A casual reading of the April 16 edition of the New York Times exposes the myth of climate change as brought about by human beings.

It is not climate change, it is an outright climatic mutation with permanent effects on all species of life on this planet.

It is an ecological rebellion, a revolt by the earth, a radical and deadly response to an unprecedented assault upon what we, as indigenous peoples, believe to be a living organism with its own peculiar consciousness.

Climate change is an inoffensive term, mild and acceptable, meant to assure and to insulate. Change is what we do with our minds dozens of times during the day, change is what we do with our socks and our directions but not with the entire premise of our civilization.

Global warming is another phrase which sounds rather pleasant to those who live in the cooler zones of the earth. We devote much of our time and resources to reaching a specific level of comfort based on an acceptable temperature for our physical selves and our homes. That which reduces the need for insulation and artificial heating does not seem like a bad thing at all, hence the denial of the harm which stems from the extraction of natural resources to achieve that end.

We need a more charged term, one which calls all of the nations of the planet to action if we are to endure the major shifts in our climate. I call it Climatic Revolt.

Read that day’s Times and it becomes obvious we are only at the beginning of what is assuredly a new era in human history.

Begin with the revolutions taking place in the nations of the Mideast. These have as their primary cause a generation of young people displaced, without jobs, mired in poverty and living in societies which fail to provide them with a life which has meaning.

It is due to overpopulation by humans in regions which cannot sustain the high degree of materialism they have come to see and desire in other nations. It comes from watching their only marketable commodity, oil, exported to distant lands to sustain those lifestyles which they cannot have. It comes from their desire to remove those dictators empowered by the wealthier nations whose first priority is to secure oil at any cost.

Then read on about how the US Central Intelligence Agency may have assisted in the 1973 murder of Salvador Allende, the president of Chile in order to protect that nation’s resources from naturalization by US companies.

Go on to read about the unfolding disaster in Japan as the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors continue to spew contaminated waters into the Pacific, weeks after the ocean hurled back the remnants of a trawling fleet notorious for its destruction of the fish and mammals in the planet’s seas.

Look further and see how the Republicans in the US Congress, and in a number of states, are seeking to repeal what weak environmental protection laws now exist while at the same time opening up vast areas of protected lands to the greed of mining and timber companies as they seek to exploit the nation’s need for jobs and to recover from a recession caused by the empowered to do precisely what the Republicans now have planned.

Go to the front page where is a story about the massacres in Mexico directly connected with the drug cartels and their attempt to control the flow of narcotics into the US to feed the obsessions of a nation without sense or direction.

Review the nation section of the Times and there are stories of the historic destruction caused by massive tornadoes throughout the south and in places where they have never touched down before with more to come in the next few weeks. This while Texas and New Mexico burn and the northeast remains winter bound.

The conclusion for those who know their traditional teachings is obvious. Humans have consumed to excess and beyond their needs. The planet is responding in a way meant to secure her survival, which means human activity has to be temporized.

What happens next is also clear to those who have listened to their elders. All of this has been long predicted. So too, have the solutions for those few who actually believe. But that knowledge will not be found in the New York Times.

Doug George-Kanentiio, is an Akwesasne Mohawk. He is the co-founder of the Native American Journalists Association, a former member of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of the American Indian and the author of "Iroquois On Fire". He resides in Oneida Castle with his wife Joanne Shenandoah.

He may be contacted by calling 315-363-1655, via e-mail: Kanentiio@aol.com or via surface mail: Box 450, Oneida, NY 13421

Related Stories:
Doug George-Kanentiio: An opportunity for New York governor (2/28)
Doug George-Kanentiio: A tribute to Ernest Benedict, 1918-2011 (01/12)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Navajo man helped save environment (12/20)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Iroquois must thank Shawnee for treaty (11/23)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Oneida Nation sovereignty an 'illusion' (10/13)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Iroquois seek unity but what about land? (8/24)
Doug George-Kanentiio: British ignore Iroquois treaty obligations (7/15)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Era of big Indian tobacco comes to end (7/7)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Important dates in Mohawk history (5/10)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Iroquois tribes must stay united (4/21)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Credibility and Indian tax dispute (4/2)
Doug George-Kanentiio: Mohawk firm on member rules (2/11)
Doug George-Kanentiio: A Mohawk perspective on Haiti (1/29)
Doug George-Kanentiio: A Mohawk's review of 'Avatar' (1/18)