Indigenous indignation

At the same time as United Nations delegates were gathering at the Warsaw Climate Change Conference in Poland, indigenous leaders from the United States, Mexico and Greenland held their own meeting to discuss climate change.

On Veterans Day (Nov. 11), approximately 65 tribal elders came together at New Mexico’s Ghost Ranch to discuss “the need for individual action rather than government edicts, and of the difficulty—and urgency—of replacing economic questions with moral ones,” when it comes to tackling solutions to climate change, according to The Daily Climate.

At the gathering, which was organized by the Montana-based American Indian Institute, attendees expressed dismay at what they see as a lack of meaningful climate-change action on the part of the UN. “I have nothing to say to them,” said Angaangaq, a representative of Greenland’s Inuit people. “Not one of those United Nations people responsible has ever changed. They are orators of the highest quality, but … the time for excuses has gone long ago.”