Critical State of Our Mother Earth-

Urgent Action Needed to Stop

Runaway Climate Change

COP 21 -UN Climate Change Conference, Paris, France, December 5, 2015

More than 40 years ago, during the early years of North America’s “new”
ecological consciousness, Ihanktonwan Dakota Spiritual Leader Vine Deloria Sr.
had a conversation with one of his elder cousins on the Standing Rock Sioux
Reservation in South Dakota. As his cousin loved to learn new words in English,
he asked Vine Sr. to explain to him what the word “ecology” meant. “Well,” Vine
Sr. said, “You know that we have places where you learn to read, study books and
learn about life. Then you learn how to write about what you have read. Finally,
you learn to talk about what you learned to read and write about!

Today, this is how our young people learn about life. Some people have learned
this way for many, many years. After they read enough books, write about what
they have read, and talked about what they have written, after 18 or 20 years,
they are given a piece of paper that says they are a Doctor of Life.

These Doctors of Life get jobs where they earn a lot of money, so they can read,
write and talk some more. They have even invented machines that can look at
things that are very small and make them look big. They've invented other
machines that can look at things far away and make them look close.

They put different parts of Mother Earth in containers and pour them back and
forth so they can find out more about the truth of Mother Earth. They have spent
a lot of time and money and studied Mother Earth for many years. From this
work, they have made a new discovery. They found out that everything is
interrelated. They found out that when you pollute the air, which all living things
breathe, and pollute the water, which all living things drink, you pollute all living
things. What do you think about that?”

Vine Sr.’s cousin smiled and shook his head. “I was wondering when they would
get around to this understanding! Just look at what we do to our beloved Mother
Earth. We cut her hair where it should not be cut, rip up her skin where it should
not be ripped up, and then we drill holes inside her and suck out her blood, put
things inside of her, and blow her bones up.”

Then he looked deeply into the eyes of cousin Vine Sr., shook his finger and said,
“And what would happen if you did that to your mother? She would die! And this
is exactly what is going to happen to all of us if we do not learn to respect and
understand the Spirit and Sacredness of all life and our Mother Earth.”

The Critical State of our Beloved Mother Earth

Fast forward almost 50 years, and it is clear that the prophecies from our wise
elders and visionaries are now upon us. Our sacred Mother Earth – who gives life
to all living things – is critically wounded, degraded, poisoned, and depleted by
the misguided actions of our Human Family. Colonialism, industrialism,
consumerism, and warfare are primary drivers of this relentless assault on our
beloved Mother Earth.

Many us today feel what is happening. We are deeply concerned by our love for
our families, ourselves and our future generations to come and for the beauty,
preciousness and the interrelatedness of all life on Mother Earth. We are
especially concerned about water that all life depends and for our very survival as
a Human Family. Perhaps you are one of us? Quick! Beyond blame and shame,
each and every one of us is called upon to take the Critical State of Mother Earth
into our hearts and into our daily lives for the transformation of every dimension
of our lives.

Our personal and collective failure to honor the sacred nature of all life has bred
materialism, greed, selfishness, ignorance, and fear. Each one of us, who feels the
truth of these statements, must now take personal responsibility to radically
change the direction of humanity. Individually and collectively, we must choose
to move away from materialism and consumption, away from the economic
system that attempts to transform our Mother Earth into products for sale, and
away from degrading the real wealth of productive ecosystems. Our movement is
toward a thriving, just, peaceful, and sustainable world for all our relations –
human and non-human alike. The times are now to:

1. Commit to Protecting and Restoring the Sacred. We will remind ourselves and
our Human Family, through our sacred prayers, songs, ceremony, and our
ancient prophecies, that Mother Earth is our sacred provider of life, not a
limitless dump for our waste here only to satisfy our appetite for the material
dimension of life.

Restoring the Sacred includes preserving and protecting sacred sites worldwide
and returning heirloom sacred objects taken from their rightful owners. We will
return these sacred sites and objects to their original cultural and spiritual
purposes.

2. Support the global emergence of the “Seventh Generation”, as promised, by

fostering youth participation, leadership, and wisdom in all decision making
processes impacting all life on Mother Earth. While the traditional “Seventh
Generation” decision making is a good start, we realize that many decisions today
are being made that will impact far more than seven generations and we,
therefore, call for an expansion of the “Seventh Generation” thinking to include
all future generations in our decision-making process.
3. Develop more sustainable production and consumption patterns: There is so
much unneeded waste and planned obsolescence in our consumption and
production patterns We call for a reduction of this waste through the
implementation of “Extended Producer & Consumer Responsibility” for all
consumption. As a Human Family, we call on all people, particularly the wealthy
to better live the values of simplicity and humility. As has been said, there is
often enough for everyone’s need but not everyone’s greed. Our Human Family
can live much happier and more rewarding lives with less and wiser consumption
of Mother Earth’s body and energy.

4. Restore women’s rights to stabilize human population: We’ve grown past

Mother Earth’s capacity, and our human population simply cannot keep growing.
Our ancient relatives knew that their communities had to fit their habitat.
Natural patterns of creation were practiced that resulted in extended families in
balance with the natural world.

Today, over a billion of our human relatives are hungry daily, and 10 million of
these relatives starve to death every year. We must stabilize the population of our
Human Family. It’s essential to ensure women everywhere have equal rights and
respect. Wherever women have rights over their own reproduction, and where
contraception is freely available, the birth rate naturally declines. Universal
education, social justice, and ecological justice allow communities to limit their
own population growth. We need to end poverty and increase education,
particularly among women, so that population will more likely be stabilized.

5. Transition to sustainable energy sources: We must take every action to reduce

and eliminate hydrocarbon energy use — coal, oil, gas — through increased
energy conservation, efficiency and building a renewable energy infrastructure:
solar, wind, and hydropower, tidal power, and geothermal where it is acceptable
and is approved through a process of free, prior and informed consent.
Conservation and energy efficiency are the starting points of any genuine energy
transition, using energy modestly and carefully, to minimize rather than
maximize energy consumption. This, includes, eliminating all Alberta Tar Sands
related projects

Nation states everywhere on Mother Earth need to remove all taxes and tariffs on
solar technology and other proven alternative energy sources. In addition,
nation-states must increase carbon taxes, eliminate subsidies to the petroleum
industry, and use those revenues to subsidize renewable energy research and
installation.

6. Restore natural ecological function on a planetary scale: Reverse the decline of

forests, coral reefs, wetlands, and other productive ecosystems. We must replant,
restore, and protect the wild forests to provide natural species diversity to grow
again and to supply human communities with materials and energy for modest
lives that are connected to productive living systems. To achieve this, we require a
paradigm shift in economics, a shift from growth and extraction to the
preservation of real wealth: our natural ecosystems. Rather than attempt to
monetize nature, we must do the opposite and naturalize the economy. We also
need to develop in a way that provides a just and safe environment within the
limits of scientific planetary boundaries.

7. Promote greater food security with a stronger emphasis on locally sourced food
from organic and traditional farming, hydroponics, and the use of perennial
grains. We must move quickly to phase out the industrial farming methods that
have destroyed soils and spread toxins throughout our environment and have
brought so many dead zones to our oceans. For our people, organic farming is
traditional farming that does not utilize the high levels of phosphorus and
nitrates or techniques that rapidly deplete the topsoils.

8. Build a strong infrastructure for public transportation: Reduce the need for
cars and restore efficient public transportation systems, monorails, light-rail,
electric trains, Maglev trains, and trolleys. Adopt transportation strategies
including development of safe lightweight vehicles, charging by the mile not
gallon for taxation, and using technology to create more efficient traffic flows.
Rebuild our communities so people can access their needs by walking and
bicycle.

9. Build Peace: War is the greatest consumer of oil and energy, the greatest
contributor to ecological destruction, and the most destructive force among the
Human Family. War primarily benefits the powerful, the wealthy, and the
weapons industry. We must make peace a global priority, refuse to fund war
machines, refuse to participate in war-making, and stop glorifying war. Eliminate
the weapons industry that lives off the misery of the victims among our relatives.
The realization of world peace can only be established on the full spiritual
awareness of the Oneness of the Human Family and the elimination of prejudice
in all forms, including anything that causes a human being or society to feel
superior to another. There can be no peace without justice, and no justice
without sustainability.

10. Restore and Promote the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The industrial
economies have consistently pushed Indigenous communities from their
productive land. By restoring the rights of all Indigenous communities, of all
members of the Human Family, who know how to live in harmony with the
natural world, we take a major step forward in healing our Mother Earth. This
includes the full legal implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, with special emphasis on the principle of free, prior and
informed!
11. All Nation States and Multinational Corporations responsible for generating
toxic waste -- including nuclear, petroleum, chemical, agricultural, and any other
toxic waste -- immediately develop a rapid global plan to eliminate those toxins
from all ecosystems, air, land, and water, at the earliest date possible. This
includes closing all Nuclear Power Plants, as soon as possible. While some
scientists believe nuclear power generation is safe, nuclear waste is deadly for
more a million years and there is no safe place to store nuclear waste. We morally
cannot endanger our future generations, at any cost!

12. Implement universal gender equality: The realization of full equality among
women and men is a prerequisite of peace. The denial of such equality is an
injustice against half of the world’s population and promotes harmful attitudes
and habits among men, from the family to the workplace, into political life and
international relations. Ultimately, any gender discrimination, including gender
violence, leads directly to a destructive relationship with Mother Earth. There are
no grounds — moral, practical or biological — upon which such denial can be
justified. Only when women and men are equally included in full partnership, in
all fields of human endeavor, will we be able to create the moral and
psychological climate to fully realize international peace.

13. Facilitate decision-making by leaders, so that decisions remain beneficial for

seven generations into the future, a policy known by Indigenous people as "Seven
Generations" decision-making. In the Ihanktonwan Dakota Traditions, the
thirteenth tepee pole is the women's pole, around which the hide or canvas is
wrapped. The other twelve poles are erected first, and then the thirteenth pole is
lifted into place and the skin of the tepee is unwrapped around the others,
covering all. Without this pole, of course, there is no shelter.

Scientific evidence shows that the toxic pollution of industrial culture is

poisoning the wombs of womankind, infecting our future generations, causing
disease, diabetes, obesity, birth defects, and cancers. This is chemical violence.
These toxins are breaking the thirteenth pole, harming all women, endangering
unborn children, so that there may not be the seventh generation. Short-term
decision-making for money is the opposite of seventh generation decision-
making.

14. Commit, to establishing and maintaining Bioregional Marine Sanctuaries

throughout Mother Earth, as soon as possible. Bioregional Marine Sanctuaries
are named areas of Earth, Water and Air where natural animal populations are
protected and restored to more than 50% of historic levels as soon as possible,
and water quality and forest biomass levels are preserved and restored to very
high concentrations. Bioregional Marine Sanctuary boundaries correspond to
natural features such as watershed topography, vegetation types, oceanic
continental shelves, and margins. Including all rivers, creeks, lakes, ponds,
estuaries, and aquifers.
15. Commit to reducing the large-scale farming of animals. Despite livestock
being the world’s leading emitter of methane, the role of animal agriculture in
climate change has been ignored during climate conferences. Further, the
increased demand for raising animals for human consumption is leading to the
destruction of both our rainforests and also the rural land many of our brothers
and sisters call home, causing human rights abuses, poverty, and violence.

We will hold the factory farming industry and the governments who shelter them
with laws accountable for these tragedies, and we will play our part in protecting
Mother Earth from further destruction.

16. Commit to holding governments and corporations responsible for making

genuine progress to solve the growing challenge of Climate Change. Historically,
after 21 years of climate conferences, governments and corporations have
accomplished nothing to address the climate challenge and have, in fact,
subsidized the petroleum energy industry that increases climate change.

While we will hold governments and corporations responsible for making

genuine progress, we will not rely on them to restore the harmony and balance of
life. The majority of the work to protect and restore the sacredness of life remains
with each and every one of us.
We have precedent for this kind of strong, committed, unprecedented, unified
action such as the U.S. commitment to put a person on the moon in ten years, the
Law of the Sea Convention to manage our common resource of the Ocean, and
the historic Montreal Protocol to address the Ozone depletion of the Earth.

These successful initiatives can be a model to inspire and encourage our success
in reducing carbon emissions to address climate change.

The Critical State of our Mother Earth-Clear Evidence from Science

We recommend these immediate actions because scientific studies since 2002 --

analyzed and integrated below -- make it crystal clear that we are on the brink of
runaway climate change! If we do not take immediate, unprecedented, and
unified action now, our survival, and the survival of future generations, will no
longer be in our hands. Please remember as you read the following, up-to-date,
summary of the Critical State of Mother Earth that there is a principle-centered
pathway to Protect and Restore our Beloved Mother Earth if we take immediate,
unprecedented action based on the 16 points of action outlined above! These are
the heart -wrenching facts of the Critical State of Mother Earth!
== 2002, Business Council for Sustainable Development report: More than a
decade ago, the Business Council for Sustainable Development in Antwerp,
Belgium, calculated: “Reductions in the Industrialized World – in material
output, energy use, and environmental degradation - of over 90% will be required
by 2040 to fairly meet the needs of a growing world population” within Mother
Earth’s ecological means.

== 2005 United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Prepared by 1,360

scientists and UN contributors; reviewed by UN member governments and
independent scientists, determined that:

Nearly two-thirds of all natural services that our Mother Earth provides to
humankind are in decline.

The world’s fish stocks are depleted and in dire condition.

Some 2 billion people living in dry regions are vulnerable to the loss of fuel, food,
and water supplies.
Our Mother Earth faces a growing threat to ecosystems from climate change,
toxic pollution, and the disruption of nutrient cycles.

Human activities have caused massive species extinctions, threatening the well-
being of all members of the Human Family.

The pressures on ecosystems will increase globally in coming decades unless

human attitudes and actions change dramatically.

To restore and protect our Mother Earth’s natural systems will require
coordinated efforts across all sections of governments, businesses, international
institutions, and communities.

== 2009 Planetary Boundaries: A report by 28 international scientists –

including Johan Rockström from Stockholm University and the Stockholm
Resilience Centre, Will Steffen from the Australian National University, Nobel
laureate Paul Crutzen, Goddard Institute climatologist James Hansen, and the
German Chancellor's climate advisor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber – in the
science journal Nature, showed that human activity has pushed nine critical
systems – biodiversity, temperature, ocean acidification, nitrogen and
phosphorus cycles, land use, freshwater, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosols,
and chemical pollution – near or beyond critical tipping points. The report
warned that natural system feedbacks drive additional change and endanger
other limits. The scientists warned that when human ecological impact passes
certain thresholds – tipping points – we risk “irreversible and abrupt
environmental change,” and that these changes risk human communities and all
life on our Mother Earth. Their scientific research shows that since the Industrial
Revolution, human actions have become the main driver of global environmental
destruction.

They found that four critical systems – climate change, species loss, nitrogen
cycles, and phosphorus cycles – have already crossed the safe, tipping point
boundaries. These systems now change in ways that cannot be reversed by
human intervention. Meanwhile, we are fast-approaching a climate tipping point
that could set in motion runaway global heating.

== 2012, State Shift in Earth’s Biosphere: In 2012, Nature published

“Approaching a State Shift in Earth’s Biosphere,” by 22 international scientists
led by bio-paleoecologist Anthony Barnosky from the University of California.
This international scientific team warned that human activity is likely forcing a
planetary-scale transition, far beyond simple global heating, with the potential to
transform Mother Earth “rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human
experience.” They warn that averting a planetary ecological crisis requires the
unprecedented effort of our Human Family. Canadian co-author, biologist Arne
Mooers, said: “humans have not done anything really important to stave off the
worst. My colleagues … are terrified.”

== 2012, Planetary Overshoot: Dr. William Rees, creator of “ecological footprint”

analysis at the University of British Columbia, has compiled data to show that
humanity now uses at least 50% more resources each year than the Earth can
replenish. In “The Way Forward” in Solutions Journal, Rees warns: “Climate
change is just one symptom of generalized human ecological dysfunction. A
virtual tsunami of evidence suggests that the global community is living beyond
its ecological means. The human enterprise has already overshot global carrying
capacity,” says Rees, “and is living, in part, by depleting natural capital and
overflowing waste sinks,” including our Mother Earth’s atmosphere. “Solutions,”
writes Rees, require that we “rewrite global society’s cultural narrative” to replace
an “economic growth fetish.”

==2013, Reinventing Fire Digging up and burning the deposits of ancient

sunlight stored eons ago in primeval swamps has transformed human existence
and made industrial and urban civilization possible. However, those roughly four
cubic miles of fossil fuels every year are no longer the only, best, or an even
cheapest way to sustain and expand the global economy—whether or not we
count fossil fuels’ hidden costs.

Those “external” costs, paid not at the fuel pump or electric meter but in our
taxes, wealth, and health, are not counted in the Reinventing Fire analysis but are
disturbingly large. Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars each year subsidize
America’s fossil fuels, and even more flow to the systems that burn those fuels,
distorting market choices by making the fuels look far cheaper than they really
are. But the biggest hidden costs are economic and military.

== 2014, Global Warming, Climate disruption: According to the United Nations

scientific panel on climate change, based on research from thousands of
international scientists, our Mother Earth is now locked into an “irreversible”
course of climatic disruption from the buildup of carbon dioxide and other
human waste gases in the atmosphere. The planet faces a future of extreme
weather, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, forest decline, and habitat loss for all
our relatives on Mother Earth. The UN scientific panel warned: “Continued
emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting
changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of
severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts.” In the last five years, we have
witnessed the melting permafrost that emits ancient methane into the
atmosphere, a warming gas 25-times more potent than carbon dioxide. The gas is
now causing explosions in Siberia, creating giant methane craters in Siberia rock.
== 2015 Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing
planet. The planetary boundaries framework defines a safe operating space for
humanity based on the intrinsic biophysical processes that regulate the stability
of the Earth system. Here, we revise and update the planetary boundary
framework, with a focus on the underpinning biophysical science, based on
targeted input from expert research communities and on more general scientific
advances over the past 5 years. Several of the boundaries now have a two-tier
approach, reflecting the importance of cross-scale interactions and the regional-
level heterogeneity of the processes that underpin the boundaries. Two core
boundaries—climate change and biosphere integrity—have been identified, each
of which has the potential on its own to drive the Earth system into a new state
should they be substantially and persistently transgressed.

== 2015, chemical toxins and human health: In September 2015, 17 medical

doctors, led by Endocrine Society president Lisa H. Fish from the University of
Minnesota, released a scientific statement on endocrine-disrupting chemicals
throughout the ecosystems of Mother Earth. These oil-based industrial
compounds chemically resemble the body’s hormones and trick receptor cells
with false messages that cause common developmental disorders, including
modern epidemics of diabetes, obesity, cancer, birth defects, liver and thyroid
dysfunction, learning disabilities, and sexual dysfunction in humans and other
animals. These chemicals are especially dangerous to developing fetuses, and a
2011 study by the University of California found these chemicals in 99% of
pregnant women.
These, and other, scientists confirm what our Indigenous spiritual leaders,
visionaries, and other members of the Human Family, who live close to our
Mother Earth, have been warning us about for centuries: Our Mother Earth has
limits. All members of the Human Family must humble themselves to the limits
of our natural world so that we and our future generations may enjoy the
continuing bounty of our natural world; we must share the world’s resources with
all of humanity in harmony with all our non-human relatives.
What follows is a summary of what these scientists have discovered.

Summary of the Critical State of Our Mother Earth, November 7, 2016

Forests: Humanity has leveled over half the world’s once-great forests. Over 6-
billion hectares (15-billion acres) of mature forests once stood on Mother Earth,
and now we have about 3-billion hectares left. But it is worse: We have taken the
best wood first and left behind degraded forests. We have taken 80% of the
original, ancient forests. We are losing about 15-million hectares (37.5-million
acres) of forest every year, an area about the size of Nepal. The remaining wood
quality has declined.

Deserts: Because of industrial agriculture, global warming, logging, draining

aquifers, and redirecting river water, some 6-million hectares (15-million acres)
of productive land turns into desert every year. The Sahara desert, once
productive grassland, grows at about 48 km (almost 30 miles) per year. The
Syrian Desert was once a beautiful cedar forest. The once great Aral Sea, full of
fish and able to support many communities, is now mostly desert.

Soils: Industrial agriculture destroys soils. Throughout our Mother Earth, we

have depleted over half the carbon and nutrients from the soils, polluted soils
with toxins, and washed topsoil into the sea. In North America, for example,
industrial agriculture has mined over half the carbon from the soils, from 6%
carbon to under 3% carbon. In the past century, we have lost some 500-billion
tons of topsoil. Meanwhile, we now lose about 26-billion tons of soil every year.

Species: Humanity is now causing the fastest rate of species to collapse in 64-
million years, since an asteroid hit our Mother Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs
and over 3/4 of all species on Mother Earth. Today, we are the asteroid, causing
some 100 species extinctions every single day. Since 1974, terrestrial species
biodiversity has dropped by 40% and since 1990, in twenty years; the marine
species index has declined by 21%. Today, over 30% of all remaining mammals
and 20% of all birds are endangered with extinction. Since we are destroying
natural habitats, new species development has collapsed, except for
microorganisms and bacteria. Humanity is causing an Earth-changing species
extinction disaster. With each lost species, we lose a magnificent gift of our
natural world that has been entrusted to all of us by our Creator.

Fish: The world’s fish are in crisis from overfishing and pollution. We have
depleted most of the large commercial species by 60-80% and some species by
90%, including the tuna, marlin, swordfish, cod, and halibut. We destroyed the
North Atlantic cod fishery and now face the demise of west coast salmon. We
have destroyed fishing communities around the world, in Africa, Asia, Europe,
and throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Bees Colony Collapse: Bees pollinate most of the world’s food crops and other
flowering plants, but world bee populations are plummeting. Since 1960, the
United States has lost half its bee population. Bee colonies are dying off in
Europe, Central America, Asia, and elsewhere around Mother Earth. The die-off
has been occurring for a long time and results from multiple causes, including
pesticides, industrial gases, urbanization, and habitat and food destruction.

Global heating from industrial gases: The amount of carbon dioxide in our
Mother Earth’s atmosphere has increased by 43% since pre-industrial days, from
280 parts-per-million (ppm) to nearly 400 ppm. During that same period,
methane – a more powerful, a shorter-lived greenhouse gas – has more than
doubled (from 0.78 p.pm to 1.76 ppm, +125%). Other industrial greenhouse gases
include carbon-monoxide, halocarbons, volatile gases, and the black carbon from
burning wood and diesel. After 20 years of climate conferences, including the
1992 UN Earth Summit, with 255 governments participating, 144 sending their
heads of state or government, along with some 2,400 representatives of NGOs
and 17,000 people at the parallel NGO "Global Forum", who had UN Consultative
Status; annual gas emissions have been greater and greater every year, not less.

Almost half the summer arctic ice is gone. The oceans are 30% more acidic
because of these industrial gases in the atmosphere. Mother Earth now
experiences the land, air and water temperature increases, drought, deluge,
flooding, forest fires, desertification, insect migrations, dying forests, and violent
storms caused and aggravated by global heating from industrial activity. With
Hurricane Sandy simply being the latest demonstration of the growing impact of
global warming, with many more yet to come.

Runaway global heating: Meanwhile, the heating is now creating system

feedbacks that cause more heating. The warmer atmosphere is now melting the
polar permafrost, which releases methane, causing more warming. Receding
forests store less carbon, reduced ocean algae stores less carbon, disappearing ice
fails to reflect as much heat and added water vapor increases the greenhouse
effect. We now face the real threat of runaway global heating beyond anything
that human actions could reverse. Scientists now warn of “irreversible” changes
to our Mother Earth’s climate.

Coral reefs: We have lost over a third of Mother Earth’s coral, and most of the
remaining coral reefs are in danger of complete destruction over the next few
decades. Because of hotter and more acidic oceans caused by industrial CO2,
destructive drag-net fishing, and pollution, our world’s coral is dying. In 1998, in
a single year, we lost 16% of the ocean’s coral reefs, which are the nursery of the
ocean. By killing the coral reefs, we destroy ocean biodiversity and productivity.

Material Limits: We have depleted virtually every non-renewable industrial and

economic natural material in the world including wood, aluminum, copper,
phosphorus, nickel, tin, zinc, platinum, and so forth. Humanity took the best,
cheapest, easiest materials first, so the remaining stores are more expensive to
extract, with greater energy requirements, and with greater human and ecological
destruction.

Energy limits: For the first time in our human history, humanity struggles with
declining energy resources. We have reached the peak of net energy input into
society. More and more energy is drained away in efforts to retrieve the deeper,
more expensive, dwindling energy stores. Conventional oil production has
peaked and is in decline.

In one century, humanity used up the best of our Mother Earth’s store of easily
accessible hydrocarbons – representing 500-million years of solar energy stored
as biomass and oil in our Mother Earth’s crust. Meanwhile, we have destroyed
half the forests that once supplied human communities with energy. This energy
storehouse has been squandered on wars, over-heated buildings, unneeded
lighting, and other forms of wasteful consumption. The remaining oil is dirty and
expensive. Today, we use so much energy to find energy, that some oil fields can
no longer produce a net energy flow. The net energy available to our human
society from one-barrel invested in producing energy has dropped from 100
barrels in the early 1930s oil fields to only three barrels in today’s tar sands and
two or less in many fracking schemes and deep oil wells.

Humanity has high-graded everything. We took the best land, best trees, best oil,
best fish, and so forth. We now have to make do with the lower-quality materials,
energy, and natural bounty.

Water: Over 1.2-billion members of our Human Family lack adequate water every
day. Over 2.3-billion people, 1/3 of our human population, lack fresh, clean
drinking water. We have polluted and drained our Mother Earth’s aquifers and
rivers. Water tables have dropped by 50 meters (more than 164 feet) drops in
Mexico City, Beijing, and Madras. Over half the lakes are gone in Qinghai China,
some 2,000 lakes. Since glaciers are melting from global heating, many rivers
don’t reach the sea. The Aral Sea has been drained to water cotton plantations,
and former fishing fleets sit idle in growing deserts.

Human Population: There are now over 7-billion members of our Human Family
and we add 75 million every year. Over 1 billion of our human relatives go hungry
every year and 30,000 actually starve to death every single day. The good news is
that wherever women have equal rights, and where contraception is available, the
population naturally stabilizes.

Social Injustice: About 1 billion members of our Human Family consume 85% of
our Mother Earth’s material and energy bounty. The poorer 6 billion of our
Human Family must make do with 15% of the materials and energy. The richest
2% of our Human Family owns half the world’s wealth, while a billion of our
relatives live on the edge of starvation. This growing scale of injustice and failure
to practice common human decency is leading to greater and greater human
conflict, and floods of homeless refugees.
Warfare: The wealthy industrial nations spend some $2-trillion each year on
weapons and military destruction, at the cost of millions of lives, destroyed
communities and devastated ecosystems. Imagine if these resources were instead
expended on uplifting our Human Family.

Industrial Disasters: These human and ecological disasters are not “accidents.”
They occur daily, witnessed in oil spills, toxic dumping, mine tailings, and other
normal operations of the industry. In “cancer villages” of industrial China, for
example, virtually every inhabitant suffers from cancer, birth defects, or other
diseases. The following are a few examples of the ongoing destruction of Mother
Earth and of innocent human communities:

1928-68, Minamata, Japan: The Chisso Chemical Corp. dumped mercury in

Minamata Bay for decades, poisoning an entire village. By 2001, 1,784 people
died and over 10,000 people suffered birth defects and other disabilities.

1952, London smog: Over 12,000 people killed, over 100,000 suffered from
respiratory illness.
1920–78, Love Canal: Hooker Chemical Company dumped dioxins and other
toxins near the community and sold the land to the School Board. The chemicals
caused birth defects, enlarged limbs and heads, deafness, miscarriages,
retardation, and sight illness.

1975, Banqiao Dam, Henan, China: During record rains, 62 dams collapsed;
26,000 people died at the time, and 145,000 died from resulting epidemics and
famine. Six million buildings collapsed, and over 11-million people were
displaced.

1976, Seveso Italy, Dioxins: A runaway reaction at a chemical factory poisoned

four towns and 100,000 people with toxic, cancer-causing dioxins. Villages were
evacuated, thousands of animals died, and children were hospitalized. People
suffered skin lesions, diabetes, and some later died from cancer, immune
dysfunction, and cardiovascular and respiratory disease.

1984, Bhopal, India: Union Carbide Chemical Company leaked toxic, lethal
methyl-isocyanate gas. Some 8,000 people died within weeks, thousands more
died in the following months, and over 500,000 people were severely injured. A
community was virtually destroyed.
1984, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy: In the United Kingdom, the crowding
of cattle led to a new disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy or “mad cow
disease,” a progressive neurological disorder of cattle infected by a mutated
protein.

1986, Chernobyl: Nuclear plant explosion and fire, irradiated millions of people
locally and at least 1-billion people worldwide. Cancer deaths caused by the
radiation have been estimated from 25,000 to one million.

1991, Sea Island, Kuwait oil spill: During the Gulf war, attacks on oil fields spilled
8 million barrels of oil – 345 million gallons – into the Persian Gulf.

1991, Ixtoc oil spill, spilled 3 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, killing
sea life over hundreds of square kilometers; oil remains in the substrate to this
day.

1996, Marcopper Mining, Corp., Philippines: Placer Dome Mining subsidiary

Marcopper Mining, dumped 84-million tons of toxic mine waste into Calancan
Bay, the Philippines, poisoning thousands of people and virtually killing all life in
the Boac River system. Toxic spills caused floods, isolated five villages, and
buried the village of Barangay Hinapula under six feet of toxic mud. Local
drinking water was contaminated; fish, shrimp, and pigs died; and 20 villages
were evacuated.

1999, Tokai nuclear plant, Japan: A runaway nuclear reaction burned for 20
hours at the uranium enrichment plant owned by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co.
Ltd., releasing radiation. Two workers died from radiation sickness, and 68 other
workers were irradiated. The public received radiation doses, and the company
paid out over 7,000 damage claims.

2000, Romania, Baia Mare cyanide spill: The Aurul Company gold mining
operation leaked cyanide into the Someş River, which polluted the Tisza and
Danube rivers, killing fish from Hungary to Yugoslavia. Toxins contaminated
drinking water for 3 million people. In sections of the Tisza River, all fish and
animals died; in the Serbian section, 80% of aquatic life died. Foxes, otters,
ospreys and other animals died after eating contaminated fish. Hungarian fish
catches in the rivers dropped by 80%.

2009, BP deepwater oil spill: Three blow-out protectors failed, the deepwater
well exploded, and dumped 5-million barrels – 210-million gallons – of crude oil
into the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven workers died instantly; birds, fish, marine
mammals and other sea life perished; the region’s fishing and tourism industries
collapsed.

2011, Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown: Following an earthquake, the

equipment failed, water boiled away, nuclear fuel rods melted, and three reactor
cores melted down. Radiation contaminated air, water, and land in Japan, and
moved with wind and tides across the Pacific. Two workers died immediately,
over 300 workers suffered high radiation exposure, and over sixty elderly and
infirm patients died during disorganized hospital evacuations. Future cancer
deaths remain unknown, but will likely exceed several hundred, or possibly
thousands.

The Canadian Tar Sands ecological disaster: The development of the Canadian
tar sands may be the largest, most devastating ecological disaster in world
history. The tar sands development starts with the destruction of the boreal
forest, scrub plains, lakes and wetlands, and the displacement of the animals and
the peoples that live there. The project drains and pollutes water tables and the
Athabasca River. Toxins are released into the air. Local communities – primarily
Indigenous communities, who have lived in this region for thousands of years –
suffer from respiratory disease, cancers, and toxic poisoning of their food and
water. Boreal lakes are turned into black sludge pits where all life dies, where
migrating birds mistakenly land and perish.

The project requires so much energy to produce the bitumen (tar) that they
require gas pipelines from the British Columbia gas fields to Alberta, gas which is
retrieved by fracturing the geological substrate of northern British Columbia. The
bitumen is so thick and toxic that it has to be diluted to move through a pipeline.
The project imports liquefied gas condensate to mix with the tar. The diluted
bitumen is then sent down pipelines, which routinely spill onto land and into
wetlands, river systems, and ultimately our aquifers. The thick bitumen crude oil
is then loaded on oil tankers in Vancouver Harbour for shipment, via the Salish
Sea, to China and the US, endangering the entire west coast of Canada and the
US.

The recent bitumen spill in Michigan demonstrates the level of damage from a
bitumen crude oil spill:

Kalamazoo River spill: In July 2010, a 30-inch bitumen pipeline owned by

Enbridge Energy, burst, spilling 20,000 barrels of tar sands bitumen into a
tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The challenges of tar sands
bitumen shocked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Costs of even partial
cleanup soared to more than ten times historic crude oil costs. “I don't think
anyone at the EPA anticipated that,” said EPA Incident Commander, Ralph
Dollhopf. “I don't think anyone in industry anticipated that.” Now Enbridge is
proposing a pipeline and related tankers through one of the last pristine
temperate Rain Forests. The huge tankers they propose to carry the bitumen oil
to China will have to travel through narrow channels and treacherous waters in
some of the most delicate ecosystems on Mother Earth.

Bitumen is a particularly dense, toxic version of crude oil. Bitumen, diluted with
solvents, separates in the marine environment. Volatile gases – toluene and
carcinogenic benzene – rise into the air, causing headaches, nausea, coughing,
and fatigue among the local population. One may fairly assume all other animals
experience similar symptoms.

After the Kalamazoo River spill, toxic fumes remained for weeks and could be
smelled 50 kilometers away. Two years later, 30 miles of the river remained
closed to fishing, swimming, or even wading in the water.

Bitumen contains sulfur, paraffin, asphaltic, benzenes, and other toxic

compounds. Animals and plants are suffocated and poisoned. In water, the die-
off starts at the foundation of the food chain, obliterating the bacteria, micro-
organisms, and vital biofilm that provide food for shorebirds and amphibians.
Bitumen moves with wind and tides, kills bottom life, mixes with the intertidal
sediments, and kills shellfish, ocean plants, finfish, and marine mammals. Toxic
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (“PAHs”) dissolved in the water and kill
microorganisms. Most of this damage could not be “cleaned up” at any price.

These incidents are only a few of the more dramatic. We could add to the Exxon
Valdez oil spill, the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown, the industrial deaths of
coal miners, lead poisoning of ethyl-gasoline workers, mercury and dioxin
poisoning from pulp mills in Canada, Lyme disease outbreak in the US, industrial
radiation poisoning, worldwide cancer epidemics, and of course ongoing
starvation, malnutrition, and deaths from waterborne disease.

Connect the patterns: More people, hotter climate, fewer forests, depleted soils,
melting glaciers, dry rivers, drained aquifers, disappearing species, acidic oceans,
toxic pollution, dirty energy, and depleted material resources. Not only is each
one of these environmental and related challenges before us monumental in
themselves, but when we understand that they are intimately related and are
rapidly meeting at an inevitable crossroads, it may seem almost overwhelming.

Yet if we don`t take urgent, bold, courageous and unprecedented unified action
to mediate the depth and degree of these interrelated catastrophes, locally,
regionally and globally — recently illustrated by Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane
Patricia, and other storms — there will be grave and irreversible consequences
for ourselves, our future generations, and all life.

Overshoot: The industrial model of life, fueled by greed, ignorance, and fear, is
now in a state that ecologists call “overshoot.” Successful species tend to
overshoot the capacity of their habitat until the natural cycles of Mother Earth
restore the balance. If a wolf pack consumes too many deer or other game, wolves
go hungry, and the population declines until the balance is restored. When locust
consumes all the grain and reproduces beyond the capacity of their environment,
they die off. This is nature’s way. Humans, driven by industrial power and
unfettered desire, have overshot Mother Earth’s capacity to provide resources
and process our waste. If we do not want to experience nature’s own remedies,
then we must take wise, unprecedented, unified action ourselves to limit our
impact.

The New vision is an Ancient Vision:

It is clear that piecemeal ecology isn't working. We must recognize, as our wise
Elders who walked the Path before us, that we are all parts of a dynamic,
interrelated, living system. Our reckless industrial activity now disrupts these
natural systems at their fundamental core. We are unraveling the very web of
nature itself. Our Mother Earth is resilient and will endure, but our careless
actions are destroying life for millions of other species and ultimately for
ourselves. We must remember that the “Hurt of One is the Hurt of All, and the
Honor of One is the Honor of All!”

We have critical decisions before us. Will we continue to walk the destructive
path that has brought us to these growing global challenges or will we choose to
walk the life-preserving, life-enhancing, principle-centered path of protecting and
restoring the Human Family, our future generations and our beloved Mother
Earth?

The path we choose has clear consequences and the choice is ours. Our Mother
Earth is in a Critical State. We can choose to take unprecedented unified action to
protect and restore our beloved Mother Earth, or we will witness the end of life as
we know it for ourselves and our future generations. As the age-old realization of
the Oneness of the Human Family and all life returns with greater and greater
understanding, it is clear to see that by choosing to walk the Red Road of love,
forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation, and by standing up for our beloved
Mother Earth we have the opportunity to fully realize the fulfillment of the
prophecies, long foretold by our Wise Elders and Spiritual Leaders. If we take
such action, we may manifest the vision of our elders, “the Day that will not be
followed by Night!”
The Critical State of Mother Earth-Urgent Action Needed to Stop Runaway
Climate Change was re-released at the United Nations Climate Change
Conference COP 22, Marrakesh, Morocco, November 7-18, 2016. The Critical
State of Mother Earth-Urgent Action Needed to Stop Runaway Climate Change,
is the result of a vision of unprecedented, unified, prayerful action inspired and
birthed at the First International Indigenous Leadership Gathering, hosted by the
St'át'imc Chiefs' Council (SCC), on St'át'imc Territory, June 2009.

With Warm Love and Greetings,

The Ihanktonwan Dakota Treaty Committee, Choctaw Muskogee Yamassee

Nation, Tsleil Waututh Nation, Brave Heart Society of Ihanktonwan,
International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, Consejo de Visions-
Guardianes de la Tierra, Four Worlds Europe, Embassy of the Earth, Fundación
Cuatro Mundos, Front Siwa Lima,Salish Sea Foundation, Netherlands Centre for
Indigenous People, Compassion Games International, UNO Foundation, World
Conscious Pact, the Global Wisdom Summit, the Four Worlds International
Institute, UCC WHALE Center, USF Patel College of Global Sustainability, and
the United Religions Initiative (URI), Restore and Protect the Sacred Cooperation
Circle (URI)
By Chief Phil Lane Jr., Ihanktonwan Dakota, and Chickasaw Nations, Chairman,
Four Worlds International Institute, Rex Weyler, Co-Founder of Greenpeace,
author, and ecologist. Dr. David W. Randle, President of UCC WHALE Center.