[For Native Americans, global warming and climate change have been
on their agenda for decades. Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the
Onondaga Nation has been telling audiences that it is time to pay
attention to the warning signs from Mother Earth.]
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TIME TO PAY ATTENTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE  
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Levi Rickert
September 5, 2021
Native News Online
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_ For Native Americans, global warming and climate change have been
on their agenda for decades. Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the
Onondaga Nation has been telling audiences that it is time to pay
attention to the warning signs from Mother Earth. _

On Saturday, Native Americans and allies gathered at the “Pipe Out
Paddle Up Flotilla” at the Straits of Mackinac to call for the
shutdown of Line 5., Native News Online

 

Summer does not officially end until the third week of September, but
Labor Day weekend often is seen as a threshold to wind down summer
activities into life’s normal routines.

Before we hasten back to our routines, though, it may be timely and
wise to pay attention to what the summer brought across the United
States, including Indian Country.

Summer wildfires in the West put members of the Klamath Tribe, the
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservations and other Native
Americans at risk. Hurricane Ida wreaked havoc in the Southeast,
including devastation to the United Houma Nation. These and other
weather incidents across the country proved that maybe we should not
settle back into our routines when it comes to Mother Earth.

In a June 27 article entitled “Dispossessed, Again: Climate Change
Hits Native Americans Especially Hard,” The New York Times writes:
“From Alaska to Florida, Native Americans are facing severe climate
challenges, the newest threat in a history marked by centuries of
distress and dislocation. While other communities struggle on a
warming planet, Native tribes are experiencing an environmental peril
exacerbated by policies — first imposed by white settlers and later
the United States government — that forced them onto the country’s
least desirable lands.

And now, climate change
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is quickly making that marginal land uninhabitable. The first
Americans face the loss of home once again.”

For some Native Americans, global warming and climate change have been
on their agenda for decades. Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the
Onondaga Nation has been telling audiences that it is time to pay
attention to the warning signs Mother Earth is trying to convey
through catastrophic acts of nature. Lyons goes as far to say that the
sudden wind shifts are fulfillment of Indigenous prophecies that date
back generations.

“Science can point out dangers, but science cannot turn the
direction of minds and hearts. That is the province of spiritual
powers within and without our very beginnings,” Oren Lyons said.

Those powers Lyons references have guided some Native Americans to
fight back against large energy corporations and governmental
policies—even when it has not been popular to fight back. It seems
the harder Native Americans resist, the harder the corporations fight
back. Standing Rock is a great example of resistance against big oil,
which resulted in big oil employing a “mercenary” private
contractor called TigerSwan to unleash vicious dogs against the water
protectors on Labor Day weekend five years ago. The dogs were
reminiscent of attack dogs unleashed by Bull Conner in Birmingham
during the 1960s civil rights movement.

During Standing Rock, TigerSwan waged a public relations campaign
against water protectors by describing them to the media as jihadists
and terrorists. The public relations campaign was so effective that it
was easy to sell to North Dakota officials that more police were
needed to defend the oil pipeline project. In the end tens of millions
of dollars
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were spent on a brute militarized police force at Standing Rock.

Because of the duration and large numbers of people from over 300
tribes across Indian Country lending their support, Standing Rock drew
a lot of attention to the largest Indigenous movement in over a
century. However, there have been many other fights waged by
Indigenous people over the last decade.

On Tuesday, the Indigenous Environmental Network
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and Oil Change International
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 released a new report titled Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon
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The report analyzes the impact that Indigenous resistance to fossil
fuel projects in the United States and Canada has had on greenhouse
gas emissions over the past 10 years.

The report cites 20 different campaigns fought against carbon during
the past decade, including Standing Rock. From the struggle against
the Cherry Point coal export terminal in Lummi territory to fights
against pipelines crossing critical waterways, Indigenous land
defenders have exercised their rights and responsibilities to not only
stop fossil fuel projects in their tracks, but establish precedents to
build successful social justice movements.

Even with all of the progress cited in the report, more work needs to
be done to save Mother Earth. That is why Native Americans spent this
year fighting Enbridge in Minnesota. That is why a group of Native
Americans spent their Saturday of Labor Day weekend to bring attention
to the dangers of the Enbridge Line 5 that flows through the Straits
of Mackinac.

The big question is how do Native Americans and environmentalists get
the others to disrupt their normal routines to really do something
about climate change so we can preserve Mother Earth for the next
seven generations.

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