When thinking about Climate Change, I often realized the disproportionate effect it is having on marginalized populations, but never specifically put it into the perspective of Indigenous populations. It was very interesting to hear about their perspective, and that they have been keeping track of climate and being climate scientists in their own sense for so long, and baffles me that other populations, especially the white settler type population knowing this and not reaching out to converse with them about this. When European settlers invaded what is now known as the United States and Canada, there was not much regard for the land or the wildlife. Just look at what happened to the wild buffalo populations because of so called “manifest destiny”. Industrialization may have helped advance humans, but also greatly led to the downfall of our planet.
When the settlers were met with the Indigenous populations, instead of (what middle and high school textbooks may tell you) learning from the Indigenous persons and living in harmony with them, they were killed, and isolated, and stripped of their traditions and culture because of this obsession the Settlers had with conquering the Earth. So many species are now endangered or extinct, species which were integral in these indigenous persons way of life, and has been for centuries.
This reading and video has made me think of a lot of controversy that has dispersed out from the internet but still remains a bit. There have recently been a lot of indigenous creators on social media coming forward to talk about their culture and what hardships they have gone through and are unfortunately still going through. What baffles me are the amount of people in the comments saying things like “it is cruel and bad for the environment for you to be eating ____ foods” or “making clothing with real leather and fur”, and completely overlooking the culture behind these traditions. Completely overlooking the mass destruction done by white Europeans hundreds of years ago that has caused the cascade of these things even being issues.
To know that we are now in a time that Indigenous persons of years past would view as a dystopia, well I cannot say that it is surprising. If the settlers had come and listened and learned about how to live along side the earth and plants and animals as Indigenous populations have, our ecosystems would be so much healthier. We would be on equal standing ground, not stuck in the mindset (still, how are people still stuck on this) that white people are entitled to more than others. And our planet would be in a much better place.
