climate refugees

I was just reading this article over at the Angry Indian,  about the Climate Talks in Copenhagen. Written by REDOIL*, the short press release states the following:

"The American government wants to drill for oil off Alaska's northwest coast as early as next summer... [The US] Department of the Interior has endorsed drilling for fossil fuels in the climate-effected ecosystems of the Arctic, where global warming already impacts Alaska Natives and entire villages are in danger of losing their lands and way of life."

"Shell says 'the Chukchi Sea could be home to some of the most prolific, undiscovered hydrocarbon basins in North America,' but we're here to remind Salazar and Shell that it is our home and our lives that will be devastated by the drilling," said Faith Gemmill, Executive Director of REDOIL, who is attending the Copenhagen Climate Talks."More fossil fuel drilling will only bring more pollution to the Chukchi Sea, and ultimately, more devastating climate change to the world. Salazar should know: We must leave those fossil fuels in the ground and invest in real renewable solutions that uphold Indigenous Peoples rights."


* REDOIL is a network and movement of Alaska Natives who are challenging the fossil fuel and mining industry and demanding our rights to a safe and healthy environment conducive to subsistence. The REDOIL network consists of grassroots Alaska Natives of the Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Gwich'in, Eyak and Denaiana Athabascan tribes. We aim to address the human and ecological health impacts brought on by the unsustainable development practices of the fossil fuel and mining industry. REDOIL strongly supports self-determination rights of tribes in Alaska, as well as a just transition from fossil fuel and mineral development to sustainable economies, and promotes the implementation of sustainable development on Alaska Native lands. Visit: http://www.ienearth.org/redoil

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Other articles/press releases about the Copenhagen talks posted on the  site are here , here, and here.

I find myself getting very upset when I read news like this, especially when I also understand "official" policy on climate change issues, and the position of pundits who claim climate change is a myth. (See this article for an example of what I mean.)

I'm quite passionate about Indigenous People's rights. And it's not just because I believe we've done some nasty things to aboriginal peoples around the globe in the name of colonialism, industrialization, "progress" and "efficiency." (By the way, I'm using the "royal We" to indicate "White" people's complicity with colonialism. I am a 6th generation Anglo-Canadian, and so I find it ontologically necessary to my anti-colonial stand to recognise my own historic participation in the colonial process. It's about ownership, and infinite responsibility,a concept taken from Levinas on the Holocaust.)

But also, I'm passionate about Indigenous rights because their rights are inextricably tied to the lands, and the right to healthy ecosystems. In one scholarly discussion I read recently, this was tied to a concept the author called "ecocide." He was relating the genocide of Aboriginal peoples to the pollution of their land base. The discussion centered around the 1990 court case Delgamuukw. He argued that the case asked the question, 'what if we had always operated from a nation to nation perspective?' If European colonizers had always treated Indigenous peoples as sovereign, colonial governments and resource extraction corporations may not have had such a free hand to desecrate entire river systems, etc. with toxic waste products. Maybe things might have been more transparent, and governments might have been more accountable, not just to the sovereign Indigenous Nations on whose land they are extracting resources, but to the rest of the citizens of Canada, who are, technically, the owners of Crown land. So Indigenous rights are ecological rights. Ecological rights protect the land and resource base for future generations, of people and animals and plants, of Natives and English and French and of all other immigrant groups. We all want a healthy planet for our children and our children's children.

The REDOIL article uses the term "climate refugees" to describe people who have lost their homes to the shrinking of the Arctic coastline. I suggest the term applies to all human beings and we all need to take action against governments and corporations who trample our rights as citizens. When I think of humans as "citizens" I'm mostly thinking about the social contract as Rousseau talked about it (or, about my philosophy instructor's modern interpretation). As I understand it, our constitutions are our social contract with our elected representatives. If the government breaks the social contract, the people (the "body politic") have the right to overthrow the government, as did our American neighbours with their  Declaration of Independence. If governments and transnational corporations continue to disregard sustainability concerns, there will be no climate left anywhere. We will all be climate refugees.

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So now I'm starting to imagine what my own declaration of independence from a dysfunctional and destructive state might possibly look like - especially considering my socioeconomic status and my dependence on the state's economy to feed and house my family. I cannot, in one decisive move, reject the government and the social contract. I do not have the resources to 'create my own state' or to move to a more agreeable social contract. I can look at how to become more independent in providing my family's food, and other purchased goods. I can save up to buy land and animals. Yet I will continue to pay taxes, I will continue to receive Canada's redistributive payments, like pensions and EI, the Child Tax Benefit and the provincial Childcare Subsidy. My husband and I will continue to have jobs. We can't extricate ourselves entirely from the social contract.

This leaves me thinking of how I can then participate in altering the social contract, modernizing it so that I can agree with it, accept it. I don't know if that looks like changing the Constitution. That's not something we've been very successful with here in Canada, despite several attempts. But what about expanding representative democracy so that more people have access to the political process? I had a sociology prof once who talked about direct democracy being more possible in our contemporary times because of the availability of the internet. It's an intriguing notion, but I would just be happy if I felt my vote actually counted towards the governance of my country and province. Right now, with the first past the post system of elections we use, I have never voted for an elected representative in my home riding. My voice has thus never been heard in any legislative body, and that defeats the purpose of a social contract, in my opinion.

That leaves me in an interesting place of knowing I have rights, but of not being able to exercise those rights to protect what I feel is most important. It's a place of questioning, of wondering how to go forward, of wondering how to make a difference. It's uncomfortable, but it's a good place, because it's filled with possibilities.