In Brazil the indigenous people are getting recognition and their land is being marked as reserves belonging to them. Established in 2005  the Raposa Sera do Sol (Mountain of the Sun Fox) reserve in Roraima state in northern Brazil is one of such reserves. Local farmers and politicians staged violent protests. They made threats to scientists and environmentalists from various countries, as well as political figures approving of the  reserve including threats on the life of  Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Nonetheless Native Nations are gradually getting recognition and their land is being given back to them.

The establishment of reserves has proven to be effective in preventing deforestation by burning and  clear-cutting. Similarly other illegal activities such as poaching are being stopped with the establishment of reserves. The indigenous populations living on the territory marked as reserves are playing the key role in environmental protection of the territory.

Quoting National Geographic news: "Where indigenous land in the Amazon starts is where the frontier stops," said Stephan Schwartzman, an anthropologist with New York-based nonprofit Environmental Defense and a co-author of the study.

."Despite often being under staggering pressures, the indigenous lands are doing a pretty good job of protecting the Amazon," said William Laurance, a staff scientist with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Manaus, Brazil.

Last year in January here in Southern Ontario, Canada we had snow. This year we have more rain than snow.

There is speculations if global warming is really happening. The picture seems to be clear. In Ontario one year we see and feel an obvious difference.

There is also those who say that pumping pollutants and carbon dioxide from combustion fluid run engines and factories is good. They call these pollutants green house gasses, everyone likes green houses, full of vegetation. Maybe it would be more to the point to call these pollutants dead house gasses because they bring death more than anything else.

We are left wondering what does the future carry for our children.

Professor John C. Mohawk, Ph.D., author and professor in the Center for the Americas at the State University at Buffalo in New York, explained that over millions of years the earth has been putting away poisons from decaying plants and animals deep in the ground.

Man then discovered that these poisonous in form of tars could burn and decided to use extracts from these poisonous tars as fuel for combustion engines. The demand for this kind of fuel grew and people started extracting the poisonous tars known to us as petroleum more and more. Professor John Mohawk clearly explained that by extracting these toxins and putting them into the atmosphere is clearly the reverse of what the earth has been doing for millions of years taking out the harmful toxins and putting them deep in the ground away from the surface.

According to a National Geographic report, 80% of the worlds toxic gasses pollution comes from the US. The US government under the Bush administration refused to agree with any country on anything regarding the pollution it is producing. Instead it calls for more drilling for the petroleum fuels including drilling in natural conservation areas and in territories not under its jurisdiction. In the meantime other developed countries are working on reducing the pollution produced by burning petroleum-based fuels.

The oceans have an air-conditioning type of system. The cold and warm currents exchange as they flow across the ocean. This flow of warm and cold currents is known as the Great Conveyer Belt. The warm current going North to the Arctic is has more salt and when it reaches the arctic it cools and mixes with the less salty cold water. Then it goes back south as the cold current with less salt. The cold water with less salt  stays on the top while the warmer  saltier water sinks to lower levels.

The cold water around the polar ice keeps the hot water currents at a distance. As the ice melts in the Arctic due to global warming, the cold water area around the arctic ice grows. The expansion of the cold water surface keeps the warm water current further to the south and at  a lower depth due to the warm currents higher sat content meaning higher density.

Europe's coast is getting further and further from the warm current's that travel north to meet with the Arctic ice to return as cold currents. This causes Europe to stay cold during summer. Due to this process man brought on himself with global warming, the Arctic is getting warmer and melting while Europe is heading for an Ice Age.

Missouri a central US rural state experienced three earthquakes in the past 200 years. The earthquakes were in 1811, 1812 and 1906. Geophysicist Dr. Mark Zoback a professor Stanford University in California is doing research about the earthquakes. He said that Missouri is due for another earthquake.

The Anishinabek story tellers and elders in the Ontario Great Lakes region tell of a time when the rivers changed the direction of  flow and about a land that is now under the Great Lakes. Geophysicists said that this even took place about 1300 years ago. They said that there were large glaciers and ice sheets that melted and formed the Great Lakes causing  the surrounding rivers to change the  direction of flow. The earth outer layer is called the lithosphere and it is flexible. When there is large amount of pressure on it such as the weight of vast ice sheets and glaciers, it bends inwards. When this pressure is removed, as in the case of the ice sheets melting, then the lithosphere pushes back upwards like a trampoline would push back upwards after pressure is applied to it. This is called the earth's rebound.

It is recorded that the ground in  Ontario's rises yearly due to the earth's rebound effect. Scientists say that Southern Canada had 4 kilometers (about 2.5 miles ) thick ice sheets 18000 years ago. They say that the ice sheet spread into the US and that it started to retreat 15000 years ago.

The earth's lithosphere is made out of plates called tectonic plates. The rebound effect causes changes to interaction between the tectonic plates which results in earthquakes. Dr Mark Zoback explained that it is the earth's rebound effect that is responsible for the earthquakes in Missouri.