{"id":330035,"date":"2024-05-25T10:08:49","date_gmt":"2024-05-25T08:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=330035"},"modified":"2024-05-25T10:08:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-25T08:08:52","slug":"wrong-al-jazeera-climate-change-not-causing-tribal-woes-in-peru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=330035","title":{"rendered":"Wrong, Al Jazeera, Climate Change Not Causing Tribal Woe\u2019s in Peru"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


By H. Sterling Burnett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An article by Al Jazeera claims climate change is wreaking havoc in the lives of the San Miguel Centro Marankiari indigenous peoples of the Ashaninka village in the mountains of central Peru. This is false. Climate change is a red herring. Data and historical evidence show that neither temperatures or rainfall\/drought conditions in the region are outside its historical norm. Also, the story itself makes it clear that incursions from farmers outside of the Marankiari community, who are deforesting the mountain slopes. are disrupting the traditional lives of Marankiari, neither of which are being driven by climate change, though they both can affect the local climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the headline, \u201c\u2018Nothing left\u2019: How climate change uprooted an Indigenous village<\/a>,\u201d Al Jazeera\u2019s story is misleading from the beginning \u2013 although it does detail some serious issues facing the native Marankiari people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the story spends almost no time at all detailing the problems \u201cclimate change\u201d is supposedly causing for the lives of the Marankiari, rather it vaguely references drought as a problem, but doesn\u2019t provide evidence of a long-term trend. Perhaps, because there is none. Second, the story\u2019s headline indicates that that Ashaninka has been \u201cuprooted,\u201d but, in fact, as the story reveals, current conditions are causing the tribe\u2019s leader, Tsitsiri Samaniego, to consider whether \u201cMigration, . . . might be his community\u2019s best option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut leaving his homeland is a last resort \u2014 a complicated decision born of circumstances beyond his control,\u201d writes Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be clear, belying Al Jazeera\u2019s headline, because the village is still located where it has existed for generations, it has not, in fact, been \u201cuprooted.\u201d It may move at some point in the future, but it also may not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concerning climate change, the story references the World Bank\u2019s claiming that climate change is one factor among many facing indigenous people around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Latin America today, nearly half of all Indigenous peoples have migrated to urban areas due to land degradation, territorial dispossession, climate change, and conflict, according to the World Bank,\u201d says Al Jazeera, playing up climate change in the headline, while ignoring the other factors, two of which, in particular, the actual story discusses as length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the climate factors in Peru, one finds there is no trend in worsening drought or heat there. According to World Data<\/a>, the hottest summer from December to February, in Peru below 2,540 meters altitude, was recorded in 1998, 26 years of global warming ago. The coldest winter in Peru in 75 years was recorded in 1974, but the coldest single day at the Tacna weather station was in July 2010, well withing the recent period of purported dangerous global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drought has been common throughout Peru\u2019s history. The highly complex Wari<\/a> empire, which had developed an extensive water system to mitigate the naturally arid conditions in parts of Peru, eventually succumbed to a long-term severe drought more than 1,000 years ago. Many of the historical droughts are tied to El Nino events<\/a>. Other serious drought events<\/a> occurred during the late-18th<\/sup> and early 19th<\/sup> century, and again in the early 1930s. Some regions of Peru experience drought with regularity, with \u201ctwo meteorological stations in Puno hav[ing] registered an annual drought frequency of 18 percent in one and 35 percent in the other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, \u201c[w]ith a total of 5.20 rainy days, it rained more often in December 2023 than it has in the same month for 12 years (5.90 days in 2011) [and] [w]ith 3.92 liters of precipitation in 2023, April was the wettest in 40 years (6.27 l\/m\u00b2 in 1983),\u201d reports World Data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The point being, swings in climate extremes of drought and heavy rainfall have been common throughout Peru\u2019s history. Current conditions are not unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the mountain peaks where Ashaninka is located may be experiencing less rainfall than other parts of the country, but climate change isn\u2019t picky, causing rain on this mountain and village, not the next one, it is global phenomenon with regionwide affects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with recent good rains Ashaninika might still be seeing less rainfall than other locations in the Peruvian Andes, but if so, the reason is not climate change but rather other more direct and immediate causes that Al Jazeera itself spends time writing about: massive deforestation, which reduces local humidity, with said deforestation being driven by, \u201csettlers from the high Andes escaping poverty, who are steadily absorbing territory occupied by the Ashaninka for generations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe incoming farmers have razed much of the humid rainforest near the village to plant groves of citrus, avocado, and coffee. That, in turn, has altered the local rain cycles, bringing extreme heat and drought to San Miguel Centro Marankiari,\u201d Al Jazeera states. \u201cThe result has been the desiccation of his community\u2019s cassava and plantain crops, Samaniego explains. Food and clean water have become scarce. And tensions with the neighbouring landowners have soared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, deforestation and invasive farmers are causing the Marankiari\u2019s woes, not climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Al Jazeera\u2019s article detailing the plight of the San Miguel Centro Marankiari is a great human-interest story, it is not one about the dangers of climate change. The problems they face aren\u2019t caused by global carbon dioxide emissions, but rather something much more local and manageable. With this being the case, why did Al Jazeera feel the need to tie the plight of the Marankiai and their Ashaninika village to climate change? Perhaps to garner eyes on the story and clicks online, but it certainly does not reflect the truth or serve as an example of honest journalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Al Jazeera\u2019s article detailing the plight of the San Miguel Centro Marankiari is a great human-interest story, it is not one about the dangers of climate change. The problems they face aren\u2019t caused by global carbon dioxide emissions, but rather something much more local and manageable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":330039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691826617,691818056,691828784,691828783],"class_list":{"0":"post-330035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-al-jazeera","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-native-marankiari-people","11":"tag-peru","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0000241792W.jpg?fit=1800%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1nR9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":417866,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=417866","url_meta":{"origin":330035,"position":0},"title":"Al Jazeera is Wrong, Climate Change Is Not Responsible for Indonesian Flooding","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"19\/12\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Al Jazeera blames climate change for recent deadly flooding in Indonesia, in a post titled \u201cIndonesia counts human cost as more climate change warnings sounded.\u201d There is no justification for blaming climate change for recent flooding, as there is no long-term trend in precipitation there. 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