Open thread for night owls: Learning to be 'good ancestors'

If you haven't noticed this week's plethora of posts on global warming in the Climate Change SOS Blogathon, I urge you to visit some (or all of them) to read and perhaps join a discussion on the most important issue of our era. That's not hyperbole. Global warming, climate change, climate chaos'whatever you choose to call it'is upon us. It's happening faster than most scientists predicted. It's already having devastating effects in some regions. It's visible in some way almost everywhere on the planet.

Taking action in this arena will require an individual response that reexamines what pop sociologists and pop media call "lifestyle." It will require cooperative efforts among neighbors, communities and larger associations of people. It will require putting pressure on governments, from inside and outside. Taking will require wide-scale civil disobedience because the powers that be are determined to maintain the status quo and continue to make myopic decisions that exacerbate what is already going to be a tough future.

Micah McCarty, chairman of the Makah Tribe in Neah Bay, Washington, pegs it exactly right: "Traditional values teach us to be good ancestors. Future generations are going to look back at us and say, 'What did you do about this?'"

McCarty wants to spread that teaching: "We're not just icons. We're not another flavor on the street of ethnic food. We have scientific value in the long-term observations of our peoples, and what our peoples have gone through to survive and adapt to changes that have been imposed on us."

For Native peoples, many of them directly dependent on traditional uses of natural resources for their livelihood, being good ancestors has become more difficult as a consequence of global warming. But they aren't just letting things happen to them without seeking solutions. The Quinault, for instance, have been working for years to deal with effects of global warming.

After the Quinault adopted a comprehensive climate change policy in 2008, tribal leaders traveled to U.N. climate talks in Poznan, Poland, hoping to compare notes with a variety of nations'including the United States.

"When we arrived at the United States' door, we got the '6 inch' treatment'the door opened 6 inches, and they asked, 'What do you want?'" Sharp said. "When we went to Denmark and Germany, the door was open. They gave us cookies. They wanted to have a nice conversation about climate change."

A couple of months ago, PBS took a look at the effects global warming is having or likely to have on American Indians with four pieces worth your time:

' Native American Communities Affected by Climate Change Plan for the Future

' Native Lands Wash Away as Sea Levels Rise

' Northwest 'Salmon People' Face Future Without Fish

' Climate Change Threatens The Tribe From 'Twilight'

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