environment: glacial melt media irresponsibility sustainability
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 2: “…the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
The Kansas City Star runs a McClatchy intern’s story on climate change’s effects on a place nobody will ever visit:
AYALOMA, Ecuador — Frosts aren’t on time for the 960 people living in this tiny, remote village, hidden on a chilly, windswept mountain ridge in South America.
A minor problem? Maybe for some. But in the Andean community, 8,800 feet above sea level, frosts – and their impact on crop cycles – are kind of a big deal.
In this agricultural community, crops are planted during the full moon, a tradition meant to help ensure a full harvest. But these days, the harvests aren’t as full.
Village residents say it’s the mark of climate change descending upon the Ayaloman people.
“In Ecuador, we’ve really experienced a sudden change in our climate,” said Ana Loja, a professor at the University of Cuenca, in the Andes of southern Ecuador. “We cannot say, ‘Maybe this is not happening,’ but I think everyone is aware it is a real problem.”
It’s always the Other what feels the blow. Sent July 22:
A strong human-interest element is essential to good reporting, and Annika McGinnis’ report on climate change’s impact on a tiny village in Central America is a wonderful example. The story of how these tough mountain people are coping with a radically changing world makes for compelling reading.
But that’s not all there is to news. Ms. McGinnis’ article needs to make the connection to the lives of readers in the United States. For too long, climate change has been the problem of an unspecified “other”, only affecting people and nations far from our own. As Midwest heatwaves and Colorado wildfires make clear, the impact of the burgeoning greenhouse effect is not the exclusive province of the Third World; the climatic consequences of a century-long carbon binge are no respecters of national boundaries. The industrialized West will soon have more in common with Ayaloma’s residents than we can presently imagine.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: agriculture corporate irresponsibility cultural imperialism native peoples
by Warren
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Year 3, Month 8, Day 1: What Do You Mean, “We,” White Man?
The Laramie (WY) Boomerang prints an AP article on the impact of climate change on indigenous populations:
Native American and Alaska Native leaders told of their villages being under water because of coastal erosion, droughts and more on Thursday during a Senate hearing intended to draw attention to how climate change is affecting tribal communities.
The environmental changes being seen in native communities are “a serious and growing issue and Congress needs to address them,” Tex Hall, chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation of New Town, N.D., said Wednesday.
Mike Williams, chief of the Yupit Nation in Akiak, Alaska, said in the informational Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing, that villages are literally being wiped out by coastal erosion. Williams said he can cast a net and catch salmon at his childhood home because the home is under water, he said. He also described how the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, in which he participates, has been moved because of lack of snowfall and that dogs must run at night to stay cool.
“We’ve always lived off the land and off the waters and continue to do that. But we’re bearing the burden of living with these conditions today,” Williams said.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, committee chairman, acknowledged that environmental changes are widespread, but the Hawaii Democrat said native communities are disproportionately impacted because they depend on nature for traditional food, sacred sites, and for cultural ceremonies. Several tribes already are coming up with plans to adapt to the changes and federal agencies are assisting with resources, Akaka said.
Food doesn’t come from plants. It comes from the Safeway. Sent July 21:
The world’s indigenous people, because of their ancestral closeness to the natural systems upon which their lives depend, are necessarily on the front lines of climate change. These cultures, whether they’re in Hawaii, the American Southwest, the Amazon rainforest, or the highlands of Papua New Guinea, are all at risk from the consequences of industrial civilization’s prodigal consumption of fossil fuels over the past two centuries.
But the loss of tribal societies is only one facet of the crisis. Global heating is already having devastating impacts on world agriculture, whether it’s a failed wheat crop in Russia or acres of dying corn plants in the Midwest. And because half of our political system denies the problem entirely, governmental action to avert catastrophe is all but impossible.
The accomplishments of our high-tech civilization are no protection against the collapse of the planetary ecosystems which allow us to eat, drink and breathe. Native cultures may be first to suffer the consequences of our profligacy, but barring concerted action on a global level, we’re next. Complacency is no longer an option.
Warren Senders