‘It has a pierced heart’: an Indigenous tribe’s fight to protect a sacred lake
The Guardian, 13 July 2022, 14 Jul 2022
Increased human activity is driving excess phosphorus into Coeur d’Alene Lake – making a tribe’s vital resource vulnerable to a looming ecological catastrophe. In Ernie Stensgar’s Plummer, Idaho, office sits an heirloom older than any human, a relic passed down from his great-great-grandparents: a set of four 150-year-old gathering baskets, handwoven from Inland north-west reeds. Built to last, the receptacles still haven’t frayed, despite age. They’re not museum exhibits, either. Stensgar uses them to collect mountain huckleberries, prairie plants and water potatoes from nearby Coeur d’Alene Lake, sacred water to his people. Like his ancestors, he plans to pass them along when it’s time.
‘People are waking up’: fight widens to stop new North Sea fossil fuel drilling
The Guardian, 14 July 2022, 14 Jul 2022
From trade unions to a bishop, activists are uniting to keep the UK government to its North Sea climate commitments. When the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, tweeted on the eve of the long jubilee weekend that the government was giving the go-ahead to a new oil and gas project in the North Sea, ministers probably hoped the news would slip out without much fuss. But less than 24 hours later hundreds of protesters, furious that the government was planning to expand fossil fuel infrastructure in the midst of a climate crisis, took to the streets across the UK to voice their objections.
Wildfires scorch parts of Europe amid extreme heat wave
Nbc News, 13 July 2022, 14 Jul 2022
European Union officials issued a warning last week that climate change is behind the extremely dry and hot summer on the continent. A spate of wildfires is scorching parts of Europe, with firefighters battling blazes in Portugal, Spain and southern France on Wednesday amid an unusual heat wave that authorities are linking to climate change. In Portugal, Civil Protection commander André Fernandes said that multiple fires have caused the evacuation of more than 600 people. About 120 people needed medical treatment, with two people — one civilian and one firefighter — suffering serious injuries, Fernandes said.
Egypt: Statements on COP27 Imply Restricting Activism
Human Rights Watch, 12 July 2022, 14 Jul 2022
Egyptian authorities should ease their grip on civic space and uphold the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly to enable a successful climate summit, known as the COP27, in Egypt, 36 organizations said today. COP27 brings together states parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as thousands of experts, journalists, and representatives from businesses and nongovernmental groups. COP27, to be held in November 2022, is an important opportunity for the international community to meet and discuss ambitious, rights-based climate action.
