"We were told that you could tell the extent of the degradation of the earth because there would be two very important systems to warn you."

"One would be the acceleration of the winds. We were told that the winds would accelerate and continue to accelerate. When you see the accelerations of the winds are growing, then you are in dangerous times.

They said the other way to tell that the earth was in degradation was how people treated their children. They said it will be very important to note how people treat their children, and that will tell you how the earth is degrading. So when you open up the newspapers today, they talk about exploitive sex and children, they talk about homeless children, and you can count homeless children by the millions. To us, it's a severe indication of the degradation. Society doesn't care."

"So we have to take those signposts seriously and begin to organise ourselves and do the best we can. We must gather ourselves together, give ourselves some moral support, enough to go home and start over and do it again, because everything starts at home. It starts right there with you. It starts with you and then your family. Then from your family it goes out, and that's how you do it, that's how you have to do it. It's grassroots. You go back and you begin to inform and you get a little more excited and you get a little more severe in your positions and you begin to insist that people hear and listen. Education is important and how you educate people as to what we need is fundamentally important.... If our leaders don't do it, we've got to raise better leaders, newer leaders. Raise your own leaders. Get them up there. It's your responsibility to raise good leaders. Get them up there where they can be affective and change the direction of the way things are headed."

- Chief Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation