THE FOUR WINDS

Reprinted from WORDS THAT COME BEFORE ALL ELSE

Environmental Philosophies of the Haudenosaunee Task Force

By Les Benedict

The Four Winds carry with them another life essential, water. Water in the form of vapor, which falls as rain, snow, or ice pellets. The moisture held in the wind would not be released if it were not for several factors, including temperature difference between two different air masses. Essential to the precipitation process are: a nucleus or dust particle, for the water drop to condense on; and the dew point or the temperature at which a vapor condenses. The dew point can only occur if warm moist air comes into contact with cold dry air. The winds must meet and a temperature change must occur before precipitation can take place. The winds are critical for supplying water to places from time to time to sustain life, including ours.

The winds carrying life giving waters is illustrated by coniferous trees in the semi-arid mountain regions of the United States and Mexico. In these very dry environments, trees are provided by water by the winds as they rise over the mountains, carrying water-laden clouds. As the clouds or fog cool, they are ready to release their moisture, and require a nucleus on which to form water droplets on. The needles of coniferous trees strip out the moisture, acting as the nucleus, condensing out the moisture from the clouds, raining it below to where the toots of the trees are ready to absorb life giving water. In an area where annual rainfall is very low, the Four Winds ensure that the plant world has been given the water needed for life.

In contrast to providing moisture, the Four Winds also dry the land. After heavy rains and snowmelt, the soil can become saturated with water making it impossible for planting of crops. The Four Winds are the vehicle for the life giving water cycle.

Air Pollution

Air pollution can effect the composition of the air we breathe in terms of gas components, and it can also affect the function of our respiratory systems efficiency. Because of how our respiratory tract is structured, air pollutants can have acute, immediate, or long-term chronic impacts on our health and quality of life.

Air pollution can also effect the food we east, the medicine we collect, and effect both the animal and plant worlds and their functions.

Air pollution is the introduction of materials into the air we breathe. There are many sources of air pollution, including volcanic activity, forest fires, dust storms, and biological activity. However, no source has had a more profound effect on our lives than human sources. Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuels have been utilized unrelentingly to feed the machinery, which produces the materials, and goods, which is demanded by an industrially based society. Use of fossil fuels also generates many of the air pollutants, which we should be concerned with: paniculate matter, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone. In addition to tremendous energy consumption and by-products, vast arrays of toxic chemicals have been developed and produced for use by an industrial society.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has designated five primary or major pollutants: carbon monoxide, paniculate matter, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur oxides. Contributors, by source category and their respective percent contribution to all five categories are: Transportation (49.7%); Stationary Fuel Combustion (20.95%); Industrial Processes (19.1%); Solid Waste disposal (4.5%); and miscellaneous sources such as wood stoves and burn barrels (5.8%). Transportation especially the automobile has had a significant impact on air pollution as indicated by the above percentages.

In order to produce chemicals, other toxic chemicals are produced as by-products and emitted into the air, some of the chemicals that are made are themselves toxic and when used in various industrial, commercial, and residential processes or activities, end up in our air through usage, transportation, storage, or eventual disposal.

Story to be continued next issue…