"The Indigenous Environmental Network took a delegation of 12 Native people from the United States and Canada to the 15th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Conference on Climate Change held in Copenhagen, Denmark the first two weeks in December. One message our delegation took to the international climate meeting called for stringent and binding emission reduction targets.

A growing body of western scientific evidence suggests what Indigenous Peoples have expressed for a long time: Life, as we know it, is in danger. Western scientists tell us that climate change is accelerating, that changes are happening faster than expected. Western science tells us that global emissions need to peak within the next 10 years.

The Arctic is sending us perhaps the clearest message that climate change is occurring much more rapidly than scientists previously thought. In the summer of 2007, sea ice was roughly 39 percent below the summer average for 1979-2000, a loss of area nearly equal to the size of five United Kingdoms. Scientists now believe the Arctic will be completely ice free in the summertime between 2011 and 2015, some 80 years ahead of what scientists had predicted just a few years ago. Propelled by the news of these accelerating impacts, including changes in ocean acidification, some of the world’s leading climate scientists have now revised the highest safe level of CO2 to 350 ppm. Objectives must be made to reach stabilization of GHG concentrations at well below 350 ppm and to limit temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees centigrade, based on pre-industrial levels, noting that emissions must peak in 2015."

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Tom B.K. Goldtooth: Raising the bar after Copenhagen (Indian Country Today 1/4)