I attended Winona LaDuke’s talk this past week! She started her talk by introducing herself and then going on to explain how and when America was actually great, then moving into how we can fix the world to make us great again. She wanted to start with saying this to get us to think about moving away from a fossil fuel economy. LaDuke then explained that there were two paths that we could have taken, the well-worn scorched path, or the not well-worn green path. We chose the scorched path which has lead us to extractive ownership, addiction, fracking, and “catastrophes of biblical proportions,” meaning climate change. LaDuke then went on a few tangents and said we should summon up our courage, be coherent, and “go do cool stuff.” She ended her talk by discussing the green path, which is also known as the Green New Deal and the Sitting Bull Plan. The main point she concluded with was that we need to leave the carbon in the ground. We need to steer away from fossil fuels and move towards solar and wind power. We should also start growing hemp, which is what she does. LaDuke is currently building a fiber hemp mill on her reservation and she urged all of us to do more research on the production of hemp and using that instead of cotton and plastic as it is better for the environment and our health.

Winona LaDuke’s talk mostly related to the discussions we had about environmental racism. In her talk she made sure to continually mention the hardships that Native Americans are having to go through between high rates of addiction, oil pipelines, and police brutality. The reservations are continuously being targeted by oil companies to run pipelines through because neighboring towns don’t want them. LaDuke also talked about how the rights of the corporations were being put before the rights of citizens. The government wants to protect the oil companies and not the traditions and cultures of the people who were here before us. So, not only is this an environmental problem, it’s also an ethical problem.

From her talk I learned about so many new things. I learned that LaDuke has a plan for our post carbon economy because we can’t keep saying no if we don’t have an alternative plan in place to back us up. She has a plan to implement an electric rail system, first on her reservation then for the whole country. In Europe and South American countries, they mainly use rail systems, not cars. If we can convert to this type of transportation we can reduce carbon emissions! I also learned a lot about all the uses of fiber hemp, which is something she is very proud of and is trying to spread the word about. LaDuke even went as far as to say that the antidote to a fossil fuel economy is hemp. LaDuke also managed to get me motivated to go out and make changes! Throughout her talk she kept telling us to “go do cool stuff” and that’s how we’re gonna change the world. I’m definitely going to try to do more cool stuff 🙂