Whatever the Pentagon prophesizes, ecological feedback loops are currently accelerating the process of climate beyond earlier predictions.  Researchers from Oxford University in the UK and Tomsk State University in Russia have recently discovered that a vast frozen peat bog in western Siberia, “the size of France and Germany combined,” has started to thaw, potentially releasing “billions of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.”  As reported in The Guardian, this new discovery could cause a “10 percent to 25 percent increase in global warming,” accelerating current forecasts.  The increasing rate of ice melting in the Arctic Circle is forcing a similar reevaluation of data.  According to a new study the American Geophysical Union: “Warming in the Arctic is stimulating growth of vegetation and could affect the delicate energy balance there, causing an additional climate warming of several degrees over the next few decades.”

[Info from Peter Whitley’s book Rethinking Hopi Ethnography]

From Whitley’s book, I also discovered that the Hopi way of life is threatened with imminent extinction.  In the 1960s, the Peabody Coal Company was given a concession to mine coal on their land.  They were also awarded the right to use water from the aquifer under Black Mesa to slurry the coal down a pipeline, built by the Enron Corporation.  This operation extracts 1.3 billion gallons of pure drinking water annually from the aquifer that sustains Hopi life.  There are, of course, other ways to transport coal, but this is the cheapest for Peabody, and the company has continually fought against and effectively delayed efforts to change its practices.  In the 1980s, it was discovered that the lawyer who negotiated the original deal for the Hopi was, at the same time, on the payroll of the Peabody Corporation – and the Hopi had received a tiny fraction of the revenue they deserve from the concession, while forfeiting control of their own destiny.  According to U.S. government Geological Surveys, by the year 2011, the aquifer will be almost completely depleted – already the Hopi are finding that the local springs on which they rely are drying up.