ILLUStration by istock
To successfully address the geophysical effects of climate change, we need a cultural climate change. As the name of this age of Anthropocene suggests, the physical global climate change (GCC) we face is clearly anthropogenic. While physical science helps us analyze the physical changes we observe and might expect to see in the future, addressing physical climate change problems at their source (humankind) will require a cultural climate change — a paradigm shift.
First, if it is true that “we cannot fix or solve problems with the same kind of thinking that created them,” then we should be thankful that Indigenous Peoples still hold a tremendous amount of embodied knowledge in their lifeways. Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews, where human cultures are understood as emergent in a nature culture nexus, represent much-needed different ways of thinking from those that produced the destructive global climate change we now face.
Second, the cultural climate change we need entails adopting worldviews that constitute a dethroning of our human selves as the superior species on Earth and situating our human place in the world as but one small, albeit powerful, part of larger geo-eco-cultural landscapes and seascapes. The widely shared non-anthropocentric character of Indigenous intellectual traditions offers the antidote to the destruction of the biodiversity of Mother Earth our current age of humans represents.
Third, because Indigenous knowledges (IK) offer some useful insight into what a cultural climate change might be, university-trained scientists must now build respectful and responsible collaborations with IK-holders. Luckily, scientists now recognize understanding GCC requires a complex relational understanding of geophysical processes, human institutions, and social relations. This recognition makes the respectful engagement with Indigenous Peoples particularly opportune. The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences (Rising Voices) embodies the value of respectfully bringing Indigenous knowledge–holders, scientific organizations, and university-trained climate scientists together and should be emulated.
We must all learn to live well among relatives, not resources.
Because Indigenous People hold their knowledges as lifeways, what many scientists expect in a good partnership will require a tremendous change. Be prepared to spend time on their lands building relationships and trust to demonstrate a non-extractive respect for the knowledge shared. Engagement is hard work, and too few physical scientists get paid to build successful relationships with places and peoples. This must change.
Fourth, modern societies desperately need Indigenous scientific views of the land, air, and water, and the life all three support. We must all learn to live well among relatives, not resources. Indigenous knowledges constitute co-created knowledges with our Mother Earth’s plants, animals, and geophysical features acknowledged as our teachers in classrooms out-of-doors.
We must discard the anthropocentric notion of progress defined by our consumption, convenience, comfort, and capital gains; we must take seriously a more kin-centric view of life on Mother Earth. If we do, we might promote systems of life enhancement and foster a culture of homeland maturity for all humankind and our Mother Earth.
Science is a multifaceted process bringing different observations, histories, and technologies to the understanding of life. When science ignores Indigenous knowledges, scientific understanding and outcomes are compromised through loss of designs and solutions never considered. Building collaborations with sovereign Tribal Nations, tribal colleges and universities, and Indigenous communities will require creating respectful and responsible right relations.
Given our current global climate crisis, it is time for humankind to get this right. Let’s become good relatives to the life, the natural kin, with whom we share this planet and act in such a way that we will be remembered as good ancestors for future generations. We — humans — cannot afford to get this wrong.
ABOUT THE AUTHORDr. Daniel R. Wildcat is a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma and a professor and researcher at Haskell Indian Nations University. Dr. Wildcat is currently the principal investigator at the Rising Voices, Changing Coasts Research Hub at Haskell. His books include Power and Place: Indian Education in America, with Vine Deloria Jr.; Destroying Dogma: Vine Deloria Jr. and His Influence on American Society, with Steve Pavlik; Red Alert! Saving the Planet with Indigenous Knowledge; and On Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth.