Category: RT Newswire

Published on Thursday, December 4, 2008 by Inter Press Service

by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS – Global efforts to combat climate change will lead nowhere as long as the indigenous peoples’ representatives have no say in discussions to lay out future plans, say activists who are attending the international conference on climate change being held in the Polish city of Poznan this week.

“Indigenous peoples have for centuries adapted to changing environments and would be able to contribute substantially to adaptation strategies the U.N. is trying to include in a new climate change treaty,” said Mark Lattimer of the London-based Minority Rights Group International (MRG).

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——————Original Message —————————-
Subject: URGENT Support Needed: Navajo & Hopi Coal Fight Goes to DENVER!!!
From:    “Enei Begaye” <enei_begaye@yahoo.com>
Date:    Wed, December 3, 2008 5:29 pm
To:      blackmesawc@gmail.com
————————————————————————–

**** SUPPORT URGENTLY NEEDED! ****

Navajo and Hopi communities under threat for more coal mining on Black Mesa, Arizona

The U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM) will soon release a “Record of Decision” on the “Black Mesa Project” Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). This decision will determine if the now closed Black Mesa Mine will re-open more lands for coal strip mining, potentially relocate more families from Black Mesa and give Peabody Coal Company a Life-of-Mine permit to mine on Black Mesa. A “Record of Decision” in favor of Peabody Coal Company’s “Black Mesa Project” would also allow the company the use of the Navajo Aquifer, which has been a center of controversy for the past 30 years and give Peabody Coal Company the right to mine untouched coal reserves indefinitely. For more information on the OSM process & the FEIS at:

http:// www.wrcc.osmre.gov/wr\BlackMesaEIS.htm

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Published on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 by McClatchy Newspapers

EPA To Gut Mountaintop Mining Rule That Protects Streams
by Renee Schoof and Bill Estep

WASHINGTON-The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that will allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining.

The 11th hour change before President George W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies had been pushing for the change for years.

It also means that President-elect Barack Obama’s administration will have to decide whether to try to restore and enforce the rule, a process that could take many months of new rulemaking. Obama’s transition team declined to comment on its plans on Tuesday.

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The report, “The Climate Crisis and the Adaptation Myth,” is
published by the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and
is available at
www.environment.yale.edu/publication-series/climate_change/.

Public release date: 2-Dec-2008
Yale University

Contact: David DeFusco
david.defusco@yale.edu
203-436-4842

Most US organizations not adapting to climate change

New Haven, Conn.-Organizations in the United States that are at the
highest risk of sustaining damage from climate change are not
adapting enough to the dangers posed by rising temperatures,
according to a Yale report.

“Despite a half century of climate change that has already
significantly affected temperature and precipitation patterns and has
already had widespread ecological and hydrological impacts, and
despite a near certainty that the United States will experience at
least as much climate change in the coming decades just as a result
of current atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, little
adaptation has occurred,” says Robert Repetto, author of “The Climate
Crisis and the Adaptation Myth” and a senior fellow of the United
Nations Foundation.

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