Tag Archives: Climate Change

WHAT!!! Climate Change is Natural Phenomenon

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“Nothing To Do With Man” – Astrophysicist Says Climate-Cultists “Are On A Gravy Train” To Make Money
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, SEP 10, 2022 – 06:30 PM

This year’s heat waves and subsequent droughts resulted in the hottest summer in recorded European history, according to a report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) – an EU-funded Earth observation agency.

“We’ve not only had record August temperatures for Europe, but also for the summer, with the previous summer record only being one year old,” said Freja Vamborg, a senior scientist at the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Of course, this ‘record’ heat in the summer has prompted activists to trot out the same old tropes that this ‘confirms climate change’ is having a catastrophic effect on the world already. With the energy crisis facing Europe, this is not a particularly comfortable topic as numerous nations abandon – albeit apparently temporarily – their green policies in favor of not letting their citizenry starve or freeze.

Given that it’s all ‘settled science’, the following RT News anchor was probably expecting a rote response to his questions about climate change.

He was in for a big surprise…

Piers Corbyn – physicist, meteorologist, and elder brother of former UK Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn – explained to the shocked RT anchor that the climate “has always been changing, but this has nothing to do with man”

The astrophysicist instead believes that changes in the Earth’s climate and its weather are dictated primarily by cyclical activity on the surface of the sun (and not, pointedly, by the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). 

“For one thing science doesn’t do settled opinions,” Corbyn says.

“And for another they are all wrong.”

“Surely man has something to with this,” exclaims the struggling new anchor, to which Corbyn responds:

“No, the only connection is that man is here at the same time as the sun and the moon are doing things.”

The frustrated anchor falls back to consensus, asking “so how come then that so many climate change scientists disagree with you and they get so much support for that?”

Corbyn’s laughing response was straightforward:

“…those that say this are just trying to make money… They’re on a gravy train for heaven’s sake.”

Watch the brief interview below:

Finally, we note that in former UK PM Boris Johnson once lauded Corbyn as “the world’s foremost meteorological soothsayer”.

We suspect this is the last time Mr.Corbyn will be allowed on TV…

from:  https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/nothing-do-man-astrophysicist-says-climate-cultists-are-gravy-train-make-money?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=914

Solar Cycles

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The Termination Event

/ Dr.Tony Phillips

June 10, 2021: Something big may be about to happen on the sun. “We call it the Termination Event,” says Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), “and it’s very, very close to happening.”

If you’ve never heard of the Termination Event, you’re not alone.  Many researchers have never heard of it either. It’s a relatively new idea in solar physics championed by McIntosh and colleague Bob Leamon of the University of Maryland – Baltimore County. According to the two scientists, vast bands of magnetism are drifting across the surface of the sun. When oppositely-charged bands collide at the equator, they annihilate (or “terminate”). There’s no explosion; this is magnetism, not anti-matter. Nevertheless, the Termination Event is a big deal. It can kickstart the next solar cycle into a higher gear.

Above: Oppositely charged magnetic bands (red and blue) march toward the sun’s equator where they annihilate one another, kickstarting the next solar cycle. [full caption]

“If the Terminator Event happens soon, as we expect, new Solar Cycle 25 could have a magnitude that rivals the top few since record-keeping began,” says McIntosh.

This is, to say the least, controversial. Most solar physicists believe that Solar Cycle 25 will be weak, akin to the anemic Solar Cycle 24 which barely peaked back in 2012-2013. Orthodox models of the sun’s inner magnetic dynamo favor a weak cycle and do not even include the concept of “terminators.”

“What can I say?” laughs McIntosh. “We’re heretics!”

The researchers outlined their reasoning in a December 2020 paper in the research journal Solar Physics. Looking back over 270 years of sunspot data, they found that Terminator Events divide one solar cycle from the next, happening approximately every 11 years. Emphasis on approximately. The interval between terminators ranges from 10 to 15 years, and this is key to predicting the solar cycle.

Above: The official forecast for Solar Cycle 25 (red) is weak; McIntosh and Leamon believe it will be more like the strongest solar cycles of the past.

“We found that the longer the time between terminators, the weaker the next cycle would be,” explains Leamon. “Conversely, the shorter the time between terminators, the stronger the next solar cycle would be.”

Example: Sunspot Cycle 4 began with a terminator in 1786 and ended with a terminator in 1801, an unprecedented 15 years later. The following cycle, 5, was incredibly weak with a peak amplitude of just 82 sunspots. That cycle would become known as the beginning of the “Dalton” Grand Minimum.

Solar Cycle 25 is shaping up to be the opposite. Instead of a long interval, it appears to be coming on the heels of a very short one, only 10 years since the Terminator Event that began Solar Cycle 24. Previous solar cycles with such short intervals have been among the strongest in recorded history.

These ideas may be controversial, but they have a virtue that all scientists can appreciate: They’re testable. If the Termination Event happens soon and Solar Cycle 25 skyrockets, the “heretics” may be on to something. Stay tuned for updates.

from:    https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2021/06/11/the-termination-event/

What Is In The Sky? Read & Watch

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New Feature-Length Geoengineering Documentary: The Dimming

MARCH 11, 2021

By Peter A. Kirby

Dane Wigington at GeoengineeringWatch.org has finally released his long-anticipated feature-length documentary film The Dimming.

Like everything Dane and his team do, this new documentary is a cut above. Featuring commentary from a plethora of top anti-geoengineering activists, it masterfully covers many aspects of today’s operations. It slices and dices the insidious claims (usually made by the shills) of the lines in the sky being harmless condensation trails. It deftly and effectively explains the manipulation of atmospheric particles with electromagnetic energy. It exposes the disinformation tactics of the mainstream media. It compiles the extensive evidence proving that the terrible wildfires of late are a direct result of massive aerial spraying.

In particular, the film focuses on biological impacts. You know, the area of study that is the most important and therefore roundly ignored by the geoengineers. The most extensive discussions here revolve around the Human health impacts of aluminum exposure. If you’re new to this topic, aluminum has been found to be the most common constituent of today’s geoengineering sprays, and guess what? It’s really bad for us – especially aluminum nanoparticles. The film also shows how the combination of aluminum in our bodies and our exposures to harmful electromagnetic energy (such as that produced by 5G cell towers) adds another layer of harmful complexity here.

The centerpiece of the film is documentation of the collection and analysis of particulate samples taken in flight. Dane and his team were able to collect air samples at altitude then have the samples professionally analyzed. The whole process is detailed in the film. Samples have been collected at ground level for many years, but these aerial samples eliminate the possibility of contamination. As one might expect, the dispersed particulate matter collected at altitude was found to consist of the same elements prevalent in samples collected at ground level.

In summation, The Dimming is a must see. At its core is a call to action against something that threatens all life on this planet. The last segment is particularly stirring. We have an awesome home, folks. It’s too bad that vigorously defending it is not something that most people do. Since we have our priorities straight, we must be the ones that keep pressing the issue. Thank you.

Links

Websites

 

from:   https://www.activistpost.com/2021/03/new-feature-length-geoengineering-documentary-the-dimming.html

Actually, It’s Getting Colder

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What Lies Ahead? The Grand Solar Minimum

by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Mar 03, 2021 – 19:20

Submitted by Luke Eastwood

We are all aware of the environnmental crisis that humanity (and all life on Earth) faces, characterised by the term ‘climate change’. Much of the current thinking in the scientific community is promoting the idea that our planet is rapidly warming due to excess CO2 (carbon dioxide) gas produced by humans in the last few centuries, and the last 70 years in particular.

While there is a very strong and hard to deny case to suggest that human activity is the main cause of environmental destruction, the premise that it is due primarily to CO2 emissions is beginning to look somewhat flawed. I am well aware that the previous sentence is likely to draw a lot of negative attention and criticism, with accusations of ‘climate denier’ being thrown at me. However, the situation is not that simple as to be a case of ‘global warming’ being the main influence or no influence at all.

The reality of the situation is complex. In my opinion the main drivers of the  environmental crisis are many, but put in simple terms – destruction of wild habitats, pollution due to industrialisation, over-use of soils, over-population, erosion of soils leading to desertification or barren, infertile landscapes, monoculture agriculture and climate fluctuations. Notice that I did not use the term ‘climate change’ which in the current scientific norm implies warming.

While the planet has undoubtedly warmed up, in part due to human activity and CO2 production, the current popular thinking completely ignores historical CO2 levels beyond the last millennium and also the primary input on temperatures on this planet and all eight of the planets in this solar system. That input, although largely ignored at the moment, is of course our sun, which on average generates 3.8 x 1026 Joules (energy) per second. Human energy usage per year is around 5 x 1020 Joules, which is about 1 million times less than the Sun produces during 1 second! In fact, in the whole of human history we have used less energy that the Sun produces in that 1 second.

So, given the above, it stand to reason that the energy of the Sun must have a significant effect on the energy available on this planet and the heat energy (temperature) that is captured by it, as it rotates around the Sun. If we look at the history of Earth, particularly through the use of ice-core samples, we can see that the temperatures on our planet follow a very distinct pattern. On a macro level this can be observed as a huge cycle of glacials (ice-ages) and interglacials, with the ice ages lasting many times longer than the interglacial (warm) periods.  We are currently in an interglacial, which began approximately 11,500 years ago and it is estimated that it will end some time within the next 50,000 years.

On a micro level, the Sun undergoes cycles of around 11 years  known as the solar magnetic activity cycle, which has been studied and recorded by humans for approximately 400 years. During each cycle the number of sunspots peaks and falls in a recognisable pattern. However, this pattern of approx. 11 years is itself part of a much longer solar pattern of solar minimums and solar maximums. For instance the Medieval maximum (grand solar maximum) lasted from 1100-1250 (warm period) and the famous Maunder Minimum (grand solar minimum) lasted from 1645-1715 (cold period). The later was known as a mini  ice age due to the particularly drastic drop in global temperatures that affected crop-growth and led to bitter winters for a period of 70 years.

Scientists that study the sun are well aware of these periodic cycles both on the 11 year scale and on the larger scale of 70–100 years, known as the Gleissberg cycle. We have just finished a solar maximum cycle of around 70 years and are now heading into a both a new 11 year cycle and a new grand solar minimum cycle that will reach its lowest (coldest) point some time between 2030 and 2040.  You don’t need to take my word for it – this has been confirmed by NASA and by the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA). NOAA predictions of sunspot and radio flux appears to show a ‘full-blown’ grand solar minimum (GSM) which will last from the late-2020s to at least the 2040s

This means that the coming solar minimum is going to be not only a grand solar minimum, but perhaps the worst one since the Maunder Minimum in the 1600s. One would expert this to have been front-page news, but outside of the scientific community this information is virtually unheard of and little understood. One must ask – why is this the case? The simple answer to this question is that the solar predictions destroy the current scientific and cultural narrative of ‘Climate Change’ in the form of warming.

There will indeed be climate change in the coming decades, but for the next 10 to 40 years it is going to get colder, not warmer! The same thing will happen on the 7 other planets in this solar system, because the main factor affecting planetary temperatures is the activity of the Sun. Given that so much time, effort and money has been invested in ‘global warming’ as a premise for change in how human society is run, it is very much an “inconvenient truth” that is beginning to arrive just at the time when we are beginning to take more affirmative action on environmental issues.

The controversial news that the Earth (and all 7 other planets) will cool down in the next 10-40 years is politically highly inconvenient and that is why it is being kept quiet. Getting rid of fossil fuels, caring for our environment, lowering industrial output, ending industrial farming and reducing livestock, plus a gradual reduction in the human population are all excellent goals.  Unfortunately the rationale for doing this, that has been sold to the public, is most likely entirely misguided.  The net effect of this false premise may well be that environmentalists and main-stream public scientists will look like fools by the end of this decade. The cooling of planet Earth may well be seen as justification to abandon environmental concerns and reform of our economic systems, which would be a terrible tragedy.

In order to avoid this highly likely total embarrassment, world governments and the scientific community need to admit that the coming dip in solar energy output is going to lead to the cooling of our planet for at least 2 decades, possibly 4 or 5 or even 7 decades!  This is not conspiracy, this is not mis-information or propaganda – this is proven, verifiable fact which can be validated by current solar observation, previous observation of sun cycles for 400 years and ice-core samples stretching back millions of years.

As someone who has been involved in the environmental movement since I was 16, when I joined a conservation group at college, I am very concerned about how this plays out. If the public feels that they have been lied to it may lead to a backlash and a disinterest in environmental issues. The reasons I outlined at the beginning of this article are more than sufficient for humanity to change its modus operandi. One does not need to concoct highly improbable narratives about the world ‘burning up’ within decades to justify environmental activism. In fact the coming GSM is likely to produce similar negative effects to predicted ‘global warming’, such as habitat loss, loss of farming land, a drop in food availability, migration, social unrest and possibly other problems too.

It is time that the whole ‘climate change’ theory was re-assessed and the known solar activity cycle as observed by NOAA and NASA taken into account. To fail to do so is total folly and only creates another problem, that will come back to haunt us if the grand solar minimum is ignored.  We do need to take better care of our world and learn to live far more harmoniously within it, but we need to base our actions on good science and not on misleading or inaccurate information.

from:    https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/what-lies-ahead-grand-solar-minimum?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter

Climate Triage

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Climate change is increasing flooding caused by seasonal ‘king tides’ in Florida and other coastal areas. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

We can’t save everything from climate change – here’s how to make choices

Authors

  1. Senior Policy Researcher; Program Director, Infrastructure Resilience and Environmental Policy, Pardee RAND Graduate School

  2. Research Fellow, Climate Adaptation, Griffith University

Disclosure statement

Benjamin Preston currently receives funding from the California Hospital Association, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Ford Motor Company, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Previously, he has received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Commonwealth of Australia.

Johanna Nalau receives funding from Australian Research Council and Griffith University.

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Griffith University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Recent reports have delivered sobering messages about climate change and its consequences. They include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C; the fourth installment of the U.S. government’s National Climate Assessment; and the World Meteorological Organization’s initial report on the State of the Global Climate 2018.

As these reports show, climate change is already occurring, with impacts that will become more intense for decades into the future. They also make clear that reducing greenhouse gas emissions from human activities to a level that would limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) or less above preindustrial levels will pose unprecedented challenges.

Today, however, there is a large and growing gap between what countries say they’d like to achieve and what they have committed to do. As scholars focused on climate risk management and adaptation, we believe it is time to think about managing climate change damage in terms of triage.

Hard choices already are being made about which risks society will attempt to manage. It is critically important to spend limited funds where they will have the most impact.

Annual average temperature over the continental United States has increased by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit relative to 1900. Additional increases ranging from 3 degrees Fahrenheit to 12 degrees Fahrenheit are expected by 2100, depending on global greenhouse gas emission trends. USGCRP

Triaging climate change

Triage is a process of prioritizing actions when the need is greater than the supply of resources. It emerged on the battlefields of World War I, and is widely used today in fields ranging from disaster medicine to ecosystem conservation and software development.

The projected global costs of adapting to climate change just in developing countries range up to US$300 billion by 2030 and $500 billion by mid-century. But according to a recent estimate by Oxfam, just $5 billion to $7 billion was invested in projects specific to climate adaptation in 2015-2016.

Triaging climate change means placing consequences into different buckets. Here, we propose three.

The first bucket represents impacts that can be avoided or managed with minimal or no interventions. For example, assessments of how climate change will affect U.S. hydropower indicate that this sector can absorb the impacts without a need for costly interventions.

The second bucket is for impacts that are probably unavoidable despite all best efforts. Consider polar bears, which rely on sea ice as a platform to reach their prey. Efforts to reduce emissions can help sustain polar bears, but there are few ways to help them adapt. Protecting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef or the Brazilian Amazon poses similar challenges.

Clare Mukankusi breeds beans for a gene bank in Kawanda, Uganda, with properties including drought resilience to help farmers cope with extreme conditions. Georgina Smith, CIAT, CC BY-NC-SA

The third bucket represents impacts for which practical and effective actions can be taken to reduce risk. For example, cities such as Phoenix, Chicago and Philadelphia have been investing for years in extreme heat warning systems and emergency response strategies to reduce risks to public health. There are a variety of options for making agriculture more resilient, from precision agriculture to biotechnology to no-till farming. And large investments in infrastructure and demand management strategies have historically helped supply water to otherwise scarce regions and reduce flood risk.

In each of these cases, the challenge is aligning what’s technically feasible with society’s willingness to pay.

What triage-based planning looks like

Other experts have called for climate change triage in contexts such as managing sea level rise and flood risk and conserving ecosystems. But so far, this approach has not made inroads into adaptation policy.

How can societies enable triage-based planning? One key step is to invest in valuing assets that are at risk. Placing a value on assets exchanged in economic markets, such as agriculture, is relatively straightforward. For example, RAND and Louisiana State University have estimated the costs of coastal land loss in Louisiana owing to property loss, increased storm damage, and loss of wetland habitat that supports commercial fisheries.

Valuing non-market assets, such as cultural resources, is more challenging but not impossible. When North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras lighthouse was in danger of collapsing into the sea, heroic efforts were taken to move it further inland because of its historic and cultural significance. Similarly, Congress makes judgments on behalf of the American people regarding the value of historic and cultural resources when it enacts legislation to add them to the U.S. national park system.

The next step is identifying adaptation strategies that have a reasonable chance of reducing risks. RAND’s support for the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan included an analysis of $50 billion in ecosystem restoration and coastal protection projects that ranked the benefits those projects would generate in terms of avoided damages.

This approach reflects the so-called “resilience dividend” – a “bonus” that comes from investing in more climate-resilient communities. For example, a recent report from the National Institute of Building Sciences estimated that every dollar invested in federal disaster mitigation programs – enhancing building codes, subsidizing hurricane shutters or acquiring flood-prone houses – saves society $6. Nevertheless, there are limits to the level of climate change that any investment can address.

The ‘Resilience Dividend Valuation Model’ provides communities with a structured way to frame and analyze resilience policies and projects.

The third step is investing enough financial, social and political capital to meet the priorities that society has agreed on. In particular, this means including adaptation in the budgets of federal, state, and local government agencies and departments, and being transparent about what these organizations are investing in and why.

Much progress has been made in improving disclosure of corporate exposure to greenhouse gas reduction policies through mechanisms such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures, a private sector initiative working to help businesses identify and disclose risks to their operations from climate policy. But less attention has been given to disclosing risks to businesses from climate impacts, such as the disruption of supply chains, or those faced by public organizations, such as city governments.

Advocates say corporate disclosure of climate risks would help investors to make informed decisions, and would allow corporations to prepare for climate change and have a strategy to deal with it.

Finally, governments need to put frameworks and metrics in place so that they can measure their progress. The Paris Climate Agreement calls on countries to report on their adaptation efforts. In response, tools like InformedCity in Australia are emerging that enable organizations to measure their progress toward adaptation goals. Nevertheless, many organizations – from local governments to corporate boardrooms – are not equipped to evaluate whether their efforts to adapt have been effective.

There are many opportunities to manage climate risk around the world, but not everything can be saved. Delaying triage of climate damages could leave societies making ad hoc decisions instead of focusing on protecting the things they value most.

from:    https://theconversation.com/we-cant-save-everything-from-climate-change-heres-how-to-make-choices-108141

Vegan for the Planet? Think Again!

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Going vegan is a pointless form of virtue signaling – it doesn’t help the environment or the planet, analysis reveals

Thursday, January 02, 2020 by:

Image: Going vegan is a pointless form of virtue signaling – it doesn’t help the environment or the planet, analysis reveals

(Natural News) Think you’re saving the planet from climate change by driving an electric vehicle and switching to a “plant-based” diet? Think again.

In a paper he recently published, Bjørn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, deconstructs the myth that lugging around reusable grocery bags and using paper straws instead of plastic have any meaningful impact on our planet’s climate.

As it turns out, all of the messaging about how to individually fight “global warming” by reducing one’s personal “carbon footprint” is a gaggle of lies and propaganda – and this from a guy who’s a vehement believer in climate change!

Switching from beef to “Impossible Whoppers” will accomplish a whole lot of nothing, as will replacing all your incandescent lightbulbs with mercury-filled compact fluorescents (CFLs). The same goes for recycling and flitting around town in a Tesla – both useless endeavors in terms of “cooling” the planet.

According to Lomborg, these and many other individual actions represent little more than virtue signaling by climate elitists who accomplish nothing beyond simply feeling better about themselves by “going green.”

Using the example of British nature-documentary presenter and environmental activist David Attenborough, Lomborg highlights how Attenborough’s promise to unplug his phone charger when it’s not in use is a laughably pointless endeavor that will have basically zero impact on the environment.

“… even if he consistently unplugs his charger for a year, the resulting reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions will be equivalent to less than one-half of one-thousandth of the average person’s annual CO2 emissions in the United Kingdom,” Lomborg points out.

“Moreover, charging accounts for less than 1% of a phone’s energy needs; the other 99% is required to manufacture the handset and operate data centers and cell towers. Almost everywhere, these processes are heavily reliant on fossil fuels.”

You might as well keep eating those steaks because livestock farts aren’t heating the globe any more than the GMOs in those “plant-based” alternatives

As for going vegetarian or vegan, this, too, is a complete waste of time if it’s being done purely for the sake of “saving the planet.” Despite all of the fear-mongering about cow flatulence “warming” the atmosphere, the fact of the matter is that eating meat has virtually the same impact on the planet as not eating meat.

“… a systematic peer-reviewed study has shown that even if they succeed, a vegetarian diet reduces individual CO2 emissions by the equivalent of 540 kilograms – or just 4.3% of the emissions of the average inhabitant of a developed country,” Lomborg notes.

“Furthermore, there is a ‘rebound effect,’ as money saved on cheaper vegetarian food is spent on goods and services that cause additional greenhouse-gas emissions. Once we account for this, going entirely vegetarian reduces a person’s total emissions by only 2%.”

In the end, even if every person were to eat entirely vegan, only drive a Tesla, and power his or her home with wind and solar exclusively, the overall reduction in emissions would be so minimal as to be statistically non-existent.

Meanwhile, nations are throwing trillions of dollars at subsidizing these worthless changes, massively reducing their own wealth while propping up the illusion of “sustainability” – and to what end?

“We already spend $129 billion per year subsidizing solar and wind energy to try to entice more people to use today’s inefficient technology, yet these sources meet just 1.1% of our global energy needs,” Lomborg concludes.

“The IEA (International Energy Agency) estimates that by 2040 – after we have spent a whopping $3.5 trillion on additional subsidies – solar and wind will still meet less than 5% of our needs.”

To keep up with the latest news about the climate change hoax, be sure to check out ClimateScienceNews.com.

from:    https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-02-going-vegan-doesnt-help-environment-or-planet.html

Situation: Critical – The Burning of the Rainforest

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The Amazon Rainforest is on Fire and Hardly Anyone’s Talking About It

The hashtag #PrayForAmazonia went viral on Tuesday as social media users attempted to draw the world’s attention to the Amazon rainforest, which has been devastated for weeks by fires so intense they can be seen from space.

According to Euro News, it is unclear whether the fires were caused by agricultural activity or deforestation. Both have accelerated rapidly under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who made opening the Amazon to corporate exploitation a key plank of his election campaign.

Twitter users on Tuesday slammed the media for paying too little attention to the Amazon blazes, particularly given the essential role the rainforest plays in absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide—a capacity that earned it the nickname “lungs of the world.”

“The Amazon has been burning for three weeks, and I’m just now finding out because of the lack of media coverage,” wrote one observer. “This is one of the most important ecosystems on Earth.”

Satellite data collected by the Brazilian government’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) published in June showed that deforestation has risen dramatically under Bolsonaro, who dismissed the research as “a lie” and fired INPE director Ricardo Galvão for defending the data.

As The Guardian reported, the INPE findings showed the Amazon “lost 739sq km during the 31 days [of May], equivalent to two football pitches every minute.”

As Newsweek reported Tuesday,

One large fire, which started in late July, burnt around 1,000 hectares of an environmental reserve in the Brazilian state of Rondônia—located on the border with Bolivia. This blaze, along with others in the region, created dense plumes of smoke that spread far across the state, endangering the health of people living in the area and the lives of animals.

 

Two weeks ago, the state of Amazonas in the northwest of the country declared a state of emergency in response to an increase in the number of fires there… Various fires have also been burning in the state of Mato Grosso, according to satellite imagery.

The fires have become so intense that smoke from the blaze darkened the afternoon sky on Monday in São Paulo, Brazil’s most populous city.

“The Amazon rainforest has been on fire for weeks, and it’s so bad it’s literally blotting out the sun miles away,” tweeted Robert Maguire, research director at U.S. government watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.

The advocacy group Amazon Watch on Tuesday called the Bolsonaro regime’s attacks on the world’s largest rainforest “an international tragedy.”

“What can we do?” the group tweeted. “1. Support the courageous resistance of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. 2. Make clear to the agribusiness and financiers involved in the destruction that we won’t buy their products.”

By Jake Johnson | CommonDreams.org | Creative Commons

from:    https://www.wakingtimes.com/2019/08/22/the-amazon-rainforest-is-on-fire-and-hardly-anyones-talking-about-it/

Actually, It Is Less Than.a Carbon Thumbprint!

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Can You Guess How Much CO2 is Mankind Responsible For?

Global warming and climate change alarmists harp on about “dangerously high” manmade CO2 output levels. So how much are they? The answer will shock you.
by Makia Freeman, guest writer,
HumansAreFree.com

You would think manmade CO2 output levels must be sky-high, given all the relentless guilt-tripping propaganda we are fed about how humanity is the cause of global warming. The agenda to push AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) or manmade global warming started around the 1980s and has been gaining momentum for decades, fooling many people along the way.

Yet, despite all the publicity it has gotten, it has still failed to make clear a very fundamental point: exactly how much and what percentage of carbon or specifically CO2 (carbon dioxide) does humanity contribute to the atmosphere?

If man is really driving global warming (now conveniently called “climate change”), surely this level must be pretty high or at least significant, right? The answer may shock you … and give new meaning to the term global warming hoax.

Manmade CO2 Output Levels … Straight out of the IPCC’s Mouth

One of the difficult things about ascertaining the truth in the climate change debate is that there are so many different sets of measurements. Which one do you trust? How can you tell the truth when one side uses one set of data to prove its point, and the other side uses another set of data to prove its (diametrically opposed) point?

To bypass this dilemma, we are going to get the figures straight of the horse’s mouth so to speak by using data from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The IPCC is not a scientific body as you may imagine but rather a political one with a very clear bias towards promoting AGW and climate change alarmism.

It’s their job to push the AGW agenda onto the public, even though they disguise that with claims that they “provide rigorous and balanced scientific information.”

Here’s what Wim Rost had to say in his article IPCC ≠ SCIENCE ↔ IPCC = GOVERNMENT:

“IPCC is government and not science. And the workers of the IPCC prepare the work in accordance with the rules and procedures established by the IPCC.

“In order to be scientific the scientific method has to be adhered. The use of many scientists to fill important parts of IPCC reports does not mean that everything is science. A report is just a report. In this case, a report from the IPCC. And the IPCC is (inter-) government.

“Scientists involved can produce their own scientific papers about their own specialised part of science, but a small group of writers writes the summaries and the conclusions – for the IPCC. And IPCC is government. …

“The IPCC’s stated mission is not to discover what accounts for climate change, but to assess “the risk of human-induced climate change.”

“Consequently, there is almost no discussion in its lengthy reports of other theories of climate change. Policymakers and journalists took this to mean the AGW theory was the only credible theory of climate change, and the IPCC’s sponsors and spokespersons had no incentive to correct the mistake.”

CO2 in the Atmosphere

Here are the simple facts. Earth’s atmosphere consists of the following gases at the following levels:

Nitrogen (N) – 78%

Oxygen (O) – 21%

Argon (Ar) – 0.9%

Trace Gases – 0.1%

So far, so good. CO2 is a gas in such small concentrations that it hasn’t yet entered the picture. So, the next step is to break down the composition of trace gases (which are also the greenhouse gases) in our atmosphere:

Water Vapor (H2O) – 95% of trace gases / 0.95% of overall atmosphere

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) – 3-4% of trace gases / 0.03 or 0.04% of overall atmosphere

Neon (Ne) – 0.1% of trace gases / 0.001% of overall atmosphere

There are also some gases at tiny concentrations, including helium (He), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and ozone (O3), as well as halogenated gases (CFCs) released by mankind which have damaged ozone.

Water vapor is far and away the largest greenhouse gas, but the IPCC chooses to ignore it! Check out these tables below where you can see that water vapor is excluded from the percentages. The IPCC and other AGW proponents claim they need to exclude water vapor from their calculations because it varies so much from region to region.

Yes, it does vary greatly all over the Earth, but to just exclude the largest greenhouse gas (and a massive driver of temperature too) from your calculations because it’s inconvenient or varies too much is grossly misleading and unscientific.

A pie chart typical of one used by the IPCC and AGW proponents. Water vapor, despite being the overwhelmingly largest greeenhouse and trace gas, is simply ignored and omitted.

Humanity’s Contribution to CO2 Levels

To recap: trace gases are 0.1% of the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide makes up 3-4% of these trace gases, so therefore CO2 is 3-4% of 0.1%. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call it 3%, so CO2 comprises 0.003% of the atmosphere.

That’s pretty damn small, but we can’t stop there, because the next question to ask is: how much of this is caused by human activity? The IPCC has conflicting sets of data here, but both are within a small range of each other, either 3.0% (using the 2007 figures) or 3.6% (using the 2001 figures):

Manmade CO2 output levels (IPCC data from 2001)
Manmade CO2 output levels (IPCC data from AR4, 2007)

No matter which set of data you use, the IPCC data shows that manmade CO2 output levels are ~3%. How do you figure this out? The 2001 data shows the total amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere (119 + 88 + 6.3 = 213.3) and the human portion as 6.3. Divide 6.3 by 213.3 and you get 2.95%.

The 2007 data shows the total amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere (29 + 439 + 332 = 800) and the human portion as 29. Divide 29 by 800 and you get 3.63%.

Manmade CO2: 3% of 3% of 0.1%

So here’s the bottom line. According to the IPCC’s own data, manmade CO2 output levels are 3% of 3% of 0.1% of the total Earth’s atmosphere. That’s 0.000009%! That’s 9 millionths.

CO2 is measured in ppm (parts per million) because it is such a tiny and insignificant gas, yet somehow, the propaganda has been so successful that is has sprouted into what some state is a US$1.5 trillion industry.

The IPCC Can’t Deal with Water Vapor

The IPCC is basically stuck on water vapor. It can’t actually measure it, since the variability across the world is so high, H2O vapor changes so quickly, and it takes place above a variety of different landscapes/topographies. There are too many variables to calculate to produce a good model. So it just shuffles it to the side and states it has no “confidence.”

Here’s exactly what the IPCC says:

“Modelling the vertical structure of water vapour is subject to greater uncertainty since the humidity profile is governed by a variety of processes … because of large variability and relatively short data records, confidence in stratospheric H2O vapour trends is low.”

It doesn’t suit the IPCC’s agenda to really dive in and better understand the role of water vapor as the key greenhouse gas driving climate temperature. It’s far easier to just pretend it doesn’t exist and only focus on the tiny amount of CO2 in the atmosphere instead.

Manmade CO2: A Massive Diversion

The idea that manmade CO2 output levels is a big problem, in the scheme of all of Earth’s eco problems, is a giant hoax. It diverts environmentalists’ attention away from the true issues that need addressing. Does it make any logical sense to spend so much money, energy and attention on 0.000009% of CO2, when there are very palpable, tangible and dangerous threats to our environment?

What about geoengineering, the aerial chemtrail spraying of barium, aluminum and strontium all over us, and the flora and fauna of the Earth? What about the release of synthetic self-aware fibers that cause Morgellons’ Disease, in line with the NWO synthetic agenda? What about unstoppable environmental genetic pollution caused by the release of GMOs?

What about the contamination of waterways with industrial chemicals, pesticides like glyphosate and atrazine, poisons like dioxin and DDT, heavy metals and pharmaceutical residues? Why are people wasting their energy on 3% of 3% of 0.1% when we have real MASSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL issues facing us as a species?

Respected theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson said:

“The possibly harmful climatic effects of carbon dioxide have been greatly exaggerated … the benefits clearly outweigh the possible damage.”

Final Thoughts

Despite all the politicians, celebrities and soul-for-sale scientists AGW has recruited to its cause, there is no real basis for the fearmongering.

At the very top, those pushing the manmade global warming hoax know that it’s a scam, so rather than focusing on the facts, they appeal to emotion with fake images of starving polar bears (to arouse anger) and underwater cities (to arouse fear).

The truth is that the green movement has long been hijacked by the very same NWO manipulators who helped to ruin the environment in the first place, through their ownership of oil, chemical and pharmaceutical multinational corporations.

These manipulators rely on the average person being too busy or lazy to check the facts or think critically. They promote scientific illiteracy via their control of the MSM, the educational curriculum and their numerous think tanks.

Finally – if you dare – dig into the birth of the modern environmental movement, and you may be shocked to find how deeply it is steeped in eugenics and depopulation. It’s time to realize that those pushing this gigantic scam aren’t interesting in saving the environment – but rather depopulating it.

From:    http://humansarefree.com/2018/10/can-you-guess-how-much-co2-is-mankind.html

The Importance of Rainforests

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Facts About Rainforests

By Alina Bradford, Live Science Contributor |
This interior part of the Amazon rainforest is one of the most diverse corners of the Amazon basin. A hectare of forest typically contains 250 species of large trees.

Credit: Nigel Pitman | The Field Museum

Rainforests are found all over the world — in West and Central Africa, South and Central America, Indonesia, Southeast Asia and Australia — on every continent except Antarctica. They are vitally important, producing most of the oxygen we breathe and providing habitat for half of the planet’s flora and fauna.

Types of rainforests

The term “rainforest” has a wide classification. Typically, rainforests are lush, humid, hot stretches of land covered in tall, broadleaf evergreen trees, usually found around the equator. These areas usually get rain year-round, typically more than 70 inches (1,800 millimeters) a year, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Various types of forests, such as monsoon forests, mangrove forests and temperate forests, can be considered rainforests. Here’s what makes them different:

  • Temperate rainforests consist of coniferous or broadleaf trees and are found in the temperate zones. They are identified as rainforests by the large amount of rain they receive.
  • Mangrove rainforests are, like their name, made of mangrove trees. These trees grow only in brackish waters where rivers meet the ocean.
  • Monsoon rainforests are also called “dry rainforests” because they have a dry season. These get around 31 to 71 inches (800 mm to 1,800 mm) of rain. Up to 75 percent of the trees in dry rainforests can be deciduous.

Most rainforests are very warm, with an average temperature of 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) during the day and 68 degrees F (20 degrees C) at night.

A rainforest consists of two major areas. The very top part is called the canopy, which can be as tall as 98 feet to 164 feet (30 to 50 meters). This area is comprised of the tops of trees and vines. The rest, below the canopy, is called the understory. This can include ferns, flowers, vines, tree trunks and dead leaves.

Some animals stay in the canopy and rarely ever come down to the ground. Some of these animals include monkeys, flying squirrels and sharp-clawed woodpeckers, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Upper montane cloud forest during rainfall at Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysia.
Upper montane cloud forest during rainfall at Mt. Kinabalu in Malaysia.

Credit: L. A. Bruijnzeel and I. S. M. Sieverding

Animals and plants

The rainforest is home to many plants and animals. According to The Nature Conservancy, a 4-square-mile (2,560 acres) area of rainforest contains as many as 1,500 flowering plants, 750 species of trees, 400 species of birds and 150 species of butterflies. The Amazon rainforest alone contains around 10 percent of the world’s known species.

Just about every type of animal lives in rainforests. In fact, though rainforests cover less than 2 percent of Earth’s total surface area, they are home to 50 percent of Earth’s plants and animals, according to The Nature Conservancy. For example, rhinoceroses, deer, leopards, gorillas, chimpanzees, elephants, armadillos and even bears can be found living in rainforests across the world.

Many unusual animals and plants have been discovered in rainforests. For example, the fairy lantern parasite (Thismia neptunis) reappeared in the rainforest of Borneo, Malaysia, in 2018, 151 years after it was first documented. This plant sucks on underground fungi and doesn’t need sunlight to survive. “To our knowledge, it is only the second finding of the species in total,” the Czech team of researchers wrote in a paper, which was published Feb. 21, 2018, in the journal Phytotaxa.

Some of the animals are also unusual. For example, the tapir is a mammal that looks like a mix between an anteater and a pig and can be found in the rainforests of South America and Asia. The stunning silverback gorillalives in the rainforest of the Central African Republic. Forest giraffes, or okapi, a strange-looking cross between a horse and a zebra, also inhabit the African rainforest.

One particularly surprising rainforest find is a spider as big as a puppy. The massive South American Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) is the world’s largest spider, according to Guinness World Records. Each leg can reach up to 1 foot (30 centimeters) long, and it can weigh up to 6 ounces (170 grams).

Seventy percent of the plants identified by the U.S. National Cancer Institute as useful in the treatment of cancer are found only in rainforests, according to The Nature Conservancy. Scientists have identified more than 2,000 tropical forest plants as having anti-cancer properties. However, less than 1 percent of tropical rainforest species have been analyzed for their medicinal value.

Rainforests are found on every continent except Antarctica. Map shows tropical rainforests in dark green and temperate rainforests in light green.
Rainforests are found on every continent except Antarctica. Map shows tropical rainforests in dark green and temperate rainforests in light green.

Credit: Ville Koistinen

Importance

Humans and animals rely on the rainforest to make the majority of Earth’s oxygen. One tree produces nearly 260 lbs. of oxygen each year, according to the Growing Air Foundation, and 1 hectare (2.47 acres) of rainforest may contain over 750 types of trees.

A tree uses carbon dioxide to grow. A living tree draws in and stores twice as much carbon dioxide than a fallen tree releases. But when the tree is cut down, it releases its stored carbon dioxide. For example, dead Amazonian trees emit an estimated 1.9 billion tons (1.7 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications in 2014. The same trees typically absorb about 2.2 billion tons (2 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide makes up around 82.2 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Out of the 6 million square miles (15 million square kilometers) of tropical rainforest that once existed worldwide, only 2.4 million square miles (6 million square km) remain, and only 50 percent, or 75 million square acres (30 million hectares), of temperate rainforests still exists, according to The Nature Conservancy. Ranching, mining, logging and agriculture are the main reasons for forest loss. Between 2000 and 2012, more than 720,000 square miles (2 million square km) of forests around the world were cut down — an area about the size of all the states east of the Mississippi River.

Deforestation around the world also decreases the global flow of water vapor from land by 4 percent, according to an article published by the journal National Academy of Sciences. Water constantly cycles through the atmosphere. It evaporates from the surface and rises, condensing into clouds. It is blown by the wind, and then falls back to Earth as rain or snow. In addition, water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, according to NASA. Even a slight change in the flow of water vapor can disrupt weather patterns and climates.

“Rainforests are under increasing threats for many reasons, including logging, clearing for crops or cattle, and conversion to commercial palm oil plantations,” Jonathan Losos, director of the Living Earth Collaborative and William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor for the Department of Biology, at Washington University in St. Louis, told Live Science. “On top of that, the changing climate is having adverse effects on rainforest health. Last year was an especially bad one for the Amazon, with a substantial uptick in the rate of deforestation.”

On the other hand, Losos said, there are some glimmers of hope:

  • The two countries with the largest amount of rainforest – Indonesia and Brazil – have both acknowledged the importance of these forests and have taken innovative and aggressive efforts to halt deforestation.
  • There is a growing understanding that halting deforestation and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are closely linked; new, large-scale efforts are under way to address both concerns.
  • While there is a continued decline in primary rainforests, a bright spot is the fact that in many tropical countries, there is an extensive regeneration of secondary forests, which are critical to supporting much of these countries’ biodiversity.

 

  • from:    https://www.livescience.com/63196-rainforest-facts.html

Legacy of Standing Rock

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What Standing Rock Gave the World

Americans saw the Indigenous struggle—the violence, stolen resources, colluding corporations and governments—that goes hand in hand with protecting the Earth.
SRMonet1440.jpg
Jenni Monet

At the height of the movement at Standing Rock, Indigenous teens half a world away in Norway were tattooing their young bodies with an image of a black snake. Derived from Lakota prophecy, the creature had come to represent the controversial Dakota Access pipeline for the thousands of water protectors determined to try to stop it.

It was a show of international solidarity between the Indigenous Sami and the Lakota. “They got tattoos because of the Norwegian money invested in the pipeline,” said Jan Rune Måsø, editor of the Sami news division of Norway’s largest media company, NRK.

Rune Måsø said the story about the tattoos was just one of about a hundred that his team of journalists covered over the course of the months-long pipeline battle in North Dakota. One of them, “The War on the Black Snake,” was awarded top honors at a journalism conference held in Trømsø in November. That story revealed large investments Norwegian banks had made to advance the $3.8 billion energy project, spurring a divestment campaign by the Sami Parliament.

The backstory can be told simply. As early as April 2016, Indigenous activists protested the pipeline’s threat to the Standing Rock Sioux’s primary water supply, the Missouri River. While battles were fought in federal courts, representatives of hundreds of Indigenous groups from around the world—the Maori, the Sami, and the Sarayaku, to name a few—arrived. Temporary communities of thousands were created on the reservation borderlands in nonviolent resistance against the crude oil project. Police arrested more than 800 people, and many water protectors faced attack dogs, concussion grenades, rubber bullets, and, once, a water cannon on a freezing night in November. Last February, armored vehicles and police in riot gear cleared the last of the encampments. Recently, investigative journalism by The Intercept has documented that the paramilitary security firm TigerSwan was hired by DAPL parent Energy Transfer Partners to guide North Dakota law enforcement in treating the movement as a “national security threat.”

Oil now flows through the pipeline under the Missouri.

But this Indigenous-led disruption, the awakening resolve that was cultivated at Standing Rock, did not dissolve after February. Rather, it spread in so many different directions that we may never fully realize its reach. The spirit of resistance can easily be found in the half-dozen or so other pipeline battles across the United States. Beyond that, the movement amplified the greater struggle worldwide: treaty rights, sacred sites, and the overall stand to protect Indigenous land and life.

To be sure, post-colonization has always demanded acknowledgment of Indigenous autonomy. It’s what spurred months of international advocacy when Haudenosaunee Chief Deskaheh attempted to speak before the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1923. He wanted to remind the world that European colonizers had honored Iroquois Confederacy nationhood upon entering treaty agreements under the two row wampum.

The stand at Standing Rock, then, was not anything new—just more modern.

Google the words “the next Standing Rock” and you get a smattering of circumstances, mostly posed in the form of a question: Bears Ears, Line 3, Yucca Mountain. “The Next Standing Rock?” the headlines ask.

The story of White Clay, Nebraska, is indicative. When the last tipis came down at Standing Rock, Clarence Matthew III, a middle-aged Sicangu Lakota man better known by his camp nickname, Curly, spared little time migrating to the South Dakota–Nebraska border. There, another fight for justice was mounting, for families living on the neighboring Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This one focused on a decades-long dispute over beer sales targeted at Native American customers mostly prone to alcohol addiction.

Demands turned to broader issues: investigation of dozens of unsolved crimes in White Clay against Native Americans. “Once we got down there, they started telling us about the problems they’ve had, more than just alcohol, the murders, the rapes, and everything that was on the bad side of that alcohol problem,” Matthew said. “It just broke my heart to hear all that.”

Matthew had been caretaker of one of the main communities at Standing Rock, and he settled right in at Camp Justice at the edge of Pine Ridge. He was there with his “water protector family,” others who have adopted camping as an active form of protest.

We’re starting to see other Indigenous communities rise up and say, Let us all speak now.

For all the momentum that the resistance at Standing Rock brought, the Indigenous rights movement in the 21st century faces increasing challenges. Tribal nations tread cautiously under the administration of Donald Trump. Internationally, the militarized protection of extractive energy projects and theft of land persist, despite glaring media attention paid to the rising number of Indigenous peoples killed or jailed for their activism in the face of it.

In a final push for re-election last fall, Standing Rock’s Dave Archambault II gave what would be his last interview as chairman to tribal radio station KLND. Archambault used the airtime to speak matter-of-factly about how the movement had shifted the tribe’s potent public image away from the reservation. “It used to be cool to be Indian; now it’s cool to be from Standing Rock.

“This movement was significant, not just for Standing Rock, but for all of Indian Country and around the world. We made some noise and now we’re starting to see other Indigenous communities rise up and say, Let us all speak now, and it’s pretty powerful and moving,” he said.

Less than a week later and on the same day that the state of North Dakota accepted a $15 million gift from Energy Transfer Partners, Archambault was unseated by former council member Mike Faith, who has said publicly that he believes the overall movement hurt Standing Rock’s economy and neglected daily life for tribal members.

The difference of opinion between the two leaders is a conflict that often lies at the heart of tribal community: protecting the Earth or protecting the Indigenous peoples.

On the eve of Thanksgiving 2017, when the Keystone pipeline ruptured and spilled 210,000 gallons of oil in neighboring South Dakota, the newly elected Faith remained notably silent while water protectors responded with outrage, most loudly, closest to home.

Sustaining this awakening is the next great task.

“Ironically, this week most Americans will be sitting down and giving thanks when last year at this time my people were being shot, gassed, and beaten for trying to keep this very thing from happening,” Chairman Harold Frazier from the neighboring Cheyenne River Sioux tribe said in a statement. Like Archambault and other tribal leaders, Frazier was arrested for participating in the Standing Rock occupation.

Leadership in the Indigenous world is not only a difficult balance, but also dangerous.

In Honduras, activist Bertha Zuniga Cáceres is fighting for Indigenous rights in one of the most militarized regions in the world. She is the daughter of Berta Cáceres, the Indigenous Lenca woman who was assassinated after leading a successful campaign to halt construction of the Agua Zarca Dam. Now she is seeking justice for her mother’s death.

The 26-year-old Cáceres is also campaigning to suspend all U.S. military aid to Honduras. In July, she survived an attack by a group of assailants wielding machetes. Just weeks earlier she had been named the new leader of the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, the nonprofit organization formerly led by her mother.

“Many organizations, many NGOs, many Indigenous groups are struggling in how to sustain the work that they are doing in the face of these attacks,” said Katharina Rall, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Last year, after the military-style assaults on the camps at Standing Rock, Human Rights Watch expanded its agenda to include a program focused on the environment as a human right. “The fact that we now have an environment and human rights program at our organization is a reflection of this reality that a lot of people face,” Rall said.

Meantime, the organization Global Witness reports that it has never been deadlier to take a stand against companies that steal land and destroy the Earth. In 2016, the watchdog group found that nearly four activists a week are murdered fighting against mining, logging, and other extractive resource development.

Traditional knowledge has kept us in harmony with Mother Earth.

As disturbing as this reality is, it is unsurprising then to recall the military-style violence at Standing Rock: the rows of riot police pointing their guns at unarmed activists standing in the river; tanks shooting water in freezing temperatures at a crowd of people gathered on a bridge. In this one regard, Standing Rock was not unique in the world. It had become crucially important. Americans saw the global struggle faced by the estimated 370 million Indigenous people—the violence, stolen resources, colluding corporations and governments that go hand in hand with protecting the Earth.

Sustaining this awakening is the next great task.

Climate change poses one of the most serious reminders of why the sacred fires ignited at Standing Rock must continue to burn: Indigenous peoples and their knowledge and value systems matter.

At November’s COP23 climate conference in Bonn, Germany, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim was dressed in traditional Mbororo regalia when she stood in a conference hall demanding that Indigenous knowledge systems be properly acknowledged in Paris Agreement negotiations. The girl who once tended cattle in the region of Chad bordering northeastern Nigeria has now become a bridge for her people and government officials making decisions impacting the fragile ecosystem of Lake Chad, the lifeline for the Mbororo.

“Traditional knowledge has kept us from century to century to be in harmony with Mother Earth,” Ibrahim said. “These knowledges will make for all the difference, but we cannot wait years and years, because climate is changing, and it’s impacting the Earth.”

Other members of the Indigenous Caucus at Bonn say inserting traditional knowledge into the climate talks doesn’t go far enough. Jannie Staffansson, a representative of the Saami Council, wants what Chief Deskaheh had petitioned to the League of Nations nearly a century earlier: sovereign recognition for Indigenous Peoples on an international scale. It would allow equity at the negotiating table—a level playing field to fairly deal with the consequences of a warming planet in the face of land grabs and natural resource extraction.

“Why is it always that Indigenous peoples need to pay for other people’s wealth?” said Staffansson. She paused to check the Snapchat account she had been using to engage with a young Sami audience while at COP, a demographic similar to the teens who got tattoos of the black snake.

“I had friends that went to Standing Rock,” said the 27-year-old. “I was envious of their trip to support self-determination. Self-determination and a just transition is what we have to take into account.”

“We need climate justice in everything we do.”

Jenni Monet wrote this article for The Decolonize Issue, the Spring 2018 issue of YES! Magazine. Jenni is an award-winning journalist and tribal member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico. She’s also executive producer and host of the podcast Still Here.

from:    http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/decolonize/what-standing-rock-gave-the-world-20180316