[Sosfbay-discuss] Global warming is human rights issue: Nobel nominee

[Andrea Dorey]

Drew,
Thanks for including this material.

Did you hear actor Geena Davis this AM on Democracy Now talking about  
the lack of female characters in the media, especially for very young  
children?  She has taken an interest in this due to her having had a  
daughter and two twin sons in recent years.

Her talk really blew me away.  It needs to be heard by GP women, as  
her statements carried a lot of healing for those of us who diet,  
surgically alter ourselves, and secretly hate our bodies (some kids  
today are CUTTING themselves!).  What she has acknowledged is the  
POWER of the media and, although in the business, really had not  
realized just how powerful they are!  She demonstrates it by using  
personal anecdotes in this talk.

You were discussing the possibility of getting GP women together in a  
group--I think it is a worthy cause.  I'd like to get a copy of this  
material (above) and perhaps Fred would be interested in sponsoring a  
showing?  I think men should be interested, too, because they are not  
unaffected by media images.  If women are unconscious of the damage  
done to themselves, how could men know of it--or of that done to  
themselves as well?

This would be a great  kickoff in getting women together and getting  
women to see the GP in a new light (as advocate).

What do you think?
Andrea



On Mar 4, 2007, at 7:15 PM, JamBoi wrote:

> http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070304/ts_nm/globalwarming_rights_dc
>
> [So in addition to being an impeachable offense...]
>
> Global warming is human rights issue: Nobel nominee
> By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent Sun Mar 4, 9:03 AM ET
> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - It sounds like a sick joke about global  
> warming,
> with a series of horrible punch lines:
>
> How hot is it? So hot that Inuit people around the Arctic Circle are
> using air conditioners for the first time. And running out of the
> hard-packed snow they need to build igloos. And falling through  
> melting
> ice when they hunt.
>
> These circumstances are the current results of global climate change,
> according to Nobel Peace Prize nominee Sheila Watt-Cloutier, an Inuit
> born inside the Canadian Arctic, who maintains this constitutes a
> violation of human rights for indigenous people in low-lying areas
> throughout the world.
>
> Watt-Cloutier and Martin Wagner, an attorney with the environmental  
> law
> firm Earthjustice, argued this case on Thursday before the
> Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of
> American States in Washington.
>
> "We weren't going to go to court," Watt-Cloutier said in a telephone
> interview after her testimony to the commission. "It wasn't about
> lawsuits and suing for damage or compensation.
>
> "It was more about really trying to get the world to pay attention and
> see this as a human rights issue."
>
> Their best hope is that the commission will write a report on this
> issue, though even getting a hearing in Washington is a victory of
> sorts. The commission earlier rejected a petition to hear about  
> alleged
> rights violations based solely on U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases.
>
> The human rights commission has scant powers and can do little more
> than publicize its findings and propose a resolution to the 35-member
> organization.
>
> In her address to the panel, Watt-Cloutier acknowledged the challenge
> of connecting climate change and human rights, but noted a practical
> purpose for protecting the people she called "the sentinels of climate
> change."
>
> ENVIRONMENTAL EARLY-WARNING SYSTEM
>
> "By protecting the rights of those living sustainably in the Amazon
> Basin or the rights of the Inuit hunter on the snow and ice, this
> commission will also be preserving the world's environmental
> early-warning system."
>
> Watt-Cloutier reckons there are millions of such environmental
> sentinels at risk, ranging from the Inuit to residents of low-lying
> islands that are subject to sea level rise caused by melting ice
> sheets.
>
> They chose the Organization of American States as a forum because two
> of the countries where Inuit communities live -- the United States and
> Canada -- are members. Inuit also live in Russia and Greenland.
>
> For Inuit communities, ice and snow are intrinsic to physical and
> cultural survival, Watt-Cloutier said after the hearing. Even the
> building of igloos is under threat.
>
> "You can just imagine the brilliance and the genius and the ingenuity
> of building a home out of snow, warm enough to have your baby sleep
> in," she said. "And now all of that is starting to leave because snow
> conditions are so changed."
>
> Many Inuit live in more conventional buildings, which are constructed
> mainly to keep the cold out. Unfortunately, with longer and warmer
> summers with 24-hour-a-day sunlight, this has turned many into ovens,
> Watt-Cloutier said. For the first time, air conditioners are in use in
> the Arctic.
>
> Seasoned Inuit hunters used to be able to tell where the ice was safe,
> but because warmer seas have started to melt sea ice from its
> underside, even the most experienced hunters find it hard to gauge,  
> and
> some fall through, she said.
>
> "The glaciers are melting so quickly that where our hunters used to be
> able to cross safely, now it's so unsafe that it's become torrent
> rivers ... and we've had a drowning as a result of that as well," she
> said.
>
> Watt-Cloutier quoted a hunter in Barrow, Alaska, to sum up the impact
> climate change has had on Inuit life: "There's lots of anxieties and
> angers that are being felt by some of the hunters that no longer  
> can go
> and hunt. We see the change, but we can't stop it, we can't explain  
> why
> it's changing. ... Our way of life is changing up here, our ocean  
> is changing."
>
> ___________________
>
> JamBoi
> Jammy The Sacred Cow Slayer
>
> "Live humbly, laugh often and love unconditionally" (anon)
> http://dailyJam.blogspot.com
>
>
>
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