the inside of a mine. Diné children have a rate of testicular and ovarian cancer fifteen times the national average, and a fatal neurological disease called Navajo neuropathy has been closely linked to ingesting uranium-contaminated water during pregnancy".Other reservation communities have been subjected to instances like this as well. According to scholar Winona LaDuke, the Paiute- Shoshone community was deliberately exposed to radiation throughout the latter half of the 20th century:“In 1951 the Atomic Energy Commission set up the Nevada Test Site within Western Shoshone territory as a proving grounds for nuclear weapons. Between 1951 and 1992, the U.S. and UK exploded 1,054 nuclear devices above and below ground [...] According to Sanchez, the Atomic Energy Commission would deliberately wait for clouds to blow north before conducting tests, so that the fallout would avoid any heavily populated areas such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles. This meant that the Shoshones would get a larger dose.”Many Indigenous communities have also been subjected to the degradation of sacred lands in favor of resource extraction. Around 79 percent of the lithium deposits on U.S soil are within 35 miles of Indian reservations. Thacker Pass is home to both one of the largest lithium deposits in the world and home to a sacred burial site of multiple tribes including the Pitt River and Paiute. The mining company, Lithium Nevada, was recently granted permission to mine the area by the Bureau of Land Management. Tribal members argue that these permits were unlawfully issued, and that “the BLM notified only three of Nevada’s 27 tribes about the mine”. Historically, Indigenous Groups have had little say when it comes to which land they are designated to occupy, as well as what happens to the land. This can be explained by the following excerpt from an academic journal on the impacts of climate change in the Arctic: “While a government-to-government relationship is now officially required, these cases (which continue to define the indigenous/federal relationship in the U.S.) instituted a federal ‘trust responsibility’ for indigenous people in the U.S., codifying a legal relationship of paternalism that limits the autonomy of tribal governments. The United States government is thus under a legal obligation to protect the lands, resources and traditionally used areas of indigenous peoples, and government agencies are required to consult with tribal governments and Alaska Native Corporations in natural resource decision-making. While some view this form of representation