An historic event was held this week near the lower Colorado River, with more than 50 U.S. Indian tribes meeting to discuss the global warming crisis.
The Cocopah Indian Tribe and the National Wildlife Federation organized the two-day, initial Tribal Lands Climate Conference that opened Tuesday at the Cocopah reservation near Yuma, Ariz.
The Tribal Lands Climate Conference was an opportunity to unite tribal leaders from across the country with key decision makers in an open forum to discuss actions proactively addressing climate change," said Liz Pratt, a Cocopah Indian Tribe spokeswoman. She said the issues and challenges caused by climate change that were discussed currently affect, and will continue to affect, all tribes on a global scale.
Garrit Voggesser, manager of the National Wildlife Federation's Tribal Lands Conservation Program, said Indians are among the first to experience the devastating impacts of a changing climate, and are uniquely able to compare what's happening today with experiences spanning generations of understanding natural cycles and resources.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
Related stories:
3,000-year-old mask found in Aleutians
A whalebone mask discovered at an Alaskan archaeological site was probably broken during an Aleut funeral 3,000 years ago, scientists said.
Does the next president have to be tech-savvy?
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama promises to appoint the nation's first chief technology officer if elected.
Old sheep raising the baaa
Populations of wild animals face the challenge of surviving in a changing climate. Researchers at Imperial College London and Université Claude Bernard Lyon have shown how a sheep population on a remote island off the west coast of Scotland responds to two consequences of climate change: altered food availability and the unpredictability of winter storms.
Recovery efforts not enough for critically endangered Asian vulture
Captive breeding colonies of a critically endangered vulture, whose numbers in the wild have dwindled from tens of millions to a few thousand, are too small to protect the species from extinction, a University of Michigan analysis shows.
Science paper examines role of aerosols in climate change
A group of scientists affiliated with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) have proposed a new framework to account more accurately for the effects of aerosols on precipitation in climate models. Their work appears in the 5 September issue of
Science magazine.
Pyrenees glaciers will melt by 2050: Spanish study
Climate change will melt the 21 remaining glaciers in the Pyrenees mountains before 2050, a group of Spanish researchers said Friday.
Feds warn climate change could harm giant sequoias
(AP) -- Federal researchers are warning that warming temperatures could soon cause California's giant sequoia trees to die off more quickly unless forest managers plan with an eye toward climate change and the impact of a longer, harsher wildfire season.
Asian soot, smog may boost global warming in US
(AP) -- Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.