every year limiting walruses to breed and feed themselves.
• Rising water level from the melting glaciers forced several communities on the Arctic coast and islands to abandon their homes and traditional lands.
• Many arctic communities already have their lands and natural resources polluted by oil spills and oil development that has seriously disrupted the environment and their health.
  

Great Lakes Region
• Climate change provides an ecological risk that disrupts traditional foods of wild rice, berries, and maple syrup for the Indigenous communities that live in northern Minnesota and other Great Lake areas, such as the Anishinaabe.
• Early and rapid winter snowmelt led to flooding of various rivers and lakes causing damage and havoc.
• Dramatic fluctuations in water levels and warmer temperatures of lake waters has affected fish populations and insect populations such as fish kills from increasing dead zones in lakes and severe infestation of disease spreading insects such as mosquitoes.

Southwest Region
• Drought has affected the water table levels and limited water sources that depend on the little rain the region gets to replenish them causing plants and livestock to die.
• Droughts have caused beetles to suck the saps of trees such as the piñon tree for water and lead to tree deaths, some of which are medicinal plants.
• Much of the Navajo (Dine') and Hopi peoples have suffered their lands being desecrated and poisoned by fossil fuel mining companies.

Great Plains Region
• Increased extreme weather events such as blizzards and droughts are threatening Great Plains tribal economies where livestock and land extensive agriculture are the primary sources of income.
• Water resources are becoming scarce and depleted before they can be replenished.
• In the past 10 years droughts, blizzards, and flooding have caused six national disaster declarations in the Dakotas.
• Summer heat and severe weather has increased health risks of children and elders

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What Can We Do?

• We must respect our traditions and responsibility to protect the sacredness of our Mother Earth.
  
  
• Get your Tribal government as a sovereign nation to get involved in the climate issues both with the U.S. Congress and with the U.S. State Department and its international deliberations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Indigenous community-based and non-governmental organizations also have a role in these issues.
  
  
• Tell your Tribal government to carefully consider the environmental and cultural consequences when looking at, or continuing any fossil fuel energy development (oil, gas, coal mining, coal-fired power plants, coal bed methane) on, or near Indigenous lands.
  
  
• This country must immediately start phasing out its national dependence on a fossil fuel economy, support policies to immediately reduce carbon emissions and greenhouse gases and seek legislative remedy for a just transition of workers, Tribes, and communities that are impacted from a phase-out and reduction of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. We must tell the fossil fuel industries to take responsibility for their polluting ways.
  
  
• Conserve our own dependence on fossil fuels and support our Tribes to pursue clean renewable energy projects.

INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK - PO Box 485 - Bemidji, MN 56619
Ph: (218) 751-4967 Fax: (218) 751-0561 Email: ien@igc.org Web: www.ienearth.org

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