Last Monday, June 24th, I
had the pleasure of interviewing David Escobar, Aide to Marin County Supervisor
Steve Kinsey. He is the leading voice inspiring Latinos and indigenous peoples
to take part in the “green movement” and not just focus on making the “green
money”. Throughout the interview, he exhibited deep knowledge on the topic
because of his indigenous background.
Through Escobar’s knowledge, we
uncovered the importance of the environment from both a formal governmental and
an indigenous perspective. The government has long ignored the reality of
several environmental issues, including climate change, which as explained by
Escobar, is linked to economic welfare and will result in serious economic
downturns. For example, sea level rises are one consequence of climate change
because 23% of the population lives in coastal areas. Coastal flooding, eroding
shorelines, saltwater contamination of fresh water supplies, and increase in
the salinity of estuaries are examples of how sea level rise will wreak havoc
on a huge population of people and countless habitats. These disasters alone will
cause the US government to spend about $156 billion to adapt to just a one
meter sea level rise. The governmental perspective is more focused on the
outcomes of environmental disaster and how certain global changes will affect people,
not so much nature. The importance of the environment, on the other end of the
spectrum, is the indigenous perspective. “Our oral history, our spirituality,
our philosophy, our way of looking at the world is completely connected to the
environment”. In other words, clean and flowing water, fresh air, and healthy
animals are everything to them.
According to Escobar, in order to live
more sustainably, the concept of biomimicry has been adopted in developing
nations. This is a new way to hold on to what the indigenous peoples have
believed in for ages. For example: plants harness light energy from the sun
through their leaves and they convert it to chemical energy to put it to use.
We have seen this happen all throughout nature and have developed solar energy
to capture the light energy and convert it to electricity. By mimicking the
cycles that the earth has perfected for millions of years and scaling them to
fit our society, we will be able to sustain the growing population of this
planet. Escobar believes that we are just renaming the concepts that indigenous
peoples have maintained throughout the history of the world. “I think it’s a
good way for western ways of being to accept the indigenous… if you want to
call it biomimicry to make it go down more easily that’s fine with me, as long
as the environment is taken care of.” We must embark on a journey back in
history to dig up the ancient wisdom of indigenous peoples.
Ancient wisdom is one of three roots
that make up the green movement: indiginous wisdom, new technology, and social
justice. Each is significant, but the indigenous wisdom is the foundation, in
Escobar’s eyes, of the whole green movement. The “indigenous” depicted in pop-culture
is not necessarily what we are talking about here. The worldwide indigenous: the natives from South America, Athabask in
Alaska, the Celts in Ireland, and the Sami of Norway and Sweden, etc. They are
all saying the same thing. “We all wore feathers at one point so how do we all
go back to our indigenous cosmology?” This question has been an epic spark to
the whole environmental movement. From here, social justice and new technology
comes into play. As a wealthier community, we must reach out and assist not
only indigenous people find their environmental roots but all people. “Look at the folks over in Richmond...
they’re dealing with some serious environmental issues.” We can’t just simply
boast about how environmentally friendly our Birkenstocks and our Whole Foods
are, we have to start building bridges to connect to other communities. From
there, we can build a universal environmentally friendly society. Now that’s
something to boast about!
With the proliferation of new
technology, we have seen its importance on the environmental movement. Not only
have we increased the efficiency of the machines that were developed long ago,
but we have also made brand new technologies for the advancement of the green
movement. Just take this blog for example: In order to write this blog post, I
have used a cell phone, a computer, and a recording device. To get this
valuable information out, I have to use technology. I’m not the only one doing
so; a huge chunk of the environmental movement is taking place through
technology. There is serious controversy on the whole topic of technology,
however. Once we have exhausted the use of our computers and cell phones, they
are sent in massive container ships to places in rural China. The most infamous
“E-Waste” town is Guiyu. This in this electronic graveyard, workers strip the valuable
parts of electronics such as the gold, silver, and copper in the chips and the
circuit boards of computers. To liberate the metals from the bulk of the
computers, workers crack open the electronics with their bare hands, melt the
plastics with no protective gear or machines, and discard the dioxin ash and
acid into the air and nearby river.
In conclusion, after speaking with
Escobar, it is clear that by going back to indigenous values, we can provide
deep roots to the environmental movement. It is embedded in their culture to
respect this planet and I think we can learn a lot from listening to them.
Biomimicry is just one example of how our modern society can try and go back to
these ancient values. Keeping the other two principals in mind (new technology
and social justice), we need to approach environmental issues as equitably as
possible so we can include a multitude of different communities. However, we
must be careful how much we depend on technology because once its life has come
to an end, it is discarded quite hazardously. By looking back on indigenous
perspectives, we can carry out the most effective collective environmental
initiative.
-Julia
Hansen, EarthScope Reporter
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