January 29, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

Guest Contributor: Laura Killian, CWIS Associate Scholar

Obtaining clean energy and working towards independence from fossil fuels has, up until recently, been a far off, expensive notion for small communities. That notion is changing, due in part as renewable energy technology advances while new markets open, allowing for costs to be lowered each year. Fourth World nations are in position to clear a pathway to promote energy independence in North America.

Efforts to reduce dependence while supporting the local economy and incorporating community participatory planning and collaboration can be seen in many Fourth World communities including the Yakama Nation in Washington State, members of the All Indian Pueblo Council in New Mexico, Kumia in southern California, and the Black Feet in Montana. First Nations in Canada and Indian Nations in the United States are providing innovative leadership models by collaborating with fellow Nations, academic institutions, government agencies and the private sector to work on solar, wind, small hydro and biomass projects.

Organizations such as the Center for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER), based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the First Nation Energy Alliance, based on the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve and the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy (COUP), based in Rosebud, South Dakota, are all working on feasibility reports, integrated approaches for community participation in environmental planning and education, and project support for the transfer of energy on reserves and reservations from oil and coal to the renewable energy sector, especially with wind technology.

Wind power provides the most cost effective option for the energy needs of a community, assuming the geography provides the necessary ingredient, wind. According to NRG Systems, a world leader in the manufacture of wind energy assessment equipment, wind energy in the United States could provide as much as 40% of our electricity. Today’s wind farms can generate electricity for less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour in many parts of the U.S., a price that is competitive with new coal or gas-fired power plants. The cost is expected to decline as the technology improves and the market for this source develops.

Playing a large role in developing the wind market within the Fourth World in the United States is the Intertribal Council On Utility Policy (COUP). This Council is made up of thirteen Tribes from North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas who provide policy analysis, workshops and wind energy development for its communities. They provide a great example of innovative problem solving through inter-tribal collaboration and investment. In addition, extra energy produced by their windmills can be sold back to the electric companies, thus, creating a strong arm in the local economy.

By keeping efforts strong and proactively engaging with their communities, state agencies and local companies for the assessment and investment of renewable energy technology and education, Fourth World Nations can reduce their dependence on outside sources for power while strengthening their local economy. With money earned from casinos, entrepreneurships and businesses, Nations in Canada and the United States are in a position to invest in an important technology that solves many problems at once. Utilizing collaborative efforts for assessment, planning and implementation of renewable energy technology in the Fourth World should be recognized as utter importance for the survival of each community and surrounding ecology.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: wind power, energy, energy indepence, north america

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January 29, 2008 by Jay Taber.

With the US, Canada, and New Zealand comprising the only member states of the UN officially opposed to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, it is not surprising to see mainstream American media undermining these human rights in the guise of promoting them (a basic psywar technique). MSNBC editors know that most people only read headlines, and that by burying any “balance” in an article toward the end or in a follow-up story on another day, the impression most readers are left with is the headline. Since Americans are probably the worst informed society on earth — or maybe just the most gullible — keeping them ignorant is child’s play. See for yourself if this headline isn’t more than a little misleading.

Dual citizenship of ancient nations poses many challenges, most stemming from systematically divisive colonial structures that prevented democratic development. Given a chance to work things out for themselves, indigenous peoples are already advancing human rights worldwide.

MSNBC could have said that, but they didn’t. That wouldn’t suit the colonial agenda.

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January 27, 2008 by Jay Taber.

The Guatemalan delegation threatened to remove the consultative status of the International Indian Treaty Council. It was a very aggressive reaction. They probably thought that if they could kill twenty indigenous people in El Quiche, they could shoot a few at the United Nations with the same arrogance. Their principal international ally was the US, which had been annoyed by the presence at the UN of Navajos, Hopis, Lakotas and Yaquis. It was sad to see these governments closing ranks to defend their repressive colleagues.

—Crossing Borders by Rigoberta Menchu, Mayan recipient of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize

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January 25, 2008 by Jay Taber.

(The e-mail text below is from my Sto:lo friend Darryl E. Bowles, who grew up in the woods near Elwha, Washington in the 1930s, and is now a retired seafarer and storyteller living in Nerja, Spain.)

I used to go to Celilo every year when I was a kid. It is quite difficult to describe what it was because it was still the biggest by far, open air market in the Northwest back then. People came from all over to trade, not only for fish but every conceivable item produced by Native people.

The most flamboyant were the Indians from around Yakima and Colville who brought some of the most beautiful horses I have ever seen. Not so much for trade but to show off. We didn’t have horses nor did we have any use for them and our boats could not make the trip around from Puget Sound and then up the river so our “Best” was never seen there.

Later on I sailed on the Columbia and was one of the first tugs to go through the new locks at the dam. (The largest in the world at that time.) Brought tears to my eyes as I knew what had been lost. The rest of the crew on the boat were white men and although they were all from around that area none of them had a clue. And when I tried to explain they all looked at me like I was nuts. THIS WAS AN IMPROVEMENT!

When I asked “For who?” They really thought I should be locked up.

The “Good old days” weren’t always so good to all of us.

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January 22, 2008 by Jay Taber.

One of the tasks and obligations often overlooked in the frantic vertigo of modern life, is the act and ceremony of honoring those who bring honor and inspiration to others who struggle to tell the stories we need to survive. As an associate scholar of CWIS, I have been blessed by many mentors — intentional as well as accidental — but recently discovered a colleague who deserves special mention for his work. As observed in an article by Sandra Sarr, Michael Pavel, Associate Professor at Washington State University, is someone who has been given a very important gift, and perhaps more importantly, has developed the art and craft of honoring to a high degree.

Take a moment to read about what honoring means to Dr. Pavel, and see if you don’t agree.

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January 21, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

Biofuel production is supposed to be the panacea for skyrocketing petroleum costs. Environmentalists argue that biofuels reduce carbon emissions and reduce dependency on petroleum-based fuels. Industry leaders argue biofuels are good for the economy. Both are wrong. Biofuels increase carbon emissions problems by increasing the destruction of jungles and forests. Biofuels like soybean and palm oil increase food oil prices.

Palm oil and soybean oil are two important sources of calories for peoples living in Asia, Melanesia and parts of the Middle East. Competing demands for these oils have suddenly exploded as Palm oil produced mainly in Indonesia is refined for use to power automobiles. Growers are clearing more jungles to plant palm trees to meet increased energy demands thus contributing to carbon emissions and increased prices for foods and cooking oil too.

Industry is essentially shifting valuable foodstuffs to the energy market taking nutrition from those who need it most.

If there was ever evidence that saving the environment and developing the economy at the same time is simply nonsense the competing demands between human food verses energy for machines certainly dashes the hopeful notions behind sustainable development. Biofuels, if they are to be produced, must not detract from human biological need. Reducing carbon emissions, improving human health and energy consumption command us to become more realistic. We must, in post-industrial states, accept the necessity to “use less” and not more. States like China, Brazil, Indonesia and India should stop repeating the failed experience of post industrial states like the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and others. Nineteenth century industrialization must be stopped and replaced by a combination of modernized traditional food production, housing, social organization (smaller towns) and modern advanced technology.

Intercropping, for example, (that food planting method that involves companion planting and plant selection) produces 40% more food than row cropping commonly used now by agricultural sectors around the world. Intercropping uses little added energy in the form of fertilizer, machine technology, etc. Row cropping is extremely expensive and inefficient in terms of food production and distribution.

Land tenure systems will have to be substantially changed in countries around the world to distribute land to landless peoples and communities so they can produce much of their own food.  Self-sufficient communities should be the goal instead of forcing global standardized markets and interdependence.

Fourth World peoples throughout the world demonstrate the staying power of self-sustaining communities that produce much of their own food and use little energy. Choices between fuel and food are substantially reduced making human life more important than energy profits. Post-industrial and industrial peoples must now stop and think! Does it really make sense to grow and increase energy use and grow carbon emissions to eventually choke life on the planet?  Does it make sense to barrel ahead taking food from the poor and the poorest of the poor to fuel machines, electrify homes and manufacture consumer goods?

The choice between fuel and food is a false choice. We humans cannot survive constant growth.  We need new strategies to meet human needs. We need new strategies to meet the demands of the living earth.  There are strategies long tested by Fourth World societies that do not pollute, leave a small human imprint and promote a high quality of life.  We must pay attention to those strategies as lessons of human survival.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

Technorati Tags: carbon emissions, biofuels, food prices, alternate strategies

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January 21, 2008 by Jay Taber.

I remember the shocking real-time film from the siege of Sarajevo, as well as the attendant world outrage that led to UN and NATO engagement with Serbia. Reading yesterday’s post by Palestinian Red Crescent physician Mona El-Farra about the siege of Gaza by the State of Israel, I couldn’t help comparing the senseless brutality of ethnic cleansing in the two countries. As Dr. El-Farra observes, the collective punishment of denying food, water, medicine, and electricity to 1.5 million civilians does not create an atmosphere for constructive negotiation.

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January 19, 2008 by Jay Taber.

In Living the Brand, a new article from the International Journal of Communication, Melissa Aronczyk of NYU offers an account of the strategies involved in the production of culture through the particular phenomenon of nation branding.

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January 15, 2008 by Jay Taber.

Presently reading The Heart of the Sky, Peter Canby’s account of his travels among the Maya of Chiapas and Guatemala, I was disturbed this morning to read in the news of the stepped up violence by military and paramilitary forces in Chiapas against Zapatista communities and sympathizers. I wonder if an international human shield can be mobilized in time to prevent new massacres?

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January 11, 2008 by Rudolph Ryser.

US Senator Barack Obama is a student of political science, international relations and American law. He is a leading candidate for the presidency of the United States of America and he is the son of Barack Obama, Sr., of the Luo tribe in western Kenya. What will President Obama’s American Indian Policy be when he announces it in the Fall of 2009? What will President Obama’s policy be toward other Fourth World nations in the world…including those presently being shot and bombed in Iraq, Iran, Colombia, the Philippines and in Indonesia? In less than a year we will know how a Luo President of the United States handles nations in the Fourth World.

Senator Obama traveled with his wife Michelle and two daughters in 2006 to Kisumu, the port city of more than 300 thousand in Kenya on the eastern shores of Lake Alexandria to visit his father’s village to encourage AIDS prevention and to learn more about his family and the Luo tribe. Nyangoma Kogelo, Obama’s ancestral village, turned out to welcome the symbolic return of a native son. He has begun the task of rediscovering his Luo roots. He is coming to grips with a Fourth World reality that courses through his veins. He has a reality that may well serve all the people in the world to open mutual and beneficial communications of different peoples.

On President Obama’s list of Fourth World policies will be Climate Change and the significant role Fourth World nations must play in the negotiations of what will be called the Copenhagen Protocol.  Self-Government of Fourth World nations will be a prominent issue that not only concerns nations inside the  United States, but in Canada, Taiwan, subSaharan Africa, South America and of course Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine.

President Obama will need to tune his Fourth World antennas very soon. The agenda may overtake him. Since many of the major issues facing Mr. Obama are rooted in Fourth World nations like the Luo, he will have to act swiftly to become familiar with the complexities of Fourth World Geopolitics.

A Luo may well become the President of the United States.  He will have a special duty to the world to bring clarity and focus to US Indian Policy and its Fourth World policies elsewhere in the world. The world deserves a president who will recognize the powerful realities in small places that affect peace and security for us all.

(c) 2008 Center for World Indigenous Studies

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