Indigenous Voices on Our Changing Earth

For a great many people, the human impact on the Earth—countless species becoming extinct, pandemics claiming millions of lives, and the climate crisis causing worldwide social and environmental upheaval—was not apparent until recently. This is not the case for all people or cultures. For the Indigenous people of the world, radical alteration of the planet, and of life itself, is a story that is many generations long. They have had to adapt, to persevere, and to be courageous and resourceful in the face of genocide and destruction. Their experiences have given them a unique understanding of civilization-based devastation. 

Join author and journalist Dahr Jamail and ecologist and activist-scholar Melissa K. Nelson for a unique conversation exploring ideas from Indigenous voices at the center of conversations about the current climate crisis. In their conversation they discuss themes and perspectives from the book We Are the Middle of Forever, an anthology of native voices which was co-edited by Dahr and Stan Rushworth and features an essay by Melissa. The book draws on interviews with people from different North American Indigenous cultures, communities, generations, and geographic regions, who share their knowledge and experience, their questions, their observations, and their dreams of maintaining the best relationship possible to all of life.

Hear from Melissa and Dahr as they share their own experiences as well other perspectives featured in the anthology. Exploring the perspectives of those who have long been attuned to climate change will be indispensable to those looking for new and different ideas and responses to the challenges we all face.

Dahr Jamail is the author of The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption (The New Press, 2019), a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Science Writing Award. Dahr has also won numerous other awards including the Martha Gellhorn Award for Investigative Journalism and the Izzy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Independent Media. 

More recently, with Stan Rushworth, Dahr co-authored We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices Speak On the Changing Earth (The New Press, 2022). Dahr feels this book has been the single greatest contribution from his writing career to life on Earth to date. 
 
Living in Port Townsend, Washington, on the coast of the Salish Sea, Dahr spends as much time as possible outdoors, listening. 


Melissa K. Nelson is a mixed-raced Native American ecologist and activist-scholar. She earned her PhD in ecology with an emphasis in Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis. Melissa works for Indigenous rights, revitalization, and community well-being in higher education, nonprofits, and philanthropy. Formerly a professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University, she now serves as professor of Indigenous Sustainability at Arizona State University in the School of Sustainability. From 1993 to 2021, Melissa served as the founding executive director and CEO of the Cultural Conservancy and continues to serve as president of their board. She is the co-editor of and contributor to Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability published (2018) and What Kind of Ancestor Do you Want to be? (2021). She is also the editor of and a contributor to Original Instructions: Indigenous Teachings for a Sustainable Future (2008). Melissa is Anishinaabe/Métis/Norwegian, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians.