The Conference of the Parties’ increasing efforts to bring to the table voices of groups that have been historically marginalized are bringing new visions, ethics, and energy into the climate change action movement. Mutuality, collaboration, and interconnectedness have been recurring topics at this COP24, including a panel on uniting environmental efforts for women and young people and other traditional wisdoms. However, their visions and reflexions were still more ambitious and profound.
Our climate crisis is a reflection of how we treat one another. Young people and people from Sustaining All Life invited us to take a minute of silence for reflection and to think of the struggles and oppression of young people and women in our society such as prevention from suffrage and lack of representation in leadership roles across society. “Many of the solutions we need for climate change will come from young people and women, but not if we continue to treat them as if they’re dumb.” Liam “It takes time” he said to realize one’s value when one is constantly oppressed but once we are capable to see it we realize how much we can contribute.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse from the Lakota Nation invited us to not only reconcile our relationships with one another but also with Mother Nature and extend our understanding of our interconnectedness with with all that is living and holds us. He invited us to listen to the wisdom of mother nature , to work with Mother Nature and to create spaces of silence and learning. “Mother Nature is just responding normally to an abnormal situation.” He asked us to move beyond our anthropocentric mentality and approaches and to find solutions WITH nature, not separating ourselves from it. He also address that although there has been an increasing focus on indigenous knowledge for climate action “on paper” it is not sufficient without adopting the values that come with it.
Drawing on traditional knowledge, therefore, constitutes validating entire alternative world views. “When we try to go to the root of this crisis,” Indian scholar, Sraddhalu Ranade signals, “ we have to think why there has been more and more environmental destruction since the industrial revolution.” He attributes this shift on the rise of literacy during this time and the spread of hegemonic western knowledge and “survival of the fittest” evolution theories that have hindered collaboration and prioritize competition as the dominant survival strategy. Prioritizing collaboration, and challenging this dominant view of hierarchical and transactional relationships thus, will be key in creating long lasting and sustainable climate action change.
“That is not how nature work,” says Ranade, “the strongest holds the weakest it does not destroy it.”