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The climate colonizer mentality

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The climate colonizer mentality

Musk, Bezos, and Gates believe the natural world can be bent to accommodate humanity’s existing behavior—and they are obsessed with doing the bending.

Emily Atkin
Oct 12, 2021
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The climate colonizer mentality

heated.world
Jeff Bezos speaks at Climate Week in New York City. Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Bezos Earth Fund.

When some people picture Christopher Columbus, they see a hero—a visionary explorer who expanded opportunities. When others picture Columbus, they see a conquerer and colonizer—a ruthless opportunist who caused generations of death and suffering.

The same can be said of America’s three richest men: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates. To some, they represent modern-day explorers. To others, they represent old-world exploiters. Each has an insatiable knack for discovery, and each is accused of abusing people to achieve it. Most importantly, they’re all trying to lead the discovery of a new world: a net-zero-carbon-emitting, climate-safe world.

When it comes to climate change, Musk, Bezos, and Gates are each trying to create a new world that can handle current human behavior. Musk is popularizing electric cars so we can keep driving everywhere. Gates is pushing carbon capture so we can keep using fossil fuels. Bezos is trying to move millions of humans to space while extracting energy from other planets so we can keep emitting carbon, but on other planets. The three men also support each other’s approaches, as they attempt to conquer the misbehaving atmosphere through sheer technological force of hand.

Twitter avatar for @elonmusk
Elon Musk @elonmusk
Am donating $100M towards a prize for best carbon capture technology
11:08 PM ∙ Jan 21, 2021
588,854Likes55,114Retweets

America’s modern-day Columbuses (Columbi?) are widely celebrated for their endeavors. But indigenous climate activists know colonizer mentality when they see it. Musk, Bezos, and Gates believe the natural world can be bent to accommodate humanity’s existing behavior—and they are obsessed with doing the bending. Conversely, they are fairly disinterested in changing behavior to accommodate the natural world. Boring!

The climate colonizer mentality doesn’t consider what the climate needs from humans. It considers only what humans want from the climate. Columbus had this mentality about North America, and it’s why some 90 percent of indigenous Americans died in the century after his arrival. The existing living world was not a priority. Only the desires of the colonizers mattered.

This Indigenous People’s Week, climate activists from all over the country are gathering in Washington, D.C. to demand climate solutions that are reciprocal in nature. “We need to learn to be relationship-based in our in our way of thinking,” said Joye Braun, a frontline organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. “We need to quit thinking in a straight line, and start thinking more in a circle.”

Twitter avatar for @esilverman11
Ellie Silverman @esilverman11
Meet Casey Camp-Horinek, 73, of White Eagle, Okla, who is a Tribal Elder and environmental ambassador for Ponca Nation. She says she’s not a protester. She’s a “protector.” And she is marching with the crowd toward the White House with a message for Biden washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/…
1:13 PM ∙ Oct 11, 2021
158Likes72Retweets

For example: If the climate says it can’t handle all this fossil fuel burning, listen to it. Stop burning fossil fuels, and create a new renewable energy economy that benefits both parties. If the climate says it can’t handle a jillion cars on the road, listen to it. Take some of them off the road, and create an amazing public transportation system that benefits both parties.

In the past, reciprocal climate solutions such as these have been difficult for many Americans to visualize. In her best-selling 2013 book, Braiding Sweetgrass, indigenous author and biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer recalls asking her third-year ecology students if they can think of beneficial relationships between humans and the environment, or positive interactions between people and land. They almost all said no.

This ignorance, Kimmerer writes, represents a fundamental obstacle standing in the way of truly sustainable climate action: “How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?" She criticizes a white-led environmental movement that has become “synonymous with dire predictions and powerless feelings.” The Earth, she writes, will always work for us if we work for it in return. There is no need to overpower it.

Indigenous stories show that, and to prove it she tells of the White Man's Footstep. The low-growing plant, native to Europe, started growing in North America when the colonizers arrived. Where the colonizers went, the Footstep followed, and the Natives feared it would be just as destructive. They soon saw, however, that there were differences—while the white man thrived by conquering and subjugating Native people, the White Man’s Footstep thrived by giving back to them. While the white man’s conquest brought disease and famine, the White Man’s Footstep provided medicine and food.

“This wise and generous plant, faithfully following the people, became an honored member of the plant community,” Kimmerer writes. “It’s a foreigner, an immigrant, but after five hundred years of living as a good neighbor, people forget that kind of thing.” The White Man’s Footstep was able to thrive by meeting the needs for the living world around it—by becoming naturalized to its place.

The climate movement does not have to be the white man climate colonizer. It can be the White Man’s Footstep. Humans can be good for the earth, but only if they treat it as something not just for their own benefit. Indigenous people have been teaching us this for decades—and will continue to this week in Washington, D.C. It’s past time we started to listen.


Tweets from the People Versus Fossil Fuels Mobilization

Twitter avatar for @FightFossils
People vs. Fossil Fuels @FightFossils
BREAKING: Massive crowd of Indigenous-led climate activists arrive at the White House to confront @JoeBiden and demand an end to fossil fuels. #PeopleVsFossilFuels
2:05 PM ∙ Oct 11, 2021
17,716Likes4,828Retweets
Twitter avatar for @IENearth
Indigenous Environmental Network @IENearth
#WaterProtectors circling one of their own, climbing the flag poles outside the US Army Corps of Engineers right now! #PeoplePower #PeopleVsFossilFuels #ThisIsWhatCommunityLooksLike
7:19 PM ∙ Oct 12, 2021
83Likes41Retweets
Twitter avatar for @collinrees
Collin Rees @collinrees
NOW: Over 150 Indigenous leaders, people of faith + allies are being arrested by police at the White House at #PeopleVsFossilFuels action. Two days in & it’s clear — Joe Biden would rather arrest hundreds in his doorstep than stop fossil fuels. Join us: peoplevsfossilfuels.org
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Image
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3:24 PM ∙ Oct 12, 2021
51Likes35Retweets
Twitter avatar for @jamieclimate
Jamie Henn @jamieclimate
We got some great media coverage for #PeopleVsFossilFuels today, but I hope that more climate & political reporters come down to the White House over the coming days. Endlessly covering Congress and ignoring the grassroots is a bias just like any other.
washingtonpost.comIndigenous activists come to D.C. with a message for Biden: Declare a national climate emergencyAt times, tensions rose between protesters and police outside the White House on Monday, but the demonstration was mostly peaceful.
1:43 AM ∙ Oct 12, 2021
86Likes27Retweets

Fish has been positively delighted and overwhelmed by the number of responses to his request for friends to hang out with at Catch of the Day! He’s decided he wants to hand over the spotlight to a few more of his new pals this week.

Fish’s first new friend this week is Maybe, a one-year-old rescue pup who lives in Colorado.

“Maybe enjoys digging in mom's Climate Victory garden and chasing light reflecting on the wall,” says HEATED reader/said gardener mom Danielle. Maybe also “thinks this talk of 'fiscal responsibility' around the $3.5 trillion infrastructure package is ridiculous given the fossil fuel subsidies that continue to bankrupt the green transition,” Danielle adds.

Next up is Hallie, an energetic 8-month-old shepherd terrier mix who lives in Minnesota with reader Natalie.

Hallie “has a natural talent for sleuthing small critters in the yard,” Natalie says, “and would love to someday use this skill to hunt and pounce on the fossil fuel industry.”

Lastly, this is George. George likes to pick up trash. Thanks to reader Aaron for this important information.


Want to submit your furry (or non-furry) friend to Catch of the Day? E-mail catchoftheday@heated.world.

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The climate colonizer mentality

heated.world
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chris h
Oct 13, 2021Liked by Emily Atkin

I have a trivial contribution in response to not knowing how best to pluralise Columbus ("America’s modern-day Columbuses (Columbi?) ")

In Spain, he's known as Cristobal Colón. So perhaps the trinity of Musk, Bezos and Gates could be referred to as Colons.

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Tani Colbert-Sangree
Oct 12, 2021Liked by Emily Atkin

This reminds me of a dream I had recently. Musk Bezos and Gates were in outer space colonizing and I was an onlooker to their apprehension by THE THUNDER CATS! The Thunder Cats proceeded to chain them and whip them and make them jump through hoops while the billionaires protested and whinned. V cathartic dream.

In reality though, this piece reminds me so much of the importance of centering women in climate decision-making processes. This podcast by Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (her last episode - https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet/wbhv27e/we-cant-solve-the-climate-crisis-without) talks through the research behind the white-male perspective that excepts massively larger risks, more frequently comes up with technological solutions instead of changing current behavior, and is less community/people-oriented aka more accepting of human pain/suffering. The research is definitive that if more women were making national and international negotiating decisions our climate policy/action would be in a much better place (and the ripple effects would permeate throughout society). Highly recommend that episode!

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