Opinion: Mitigation or transformation with changing climate?

As communities are devastated by changing climate conditions, governments engage in mitigation initiatives. These efforts lead to investments in cooling and warming shelters, resilient housing, drought-resistant edible gardens, renewable energy, reduction of carbon emissions, reforestation, watershed restoration, etc. Mitigation is a first step towards the collective transformations we need to sustain all life.

Here I share some questions to reflect on what may be next. 

1. Can there be ways for government to embrace the wisdom of indigenous traditional ecological practices, honoring, valuing and sustaining those who have kept such knowledge across generations? The proposed “Tribe-Agency Water Vision Task Force” suggests more avenues are needed for such collaborations.

2. Can public agencies allocate resources to support traditional ecological practices that have historically prevented fires and nurtured the earth and waters of the region? To work with and learn from projects such as the Tribal Ecological Knowledge Inquiry Program led by Siletz/Takelma Joe Scott, and the Chinook Indian Nation's watershed restoration at Tansy Point?

3. Those of us with the privilege of 24/7 potable water and electric power, can we imagine changing our patterns of consumption and production?

4. Can we imagine a future where we ration water so that more people can have access to it, as was done this year in Arizona and Nevada? Most of the world functions without 24/7 access, or any access at all.

5. Can we imagine a future where we invest in communities that have compromised water sources, such as the Confederated Tribes of Warms Springs? 

6. Can we engage in deeper conversations about the ecological and human cost of clean energy, such as hydropower plants?

7. Can we re-imagine agriculture? Grow crops that rotate across land and nourish it, and are suited to the amount of water and heat available? Can we rethink food staples and our access to them to lessen pressure on natural resources, while sustaining farmers’ livelihoods? Can we ask farmworkers what healthy agriculture can be?

8. Can we ask: What is the cost of the American Dream? The American Dream offering 24/7 energy and technological access is only available to a few; while being environmentally costly to all.

I write from the Dominican Republic where diversified food gardens feed many, where rainwater catchment is commonly used, where wealthy neighborhoods receive tap water twice a week, where electricity is not available 24/7 and middle classes run computers and basic appliances through batteries. 

I am not trying to romanticize what are often very challenging realities. Here sugar cane monoculture plantations cover thousands of acres, relying on exploitative work and living conditions for mostly Black and many Haitian migrant workers. 

I just wish to consider the ecological knowledge and lived experience of Native and Black peoples, migrants, and places where scarcity of water and electricity require flexibility around time and production in this moment of global transformation.

Are there ways of living that would enable us to better sustain all life, all communities in an equitable way? 

The crisis we live in opens a window of opportunity to reimagine it all. It is possible, with love and courage. 

Alai Reyes-Santos is a frequent contributor to The Register-Guard