permaculture

[Kelly Simmons <kelly@bouldersustainability.org>]

Link to article 
http://www.truth-out.org/indigenous-lakota-women-face-harsh-winter-wrath-under-climate-change64957

Indigenous Lakota Women Face Harsh Winter Wrath Under Climate Change
Tuesday 02 November 2010
by: Lys Anzia  |  Women News Network | Report


Oglala Sioux Lakota grandmother, Alice Four Horns, at home on the Pine  
Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, 2007. (Photo: Svetlana  
Bachevanova / WNN)
Pine Ridge, South Dakota - U.S. Oglala Sioux Lakota Elder women and  
families suffering from severe poverty are bracing themselves to face  
a harsh winter season spurred on by climate change this year,  
according to NOAA – the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric  
Administration.

With poverty conditions that rival some global developing regions and  
the lowest life expectancy in the Western hemisphere, second only to  
Haiti, the average current lifespan for women on the Pine Ridge Indian  
Reservation is 52 years, for men it’s 48 years.

Death rates for members of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation suffering  
under severe poverty are shockingly 533% higher than their ‘non- 
Indian’ U.S. counterparts for tuberculosis, 249% higher for diabetes  
and 71% higher for pneumonia and influenza, says the U.S. Department  
of Health – Indian Health Services.

With conditions of extreme poverty inside the country, why are U.S.  
poverty statistics for Native American Indian reservations so often  
left out of global poverty studies made by international agencies? The  
answers are complex and tied to the ongoing curse of global indigenous  
invisibility.

Numerous Lakota Oglala Sioux women Elders, are now facing extreme  
poverty on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. They also face real  
danger with threats of hypothermia during the winter season. “An  
average of 689 (reported) deaths per year in the United States results  
from excessive environmental cold exposure,” says educational resource  
group, the (U.S.) College of American Pathologists.

While deaths from cold temperatures are hard to track accurately, each  
year hypothermia deaths are reported on the Reservation. “Each winter,  
reservation Elders are found dead from hypothermia,” says Brenda  
Alpin, founder of Laktoa Aid, in a 2004 report for UNPO –  
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

Although many hypothermia deaths are related to alcohol abuse,  
conditions leading to hypothermia in Elder Lakota women often occur  
due to poor health, poverty and lack of resources.

“Climate change hits poor people hardest – especially poor women,”  
says Oxfam’s current 2010, ‘Sisters on the Planet’ initiative campaign.

With little to no winter heat, numerous mobile trailers, homes that  
are commonly used by the Lakota, don’t meet current building  
standards. Temperatures inside a thin walled trailer, with little to  
no heat, can drop to levels below freezing as outside winter  
temperatures reach 10 below zero (Fahrenheit) or colder. These cold  
winter temperatures can actually cause ice to appear on windows, walls  
and surfaces inside a home that has inadequate heat.

“The night of January 2 was a truly dreadful night for the Swift Hawk  
family. They had run out of propane to heat their house. They also had  
no wood for their wood stove, although they tried desperately to  
obtain some wood, but without any success… The house had only thin  
plastic sheeting covering two large openings where windows were  
supposed to be. As night fell and the temperature plummeted from 16  
degrees zero to 45 degrees zero, Sarah’s daughter, and her son-in-law  
put two blankets on Sarah in an attempt to keep her warm. The mother  
then took the other two blankets they had and placed them on her six  
children who were all huddled together on the floor where she and her  
husband would also sleep. Since there was only one cot in the house,  
that bed was given to Sarah who was the grandmother in the family.  
Everyone else in the Swift Hawk family has to sleep on the floor  
because the family is too poor to buy any furniture. When the sun came  
up on Sunday morning, January 3rd, the daughter got up from the floor  
to check on her mother, and she found her mother had died during the  
night, frozen to death as a result of exposure to extreme cold.  
Fortunately, the body heat from the parents and the children, all  
huddled together on the floor, kept them alive that terrible night.”
– U.S. Senator Hon. Byron L. Dorgan from South Dakota,
Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, on the floor of the Senate
(Congressional Record, February 25, 1999)


Deaths from hypothermia, “occur equally as frequently indoors as  
outdoors,” explains the College of American Pathologists. “A  
debilitated Elder may become hypothermic at home (inside) in  
temperatures as high as 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit (22- 24 degrees  
Celsius).”

Hypothermia is characterized by the unintentional drop in a core body  
temperature to less than 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius).  
“Mild hypothermia is often accompanied by confusion, progressing to  
impaired judgment, followed by apathy,” adds the College.

As symptoms arise in precursors to hypothermia, Elder women can face  
critical emergencies. Recognizing these symptoms is not always easy.  
Elder Lakota women “often struggle to survive the bitter winters,”  
says a September 2008 report by the Tribal Lands Renewable Project.

Women and children “are more likely to die than men during disasters,”  
outlines the Oxfam, ‘Sisters on the Planet’ 2010 report.

Current climate change with El Niño conditions are now predicted to  
cause unusual excursions of Arctic air into the central northern  
regions of the U.S. The NOAA – National Weather Service predicts a  
cold episodewinter this year. The weather “favors the build-up of  
colder than normal air over Alaska and western Canada, which often  
penetrates into the northern Great Plains and the western United  
States,” states this winter’s report.

With 97% of the population at the Reservation living under conditions  
that fall beneath the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  
definition of poverty, many Oglala Sioux Lakota households cannot  
afford to pay for home maintenance in the structural upkeep of their  
homes.

Poverty income levels as low as $5-10 (USD) dollars per day can cause  
many safety limitations as fixing housing problems becomes impossible.  
Common problems with inadequate insulation, exterior doors and windows  
with broken glass or seals, roofs and floors with open gaps to the  
exterior contribute greatly to unsafe crisis conditions in winter  
months.

Ranging from 30 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit) in the winter to a  
sweltering 100 plus degrees in the summer, the Pine Ridge Indian  
Reservation suffers most from what ‘compassion in action,’ The Seva  
Foundation, calls “the worst conditions of poverty existing in the  
United States today.”

“Now I have a three-bedroom home. I don’t have much. I have running  
water, but it isn’t very good,” says Lakota Oglala Sioux Grandmother,  
Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance, an honored member of The  
International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.

“I have mold growing there, and it’s getting pretty bad,” adds  
Beatrice. “I’ve been trying to get the housing authority to help me,  
but nobody helps me.”

Many of the households on the reservation are so below sub-standard  
that electricity and plumbing is not functional. In addition to this,  
up to 40% of homes are plagued with Black Mold, stachybotrys  
chartarum, known to cause serious life threatening health risks with  
prolonged exposure.

Even in times of need, many Lakota Elder women have been taught ‘not  
to complain much.’ Learning from their own mothers and grandmothers  
that they must accept life ‘as it is,’ without complaining, Elder  
women often risk their lives by staying ‘too quiet’ in the face of  
many needs.

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“Fortitude is grandmother’s road,” says Sicunga Lakota Sioux author,  
Joseph Marshall.

During the winter months, women also face specific problems because of  
their gender. “When winter comes, I’ll just get me a fat woman and let  
her sleep on the windy side,” said Oglala Sioux, Le War Lance, in the  
1999 Atlantic Monthly article, ‘On the Rez,’ by Ian Fraiser. Hard  
winter storms often do include high winds that top 60 mph.

Oglala Sioux Lakota grandmother, Alice Four Horns, at home on the Pine  
Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, U.S. - 2007. Image: Svetlana  
Bachevanova / WNN
AIHF – American Indian Humanitarian Foundation figures now show that  
24,000 households on the Pine Ridge reservation are substandard,  
placing their occupants in possible critical danger. Without  
electricity, wood or propane gas to cook, conditions of malnutrition  
for Lakota Elders does rise in the winter.

“At least 60% of the homes are severely substandard, without water,  
electricity, adequate insulation, and sewage systems,” says AIHF.

With the current price of propane on the Reservation rising, monthly  
costs now exceed $400+ (USD); a price that is twice as high as the  
average monthly cost to heat many standard American homes across the  
U.S.

Even though it’s illegal in the State of South Dakota to shut off heat  
during the winter months, some small propane companies have been known  
to pressure those who cannot pay their bills by shutting off propane  
deliveries to their homes, leaving them to face bitter storms without  
access to propane heat.

“Bitter winters force many families to spend up to 70% of their total  
income to heat their homes,” says the U.S. environmental organization,  
‘Land, Water and People,’ that also manages the TWP – Tribal Lands  
Renewable Energy Program.

In 2003, the TWP launched an award winning program, created in  
partnership with Lakota Solar Enterprises, to help communities use  
solar energy as a supplemental, and renewable, form of energy to heat  
their homes, but current needs still greatly surpass the program’s  
construction outreach.

“Our housing needs on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are so severe  
that I have had some trouble figuring out where to start my  
presentation,” said former President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe,  
Honorable John Yellow Bird Steele, before the March 2007, U.S. Senate  
Oversight Hearing on Indian Housing.

Working in combination with HUD – the Department of Housing and Urban  
Development and The Department of Energy, the recent 2009 U.S. federal  
economic incentive program, The U.S. Recovery and Reinvestment Act,  
has pushed for specific programs to help bring better housing to the  
people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. To date, $173,756,330  
(USD) has been slated for contracts in an effort to improve  
conditions. Additional monies have been made available also to the  
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in form of grant programs.

The hope is that the new federal monies can reach on-the-ground  
programs and needs, as tribal members learn how to apply for grants  
and follow up correctly for other initiatives.

“I was raised by my grandmother Nellie Two Bulls who was an educator  
herself,” says 27 year old Lakota activist and blogger, Autumn  
TwoBulls. “She taught me about the values of the Lakota people. And  
what it means to be Lakota,” she shares. “We as Lakotas help each  
other. That is how we survive.”

“For Lakotas, one of our common mantras is “Mitakuye Oyasin – We are  
all related,” says Mary Black Bonnet of the Sincangu Lakota Nation.  
“No one is better than anyone else,” she emphasizes.

A group of Lakota women leaders on the Pine Ridge Reservation, made up  
of health workers, teachers and social workers, are also working  
together to improve conditions for women and children as they gather  
books, winter coats, kitchen items, children’s toys, personal hygiene  
products, bedding, pens and pencils, sewing supplies, furniture and  
shoes for those in their community; all items that are hard to find on  
the Reservation.

“We’re the foreign country suffering under (extreme) poverty in your  
(U.S.) back yard,” reminds the current Oglala Sioux Tribe President,  
Theresa Two Bulls, honestly. “I have never quite understood people who  
travel oversees and put forth so much effort to help those in under  
developed countries, when we have a place right here in the U.S. that  
has third world conditions.”