POSTED: Tuesday June 19th 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Key to Winter Olympic Longevity
By Olympic Skier Suzy "Chapstick" Chaffee
What happens at UN's RIO+2O Earth Summit on June 20-22 could have a major impact on the longevity of especially Olympic SnowSports. Fortunately, the consensus of this year's UN's "Harmony with Nature" World Interactive Dialogue was: Science united with Ancient Wisdom carried on by the tribes, is critical to regenerating Mother Earth.
The perfect example of that was January 2012's "Snowdance Phenomena," reported by the Wall Street Journal, AP, front page Washington Post. It could have been catastrophic for U.S. ski areas faced with the "driest winter in 130 years," but for Native American Elders magnanimously leading mountain communities in snowdances giving gratitude to Mother Earth at Vail, Park City and Lake Tahoe.
It also brought to light that the first known (cross-cultural) snowdance miracle saved the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics, at the request of the organizing committee. So in addition to Utah and Vancouver's weather miracles, that makes three Winter Olympics magnanimously saved by the North American tribes, so a lifetime of training was not in vain! Yet see why Sochi Russia may not likely need a snowdance.
Given that snowsports are the canaries in the mine of Climate Change, this 52 year partnership between Native American Elders and ski areas, thanks to their sharing snowsports with tribal youth, was praised by Stanford's shared Nobel Prize winner Climatologist, Dr. Stephen Schneider, and the UN's Sustainability Division, who saw this unprecedented collaboration as a model for RIO+20. This Earth Summit is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to set mankind on a more sustainable path for humanity. So here is what you can share with your leaders and delegates to help maximize the longevity of winter sports and protect our world's playgrounds given that scientists say to expect more droughts and fires that heat up the planet.
Thanks to the U.N.'s 192 member Nations officially recognizing Mother Earth in 2009 as a sensitive, compassionate being, like our Ancient ancestors did who called Her Gaia, and celebrating Her on April 22, "Earth Day," the UN Sustainability division urged our Native American Olympic Team Foundation (NAOTF) to spread our snowdance phenomena story to communities around the world to inspire them to live in more harmony with Nature. Witnessing four Lakota weather miracles in 1995 in appreciation for teaching him to ski with a donated ticket from Telluride SkiCo, made me realize that Mother Earth is listening and responds generously to appreciation. Fellow Olympians then voted our foundation a grant to help ensure that future generations could ski though what they knew 13 years before the UN, Ancient Wisdom through the tribes.
Thanks to David Ingimie, President of the SnowSports Industries of America, connecting us to ski leaders in other Continents last year, it turned into an eye-opening exchange of renewable energy breakthroughs and tribal ceremonies that have been inspiring their abundant snows. For example, the Elders in the pristine 4 Corners of Asia are doing the same snow gratitude ceremonies as their ancestors did 10,000 years ago, when they invented skiing to hunt game.
Because snowmelt and precipitation come mainly from the mountains, what ski communities do is critical to the drinking water, food supply and fire protection of regions, which is therefore key to Environmental, Social, and Climate Justice. Our "Elders 15 Green Mandates" brings humanity back to living in harmony with Nature's Laws that have served humanity brilliantly for eons. They can now most cost-effectively streamline regenerating Mother Earth, if agreed on by delegates at RIO+20.
Priority One of the "Elders 15 Green Mandates" detailed in our PDF below, is agreeing to shift from a Nuclear world to a Renewable Energy World with streamlined timetables to survive and thrive as a specie. The second priority is shifting the $1 trillion in tax subsidies from fossil fuels to massive renewable energy projects to provide billions of green jobs worldwide. It would start with off-the-grid wind and solar facilities next to all nuclear plants. This could have prevented Fukushima's meltdown, which continues to hurt all humans and Nature, and could protect all 438 others globally to streamline a safe transition to renewables since a mere 13% of our electricity is from nuclear.
The shifted oil subsidies could also help get billions of 300 mpg electric cars (invented by the youth) on the road, along with bike share programs in every city and town following 200 successful cities, to restore our blue skies. Plus funds for green schools with organic orchards and gardens for nutritious lunches to greatly reduce the half billion children who go to bed hungry, or malnourished or diabetic worldwide.
Also since austerity hasn't worked, agree on a mandate to adopt Iceland's model of putting People First, (instead of corporations and banks), by forgiving mortgages, which resulted in their booming economy. Also agreeing to preserve all countries' water rights like Latin American women are leading worldwide.
The other critical priority, identified by youth groups, is delegates agreeing to mandate reforesting the planet. "The Plant-for-the-Planet Foundation" founder, 10-year-old Felix Finkbeiner recently told the UN Assembly that we are the majority and we've done the math and tree planting is the KEY to "Climate Justice" and our future. He got commitments by over a hundred determined youth to inspire their countries to plant a million trees.
Yet approximately 17 billion trees each year are either cut for profit or destroyed from droughts and wildfires, while only about 4-5 billion seedlings are planted each year. Almost half of the seedlings die without an ongoing nurturing relationship with them, which jobs for the marginalized indigenous would solve. Plus it takes trees a decade to be able to moisturize eco systems which prevent famines or convert our alarmingly high CO2 levels into oxygen. It also enhances snow. Therefore, the Elders urge delegates to agree on a committee to mandate requiring countries to unilaterally reduce the number of trees cut, require paper recycling (savings up to a billion trees in US), buy planted Christmas trees, and vastly increase shifting to non-wood pulp that can be grown within months through offering tax incentives to buy machines.
Another major number of trees can be saved in the same way tribes have been protecting and saving their villages from droughts and fires for eons - through raindances and snowdances. These ceremonies cannot be bought, but by simply providing expense monies, a great many more Elders worldwide could lead these cross-cultural ceremonies. Added to hiring teams of Olympic-like Indigenous firefighters who are respected in the US for working with the winds and rains, they could together protect billions of trees (plus homes) lost each year to fires. Through the snowmelt from the snowdances alone, they have already been protecting over a billion trees annually around the world from becoming tinderboxes.
Since it takes a decade for trees to be able to substantially convert our dangerous C02 levels to oxygen, the Elders want people to know that there are thousands of acres of virgin forests scheduled to be cut for little or no reason, which an outcry by Olympians to save our world's playgrounds could stop.
Because Mother Earth is sensitive to our thoughts and actions, She prefers we work in positive ways, say the Elders. Therefore we suggest giving an economic boost to the greenest countries, corporations, products, and heroes, through the UN ideally hosting an annual televised "Earth Caretakers Awards." For example, "The Ukraine is a model for RIO+20 in nuclear non-proliferation," says UN Secretary General Ki-moon.
REGENERATING OUR NATURAL CAPITAL
Bolivian President Evo Morales (Amayra tribe) heroicly initiated in 2009 the UN's International Mother Earth Day (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/ga10823.doc.htm), with unanimous support of the General Assembly, because he believes we do not own Earth, we are part of Her. Yet many corporations still view Her as their cash cow. Pragmatically, without a massive emergency intervention plan like ours to restore our life support systems, there will soon be no 'Natural Capital,' the real basis of the world's economies, so GAME OVER. (http://www.worldwildlife.org/sites/videos/nature-worth.html).
Yet with RIGHT ACTION, RIGHT NOW at RIO+20, we can maximize extending the life of our glaciers, islands, snowsports and coastal cities where most populations live, and soon drink out of our streams again, like Kitzbuhl, Austria. As team players respecting a 'time out' to regenerate Mother Earth through these mandates, our Civilization can go on and everyone profits.
Said Onondaga-Iroquois Chief Oren Lyons at the UN: "We need the courage to change our values for the regeneration of our families and the life that surrounds us. We can raise ourselves. We must join hands with the rest of creation and speak of common sense, responsibility, brotherhood, and peace. We must understand that the law is the seed, and only as true partners can we survive." Since then Popes John-Paul II and Benedict have warned farmers about the dangers of Genetically Modified Seeds (GMOs), why we also urge delegates to agree on a mandate to stop these "suicide seeds" from contaminating our natural ones that would soon put our food supply in the hands of a few corporations.
Those RIO+20 leaders who listen to the voice of the majority of Earth Citizens and put People and Mother Earth First, shall light the way into this prophesied era. See what we can do leading up to the London Olympics to give back to our tribal youth to further help us "Win the Race to Save the Planet" at the end of the Snowdance PDF. And the athletes who inspire these RIO and Olympic leaders to preserve Earth's magnificent playgrounds, shall snowdance, icedance, ocean, forest, gardendance, or leap, run or ride like the wind, into this breathtaking new dawn.
While we were initially putting this stunning "Snowdance Phenomena" story and renewable research together for a TV documentary, ski area owners like Ellen Purcell of Portillo Chile, encouraged us to make this precious time-saving research available, ending with powerful Native American Prayers that can help restore Eden within a decade, starting at RIO+20, via this PDF: http://naotf.org/articles/Elders-15-Green-MandatesRIO-20.pdf See "Elders 15 Green Mandates" detailed on Page 69, or this link
Name: Suzy Chaffee
Organization: Native American Olympic Team Foundation
Email:
Phone: 3234933877
URL: NAOTF.org