Osprey Orielle Lake: “Worldview As Climate Medicine”

Founder and director of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network International (WECAN) Osprey Orielle Lake joins me to talk about the importance of worldviews in addressing climate change. Worldviews are frameworks for making sense of the world, ways of understanding shaped by and steeped in culture, akin to what academics call “epistemologies.” For Osprey, it’s not enough to just address the symptoms of climate change–solar panels, managed retreat, better insurance policies. Rather, at the root of our myriad crises is a worldview problem. The worldview that sees nature as disposable, as mere resource for human use, as some thing to be extracted, must be replaced by a worldview that sees nature as part of us, kin, alive, worthy on its own. This episode is about why worldviews matter, as Osprey also explores in her new book, The Story Is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis.

Shownotes

• Why Women? page on the WECAN website
• WECAN International, Osprey’s organization
• The Story Is in Our Bones book information
• A critique of Garrett Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons” 
• Naomi Klein’s concept of “disaster capitalism” from her book, Shock Doctrine
• Jason Hickel, economist, author of Less Is More
• UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Sherri Mitchell’s book, Sacred Instructions
• Keyword definition “epistemic violence” and how it plays out in sustainability work
• Keyword, “pseudoinefficacy”

TRANSCRIPTION

LAKE: What is reciprocity? How do we get back to the place, not just live here? It's not just about what I'm going to get. Have to make me feel.

But what am I getting back? How am I getting back to the land?

RAY: Welcome to Climate Magic, where we talk about the relationship between climate change and our hearts and minds. I'm Sarah Jaquette Ray, a professor at Cal Poly Humboldt and fellow climate despairing human.

Today's show pulls back the curtain on what it's been like for a major mover and shaker in the climate justice space to figure out her own climate magic and to advocate for communities most vulnerable to climate change.

That mover and shaker is a founder and director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, or WECAN International. Her name is Osprey Orielle Lake, and she's also the author of a recently published book called The Story Is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis.

I wanted to bring Osprey on the show to share how she came to figure out her climate magic. Spoiler alert– it's a never ending journey. She's not quite there yet. And to continue this conversation that we had on the last episode of Climate Magic with Joseph Henderson, which was really about masculinity and climate change.

With Osprey, we talk about women and climate change. This is the driving purpose of her work and life. Osprey helps us understand why women should be at the forefront of climate efforts, and why they're uniquely vulnerable to climate disruption. We talk about how people in power often use an ideology of false scarcity to hoard resources, what we can do to combat that idea, and how scarcity mindset can impact women uniquely.

Instead of that ideology, or instead of even other merely technological solutions to climate change, Osprey offers a solution that is in the mind and in the way of being in the world, a worldview that she calls a living cosmology of kinship and the earth. For her, this concept of worldview is the root of politics, and it's where the real healing can happen, whether that's something we learned from indigenous worldviews, or that we implement or recover from our own ancestral knowledge, practice and kinship with the Earth in a daily way is the most political act of intervention and resistance, she argues. That's the heady stuff.

But we also just have a great time talking about her own journey, figuring out how to feel really useful in this work. A little about Osprey, and WECAN. She created the organization we can to accelerate the global women's movement for the protection and defense of the Earth's diverse ecosystems and communities. WECAN focuses on systemic change nationally and internationally, with grassroots and frontline women leaders, policymakers, and diverse coalitions.

Osprey is also the co-director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, serves on the Executive committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, served on the board of the Praxis Peace Institute and on the Steering Committee for the UN Women's Major Group for the Real Plus 20 Earth Summit.

Are you ready to think about how worldview is at the root of our polycrisis, and how to tap the climate magic of a living cosmology in your own life? Let's dive in.

Welcome to the show, Osprey.

LAKE: So glad to be here with you. Thank you for inviting me.

RAY: We'll just start with sort of the premise of all of your work with WECAN and your book, which is this attempt to really bring marginalized voices to the climate work that you're doing and that you're participating in all around the globe, particularly feminists and indigenous leaders, to climate advocacy. How does mainstream climate stuff miss these perspectives, and why are they so important?

LAKE: Yeah, it's such a it's such a great question. And, you know, I think that one of the things that I'm really getting at in our work at the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, we can and in my book, is that we need to get to root causes. We need to look at, how we actually got here.

And also when we are looking at solutions. It's really important to see who's sitting at the table. And if a huge percentage of the people who are on the front lines of the climate crisis or social injustices, or voices that have been silenced are not at the table, that kind of is an indication about the fact that them not being there is actually part of the problem.

And so bringing those voices forward is essential. The knowledge that we're missing from indigenous peoples, from black and brown leaders, from women, from the land herself, the knowledge that comes from the ecosystem itself is missing at that table of discourse and discussion and problem solving. So, you know, when we look at my book or we can we're looking at, you know, how do we lift up those voices, not only because, there's a justice component, but also when we look at where harms are being done. When you look at the site of harm. It's actually also the site of healing and the sight of information, because those closest to the pain, so to speak, are the ones who have so much wisdom about how to rebalance our world. What needs to be restored, what we need to be looking at.

Yeah. So that's where I would just begin by saying, like, how do we bring forward all these different representations in our society that are actually being marginalized that could contribute so much to knowledge and how we can create a path forward that is healthy and just for everyone.

RAY: Yeah. And I noticed too, in some of the work that you've done, you, you that's all very fine and well, but you also bring in all this really great data about, you know like the Women's Empowerment Index. Right.

And like how it is that we can see in the data that when where women are empowered, carbon goes out of the atmosphere. Can you share a little bit more about how you've seen and traced some of that in the book that you wrote? You have some actual stories of this and especially like during Covid times and stuff, and great examples for sure.

LAKE: When I first started doing climate work, I was trying to find like where would be a great leverage point, something that would help move the dial. And so, you know, before I did this, I was actually doing a lot of artwork and writing and different things, but, it was back in, 2009 when the Obama administration came into office. And not just me, but a lot of us are like, okay, this is going to help the UN climate talks. It's going to like, move things forward. Long story short, it didn't.

And you know, and I'm go to the UN climate talks every year with frontline women's delegations. You know, very involved in that process. But anyway, so it's after that that I really decided to, to start my organization.

And when I researched the data, it really did show that not only are women the most negatively impacted by the climate crisis due to gender inequality around the world. But they were also central to solutions. And people were not talking about it.

And so, you know, this relationship between the violence against the earth and the violence against this land of the land is really connected in the patriarchal constructs and the colonial capitalist systems that we're in. And of course, it's being represented in, you know, the climate crisis itself. And so we're missing women's leadership or missing indigenous people's leadership or missing black and brown leadership is a huge detriment to society.

And, you know, going deeper into women's leadership, a few years ago, I was asked to speak at the Scenarios Forum, which is a forum of researchers that then feed information into the IPCC reports on climate. And I represented a study that shows that with just a one unit increase in something called the Women's Political Empowerment Index, that you were mentioning leads to an 11.51% decrease in carbon emissions, which is huge. And this is an index that's for every country around the world. It's not just certain countries.

And like it's an index of women's agency and government and leadership and their economy. So it looks at a variety of things about women's agency. And with an increase of that agency, you see women making better decisions on ecological, legislation and ecological practices and governance.

So this is really profound and something hardly anyone is talking about. And so and as you mentioned in the book, I was talking about how, you know, one way that we can visibilize this is during the height of the Covid 19 pandemic. If you look at a lot of the news articles that came out, you'll see that countries that were led by women did far better in caring for their populations than men leaders.

And so, and we can see this, you know, on our website, if people are interested, we have an entire page called Why Women? And it's filled with stats around what happens with food production, what happens with care for the waters. You name it. When women are in leadership roles, all of those conditions improve, whether it's with the environment or social injustices.

And so a big part of the evolution of this moment in time is really ensuring that women are given more agency supported in their agency and that we are brought to the decision making table and really honored for what we're contributing. And it's not about putting men down, it's about women lift being, having women being lifted up and really creating more balance in our governance systems. And so, yeah, it's really important that we spotlight the role of women's leadership in all of our programs are led by women, and they're quite successful.

RAY: You describe a book in your book that defines imperialism and even capitalism as, “the consuming of another's life for one's own private purpose and profit as a kind of cannibalism.” And you also quote the Anishinaabe environmental activist, Winona LaDuke, who calls this the Wendigo economy, which destroys its mother. I'm curious, you know, how does this perspective, this indigenous perspective of the Wendigo force or energy, shed light on what's happening around us?

LAKE: I love your question, because it's also pertinent to this moment of what's happening in the country right now as we struggle with our own democracy and the rule of law. And an authoritarian regime, because it's all very connected to this deeper idea of the where to go or where to go. There's different ways of pronouncing it.

But I became very interested in this. I was introduced to the idea, through a really close colleague of mine, an indigenous woman from Canada, Ariel Darren, who introduced me to a book called Columbus and the Cannibals. It's a very powerful analysis of these ancient stories and wisdoms from indigenous people in different regions, in the Americas. About citing this, view that, you know, an illness like, it's a psychological mental illness of a human being who does not see themselves as belonging to the community or to the earth, and begins to take more and more and more, behavior is not arrested and healed. They just keep eating and eating and eating until they literally cannibalize their community, the land in themselves.

And it's an endless consumption and greed and avarice that it's unsustainable teaching stories about this so that people would correct that behavior or address it. And, you know, when I put it in the book, in a section about, you know, looking at colonialism and capitalism and looking at the disease of it and getting deeper into the roots of where does this come from? Because I think we can heal things that we name.

So it's like, if you go to the doctor, you know, the first thing they want to do is a diagnosis. They can't just start prescribing things like, we have to know what is the root of the illness. So for me, the what to go is a part of that diagnosis that we're looking at.

And so if you think about the current administration and the leadership of this administration, to me they're that on steroids. It's like there just can never be enough taking. There can never be enough wealth, ownership, domination, cruelty, this need to fill something that actually can't be filled on its course, that it's going. And so I'm, I think it's a very powerful thing for us to bring into public discourse.

And, you know, so often we talk about politics. It's as if politics is separate from our personal psychology, our personal ontological views. And like we have to stop that. The inside is the outside, the outside, the inside, like as if leadership comes from some other place or politics other than who we are as a society, in culture, and as individuals. You know, I would also address within this context, how when we're we have these separation narratives of separate from the earth, separate from each other hierarchies, that men are more important than women. White people are more important than people of indigenous black and brown skin color. Whether we're above nature, all these hierarchies and these, worldviews and ontologies around that, that, that separation causes a deep and belonging, a sense of not belonging to each other, to community, to the earth, and that separation that not belonging creates violence, it creates othering, it creates trauma.

And so I think we're in a gigantic cycle of, in our modern society that is rooted long ago in the development of patriarchy, the development of colonization. Again, these hierarchies create more and more separations. You end up with human beings who don't really have a purpose connected to the earth, connected to community.

And so that drive to fill oneself up and overconsumption to fill oneself up with domination, to fill oneself up with, I'm better than you because I have to have something is now, you know, displaying itself in the worst possible way. So this explosion we're seeing of the climate crisis, to me, is a result of these patterns of these illnesses of society that have not been addressed. And so that's where the wedge of coal comes in, which is this huge illness in which we stand in, ecologically and socially, in this very moment as people are trying to say, wait a minute, we don't want that reality. You know, we don't we don't want this reality of trying to create some pure white condition that is completely flattened and means nothing and really has no deep strategic, strategic meaning or joy or life and so, yeah, I think it's a very important concept and, and narrative for people to embrace and understand.

RAY: Your description of that, the sort of like insatiable avarice and this kind of, almost like an illness of striving and gaining and conquering, reminds me of another section of your book where you talk about the sort of manufacturing of false scarcity. There's this whole kind of like the sense of there's not enough. We're going to have this sort of tragedy of the commons. We're going to have to keep, you know, we're going to have to grab this for ourselves. There's a limited amount of resources, and we want to make sure that people like us have those resources, comes out of this sort of framework of false false scarcity or a sense of scarcity of resources, which you and your book do a great job kind of dismantling where that even came from.

Do you want to share a little bit about the kind of, I think even if people who are listening to this don't know about the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons or Garret Hardin's work or any of that stuff, there is a mainstream kind of we're swimming in the water of thinking about scarcity that I love how you push back on in the book, and I'd love for you to offer to listeners here, which is is a is the tragedy of the commons not true? What is that thing and how does that explain human behavior? How does explain this kind of Wendigo, attitude of needing, needing, needing, needing. Because I'm afraid I'm going to scare us and I'm going to lose that. Does that make sense?

LAKE: Yeah. Yeah, no. And I think it is, you know, I think also laced into the question and conversation is fear, you know, and, and I think we need to kind of name that as well of, fear of not belonging, fear of not having fear of, our own existence. Really fear that I'm not important, fear that there isn't meaning.

And all of these sorts of things are part of, you know, our modern context. Unfortunately. And, so, you know, how scarcity ties in is that, you know, one of the things that the colonial capitalistic, patriarchal structure has really built its power on is that there is not enough, because that is an awful way to suppress people and oppress people, and that the people at the top of the hierarchy are in control of our resources, in control of the financing and control of governance.

And then everybody then is subjected to that hierarchy, and then the hierarchy can create, you know, and I think Naomi Klein is really great. And also pointing out, you know, disaster capitalism where, you know, every time there's a disaster, there's, there's, different, governance structures put in place to create a false sense of scarcity. And, you know, I think that, you know, in these ways of having like, austerity economies. Right?

And so we all think, get into the thinking of that because that's what we're taught, and that's what the media has pumped out there. And so many books pumped out there. And, you know, economic courses mostly talk about, you know, these standard ideas of economy.

And so what I'm saying is, you know, one, this is a construct. And we have to remember that the disparity between the ultra wealthy, the billionaires and now oligarchical billionaires, the techno bros and all that, I mean, like the disparity between their wealth and everyday working people is beyond insane. And so it creates, you know, this, it furthers the idea that scarcity is a real thing because, you know, if you cannot feed your family and you can't turn the heat on in your home, you are in scarcity.

So let's also name that, you know, the ideology of scarcity and how that feeds into capitalism and unjust power structures, but it's also lived experience that then reinforces that which is like, I don't have food, I don't have money, I don't have a home. Like we are in scarcity. But we have to continue to dig deeper into, how did that condition come about? Because the Mother Earth, our, you know, our sacred home, is abundant with life and generosity.

But instead of being in relationship with that, we're in relationship to this false narrative. And so we have to dismantle and compost that. So I don't want to take away from the fact that people are hurting all over the world. There's quite a bit of abundance.

And, resource. It's just not equally distributed. It's not carefully distributed.

And as Jason Hickel, who's an incredible, economist who I mentioned, my book, he's, you know, just a brilliant economist, you know, also talks about how, you know, it's not just that capitalism is not a good economic framework, which, you know, is based on extractivism, activism and more extractivism on a finite planet, but also that the things that we're producing and capitalism are not things we actually need. So on top of it, and also not being a good construct economically, it also is producing a lot of stuff that corporations and people are making lots of money off of, but it's actually not like how do you have a better food system or how do you make sure water is distributed equitably? So yeah.

So I think there's a false narrative around scarcity that we need to transform when we really look at like Mother Earth's natural systems and we dismantle our extractive economy and who's benefiting from it.

RAY: The subtitle of your book is about how worldviews can help us in this climate crisis. I'm really intrigued by that. What do you mean by that? Why is this a worldview issue? Some people would say it’s a policy issue. Some people would say it's an engineering issue. Some people would say it's a planning issue. Some people would even say it's an education issue, but you're saying it's a worldview issue.

And I really love that. Can you can you unpack that a little bit and maybe are there some worldviews that are particularly, in alignment with this that we should we might want to take on and how do we do that without being appropriate to give? You mentioned in an earlier conversation about thinking about ancestral ties this way. Maybe there's something in there that makes you inspired to go for it.

Yeah. This is a great subtitle.

LAKE: So, everything that you said is absolutely correct, like it is a policy problem. It is an engineer problem. It is all the things that you said.

So those are all really important, the way that people get at the climate. We need everybody in every sector getting in. So, you know, I really like that people are sort of like an ecosystem collectively together, where people are approaching the climate crisis through art or through engineering or through water sustainability practices or through science or through education, like we need it all.

So I'm there for all of it and read it.

RAY: Yes. Preach. Yes.

Yeah. I love that you're one of my you're one of my favorite lines. Yeah.

LAKE: Everybody can do everything. Everybody has to, everybody has a place in this.

RAY: And by the way, that is the entire premise of the concept of climate magic, by the way. So yes, yes, yes, yes, everyone's got everyone's got a magic that they can do.

LAKE: Yeah I love that. That's a perfect. Yes. There's a climate magic.

So within that context, you know, I wanted to, you know, kind of go back to origins, as we've been talking about in the conversation already around, you know, how do we heal something if we don't understand the deepest roots of it? And so when I'm looking at worldview, I'm looking to unpack how we got here so that we can unwind it and transform it. And so, like, just to name some things that we've already touched upon, this idea of, supremacy is a big one, like how we have all the different forms of supremacy that I talked about earlier of men being above women, or white people being more important than other people, or that humans are above nature. These constructs are a worldview. They're not innate. They're certainly not coming from nature. There are human constructs.

And that's the kind of thing that we need to start getting at, because let's say I could wave a magic wand, which maybe I would love to, but in this case, in this little story, I could wave a magic wand and the climate crisis was gone tomorrow. I would love that. But in reality, the fact of how we're already harming ecological systems, even aside from climate, how are polluting the rivers, you know, all the different things over consuming mining. There's so many other ways besides the climate there. We're also destroying the planet and having injustices in our community and colonization and racism that actually wouldn't solve what we're really trying to get at.

So that's what I mean about worldview, because it's deeper than just like this issue. It's the collection of ideas and ideologies and epistemologies that got us to this place where we're living so out of alignment with each other and the Earth, resulting in the climate crisis resulting in the biodiversity crisis resulting in human injustices which are all intertwined. So how do we then look at the worldview and and it's these things of, you know, domination.

And how did patriarchy arise? How did this idea of an extractive economy arise? And so what I'm looking at is like, how can we start really articulating this worldview so that we then can think about ways to move from where we are to a different place, a different place being what I like to call a, living cosmology, which of course, indigenous peoples all over the world have been trying to teach us, for, for thousands and thousands of years.

And why, you know, I am so, in deep respect of indigenous peoples and why I think part of our advocacy really needs to center on lifting up indigenous voices, respecting their rights, really doing everything we can to uplift you, and declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples free from consent, supporting indigenous language. Restoration and landback and all these things. I mean, indigenous people are critical to this moment in time.

As much as I mentioned women earlier, also indigenous leadership and people knowing where indigenous, what the indigenous rights are in the lands where we live, like we live on stolen land here in the United States of America. Who are the indigenous people where we live? What are their concerns? What support do they need? I feel like this is a central part of how we transform our worldviews, but also transform where we actually live and how to live in a good way in the places we live. It's also restoring our relationships with the original peoples of the land, as well as their understanding of how to live in this place.

And so then it's not so abstract. It's like, no, I can actually learn from indigenous people as much as they want to share, you know, being respect of not co-opting and being inappropriate with indigenous knowledge. I mean, that's for them to to lay out that roadmap forward.

And it's our job to listen and be good and respectful neighbors. And here we are. You know, we can't here we are. We live here where we are on these lands.

And so how do we do that? I think it is a really important question and brings forward a deeper understanding of worldview, because it's a different worldview about how to live in a place, how to, to respect the place. So I think one of the components is, is, learning from indigenous peoples, but also then living into this, learning emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually of a living cosmology that the trees are alive, that the stones have a voice, that the river is our relative, that we're living on a land where everything is in relationship and what's our relationship to that place is a it's a deep learning.

That's a lifelong learning. What is reciprocity? How do we give back to the place? Not just live here?

But also, like, I'm so thankful I can go to this place I love to go every week, put myself. But it also begs the question of what is reciprocity? It's not just about what I'm going to get, how it's going to make me feel, which is part of our cultural narrative and important. We need to feel good and we need to be joyful. We need to get restored.

But what am I giving back? How am I giving back to the land? Because that's restoring right relationship. Like, what is it that we're doing to give back all this? To say, it's just one example, but it's brought me to this question of, you know, how are we giving back to the land? It doesn't have to be like some big women for forest program.

But like our daily practices, what are we doing in the places we live? Not just live there, but be reciprocal in practice. So I think this is another part of the worldview change, is that we're not here just to take. We're here to give and learn to be a life enhancing species versus an extractive taking species.

And that to me is a worldview change. So yeah, and I'll just put in one last piece and then hand the floor back to you. Since you asked about ancestry, I think our first job is to learn from an intact into this people who are everywhere, who have maintained those healthy relationships with the land.

But also, I think part of the work is like, we're still going to be empty and in this kind of grabby sort of mentality, unless we start also looking at our own ancestors from the far past. Not that there's anything wrong with looking at our, our family trees and all that. I think that's a delicious topic, but I'm talking about also looking at what I call in my book pre-patriarchal pre-colonial ancestries when all of us can trace thousands of years ago our ancestors to people who lived on the land and interacted in this reciprocal way.

And you know, it's hard to do that research. It's tattered and torn and a lot of it has suffered from erasure and colonization. We all come at some point from actually colonized people, too, whether we're from Europe or wherever, like, this story has been going on a very long time.

But even if we can find like a song or a food recipe that's been handed down in the family or some kind of of practice that we've learned from our ancestors, it begins to bring us back into a relationship of like, oh, my ancestors at one point also lived on the land and understood these ways, which is why the title of the book is the story is in our bones. It's inside of us, it's inside of us. But we need to like, cultivate that, listen to those practices, listen to that knowledge of the land, and begin to regenerate a culture in which we're in a living cosmology reciprocally.

RAY: Yeah. I am just awash with everything you're saying and it's filling up my I can feel of my body and my heart getting just warm and fuzzy listening to you. So thank you for that.

And what you're offering here too is a sort of way to, you know, when you were saying, we have to figure out a way to give back. We can't just take, we can't just be in this worldview we're taking is entitled, we're entitled to it. Which is, of course, the colonial mindset that the vast majority of the water we're swimming in tells us that all the time.

And I, I was thinking to myself, as you were speaking, what is the instruction manual for that? You know, like where are your listeners and myself going to go and find the instruction manual for that? And there are options. There are a lot of ideas of where that might be. I mean, we ecologists can help us with that. Western science. Some of it can help us with that. Indigenous perspectives, like you said, all around us, people trying to teach the rest of us how to do that, traditional ecological knowledge or what have you, wisdom from a variety of different elders where there that connection to that ancestral knowledge is more visceral or more not just in your bones, but also in your practices already. Right.

And then and then you're offering even something maybe more challenging or difficult, but also a possible, set of instructions for us, which is to go back to, figuring out at some point where can we find some connection to where we had some ancestral connection to the land where we could remember, so to speak, remember that from our bones? So there are many options there. I know that, like, Sherri Mitchell's beautiful book, Sacred Instructions.

I think I think of that as an answer. Where are those instructions for us to do this? Okay. The sacred instructions. There are many places we can go, and put that together.

And the kind of the sort of litmus test there is, are we in this ideology or you use the idea of worldview, worldview as also for me, a synonym for the more philosophical term epistemology. And I think of things like epistemic violence as part of colonialism, this kind of like, sort of killing off of ways of thinking and relationships with the more than human world that you are saying. There are many kinds of ways that we can think of worldviews that might offer us to that.

And we just want to be respectful about how we implement that in our lives. So thank you for that. I wanted to just sort of help think through that out loud for myself as you, as you offer that.

If you're joining us right now, I'm speaking with Osprey Orielle Lake, the author of a beautiful book called The Story Is in Our Bones. 

When you're operating in a world where you are pushing these kinds of things, your life is fiercely fighting for this. You are doing this. There is an element of I am surrounded by people and wins and losses too.

But lots of wins around how this is moving and also a perspective around the longer arc of how this change is happening. And so one of my questions for you is, you know, you've been doing this for a while now. What are the things that, the sort of the longer arc things, that you would only really get from a longer term perspective of how things have improved? Certainly things have gotten worse. And I don't think we need to belabor that. The ways that things have gotten worse.

But what have you seen that maybe don't make the mainstream news, for example, that example of the rights of nature expanding and growing as a movement, that give you, give you, you know, lift you up or give you hope that that we're on some right track about some things.

LAKE: Yeah. I mean, I think that's exactly it. We have to see the long view because, you know, we're in a we're in a bad way right now for sure.

And we can't, you know, bury our heads and not say that the country right now isn't in a crisis, that the world isn't in a climate crisis, that there are more right wing governments rising up. I mean, it is a very hard time. At the same time, you know, I think what really hurts me is that who is being harmed and targeted is that people have already been harmed and targeted and hurt the most.

And so I don't like how this revolution is happening. It's the worst case scenario. So I think, you know, I want to just to acknowledge that because a lot of places are going to be hurt and a lot of people are going to die and be killed because of what's going on.

So that's like, that's the soup we’re swimming in. And at the same time, a lot of people are waking up. A lot of people are going, what is going on here?

And I think that that is really powerful. How long this will take, how much harm will happen is devastating. But also, you know, we're in a process of awakening, self-reflection, questioning, people dismantling ideas that they thought were true. The lies are coming out.

I think all of that in the long run is really healthy. Like I said, the way it's happening is fully unjust and horrific. But, you know, it's happening like this. Disruption has wanted to happen for a long time because where we were wasn't working.

Meaning let's just look at the United States. It's built on stolen land and stolen labor. Indigenous people, black people, brown people like that is not new to them. What is happening right now to a lot of our neighbors is not news. It's just that now white people are a lot more engaged in it and being impacted by it.

So it's having a bigger voice. And you know, when you're talking about where to go, the whole expression of that is just like grotesquely out there. So it's also an opportunity. You know, I, I'm working on a piece right now, and I know others have also probably commented on this, but like the word apocalypse, we're in an apocalypse. The root of that is unveiling. It's like a giant unveiling.

And so here we are in this giant unveiling, which is also the time to compost things that are not working so that they can transform into what we want. And so when I look at that, I think of things, you know, in a, in a healthy and just manner that we're having to come to terms with, like, what do we value? What is meaningful? What do we care about? What do we love?

You know, and that's a good thing, you know, do we really need 14 pairs of shoes?, comes into the equation. Like, do we really need to be consuming at this level? You know, most people I talk to don't want to work at the jobs. They have 40 hours a week. Like it's really inhuman. People want to work, for sure, but they also want to dance and have joy and do their art and be with their families and travel like the whole system is up for grabs right now.

And I think that that's a good thing. It's horribly uncomfortable, very painful, very unjust. Who's being harmed?

But it's also like we also need to take those of us who can get a hold of our privilege and do every single thing we can with it to protect our neighbors and to push forward this other just world that's equitable for people and planet like. That's our role. And I think that's the long view.

And so some of the things that we're doing we may not see in our lifetime, we have to settle into it and we might need to give away. And I don't want to have this word come out the wrong way, but there's like a sacrifice piece here. And I don't mean like, you know, that we don't have self-care and that we're, you know, in scarcity.

But like, what am I giving? I think it's a big question. So that the next generations can find their way into a better place is something that we need to to really think about.

And the sacrifice part, I mean, for clarity, it's like, how uncomfortable are we willing to get? And I think it's good for us to be uncomfortable. Uncomfortability is healthy. You know, when you look around the planet is blowing up and our communities are under attack. It's probably a good thing to be uncomfortable and probably a healthy stance and like, how to be in uncertainty, how to be in discomfort and realize that winning, that actually is winning.

That's not a bad thing. That's a healthy thing. And like, let's get together in community and be uncertain and uncomfortable together and find joy and dance and song and beauty and advocacy in that space.

And I think that's like the longer view. And then the last thing I'll say is that I was in deep meditation this winter when, where I grew up in Mendocino, I was walking in the redwood forest and looking at the next growth trees and like how some of the forest, you know, had been cut, but how like those great mother trees, those mother trees. Then have the ring of redwoods around them coming up from the roots, like this incredible regeneration that mother’s engaged in.

And I'm like, just remembering. Yeah. Even if we humans are not here, Mother Earth will regenerate herself. We will go down before the planet goes down. Like, you know, even it takes a super long time. The planet's going to heal. We are the ones who are needing to save right now, right?

And of course, save as much biodiversity as possible. But this is a human intervention point, you know. And so I think those long views help us sort of realize that.

And being and community finding groups that you're in alignment with is essential. We can't do this alone. This is a huge part of it is to, you know, dig in and any point that you are passionate about and be with your community and, and do the thing, do the thing that you want to do.

RAY: In your book, you actually say that in a beautiful way. You say that we're supposed to be “grasping the epic nature and gift of our existence.”

And, that's exactly what I want to pull from this, right? This kind of inspiration, hopefully for listeners to think, oh, I, I actually do matter in this. You were saying that that fear of not mattering is actually one of the things that's at the root of this crisis that we're in or the mindset or the worldview that generates this crisis that we're in.

And so that feeling of mattering or finding your climate magic, right. What you know, I'm thinking to myself, how did you figure out your how did you figure out your unique gift? How did you figure out this for yourself?

That finding your, you know, epic nature and gift, for the world was going to be the stuff that you're doing and settle into that.

Do you continue to personally feel like, oh, gosh, it's not enough? I'm not sure I'm mattering. Do you still have that or do you have a sense ofease and existential? I don't want to say the word comfort because you just gave us a good argument for feeling just uncomfortable, and I loved it. But is there some level of just never answering that question, or do you feel like you're on you're doing what you can to give back.

LAKE: One on a very personal level, but I also think it might be true for a lot of people. I think that question never ends. You know, I was mentioning earlier in the question just before about, being in the redwoods this winter, walking in Mendocino, where I grew up.

And like, that's the question I brought, like, am I doing enough? Am I doing enough? What more can I be doing? I really want to serve the planet at the highest level and my community.

And that question was haunting me like, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. And like, is it enough? And what more can I doing? Or, you know, like strip me down here, like, you know, it's just my best offering.

So, I don't know, I don't know if that question ever ends, but like, what I do think it's important is to keep asking it. It's not maybe like, you ever get an answer or you arrive somewhere. I think the key is just to keep asking it and keep checking in so that you maybe make an adjustment or you, you know, that you continue to find that alignment by listening inside.

So, you know, I mentioned earlier that I, at one point did a lot of artwork, I did sculpture work, and I loved it. And it was sculptures about nature stories and how to connect with nature. So the theme was there in the artwork. But there did come a point when I got like, this isn't this isn't working right now because I was working in metal sculpture, doing bronze, and I'm like, I'm extracting metal to make my art. And that I'm not saying people shouldn't be doing that. I'm talking about myself just for me. I couldn't sit with it anymore.

And so and it started bringing up all these questions and the whole story told about, you know, Obama's administration and the climate and all of that, all that was happening at the same time because of like, questioning my career choice, you know, and I love doing art and I love art, but for me, and I love artists, I don't want to. I think art is critical to climate work. So I'm not making any comment. I'm just saying for me, that was part of my process of like dismantling something I was doing because it was no longer the biggest calling that I had.

And it was like, really uncomfortable. But that discomfort and following that led me to starting the Women’s Environment and Climate Action Network. So I think to respond to your question, like, I think it's like an endless process of enjoying what we're doing. I feel confident what I'm doing, but I'm always asking the question because it's part of the evolutionary process of, you know, being with the Earth is like for me, asking, what more do you want from me? How am I operating reciprocity with you? How can I live at the highest level of what resources I am as a human being and the gifts that I have to give?

But it's sort of like, not like I thought about, like, what are my gifts and what can I do? I'm not sure I could wind my way into where I'm at, thinking, there. I'm sure maybe that works for other people, but for me it's more like, what can I give?

And then forming myself into that versus like thinking, well, what am I good at? Because like, I don't to this day, I'm not sure what I'm good at. Right?

I think that I have ideas about what I'm good at, but I'm super interested and passionate about the question of what am I giving and is it being effective. And so that might be another way for listeners to sort of wrestle with it. I mean, we all have different ways.

So maybe it's, you know, works for some people not. But like for me it's about what can I give and what do I have access to giving and how could I build that to give that which I'm hearing is something that would great healing for the earth and people.

RAY: There's so many ways that what you're offering here is a revision of the question, circles back to other things you've said in this conversation. And I want to just kind of surface those a little bit because I want to just drive them home a little bit. One is this idea that you are asking a question of what can I give? Not what are my gifts? They're just slightly different from each other. Right. And the what is my gifts? Question is sort of about me. What am I good at? Whereas what can I give is about what is the healing that's needed from the world, sort of letting the world speak that first and I that shift is ever so slight, but it is definitely more aligned with the worldview you're talking about, about centering the Earth's needs, centering the healing of the Earth, making sure that we're coming from a perspective of reciprocity with the earth, not just taking from the earth.

So I want to just sort of underscore that what you're offering there really does reiterate what you just said earlier about that. And I also really love the fact that you're not doing it. You're sort of like doing it the other way around and that it's a constant question for you. It's never, it's never answered. There's sort of this always a sense of maybe there could be more, maybe I could do more. Maybe I need to examine this question again. Ask the Earth again. Is there more that I can offer or should I shift the direction?

And it's really just a messy, dynamic process. It's never settled. And I think, I really think that's a gift, what you're offering, because I think that there's an expectation that you're sort of facing this locked in purpose once and for all, and just go for it and have that existential anguish be settled.

And and you're saying, nope, it's going to keep being uncomfortable and into eternity and, and, and lean into that and find some peace with that, because that is actually the work. So I really love that. I, I'm going to, ask you a question.

This is sort of like the give the advice opportunity, right? Like, what would I just say kind of thing? But a lot of folks who might be listening, or at least the sort of perspective I'm coming from in creating Climate Magic and thinking about what does my students come to me with, or what do I what do I sense in them that they need? Is this sort of something I don't do will matter.

And I use this concept throughout this show about pseudoinefficacy, this social psychological term that basically says the problem is are portrayed as so big and we are portrayed as so small and having so little power that nothing that matters is doable and nothing I do matters. And this kind of, you know, I'm so small and it's so big scale problem. And you beautifully, describe Ursula le Guin’s beautiful quote from when she had her acceptance speech for the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

This is a quote you write in your book, and I absolutely love it where she says, “we live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable. But then so did the right, the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”

And so I guess my question for you is, you know, what do you say to people who feel like nothing they do will matter and nothing that's doable will matter. The sort of both/and of that or just that they give up because it's all going to be too slow. You mentioned earlier about giving up the hope that you will see the results of our work in our lifetime, but, you know, sort of as a last question for you, you know, what would you advise to people who say it's all too slow, I don't matter, I give up.

LAKE: Yeah. Well, a couple of things. One, I do want to also suggest that also things can happen quickly so you know.

RAY: Oh I love it. Yeah.

LAKE: So let's, let's not forget that. So you know, there can be like I've seen and studied as many scholars have, that when you look at social change or even revolutions, things are going along, things are going wrong and they're building up and things are bubbling up and there's all these sort of disparate things, and you don't know how everything's connected and people are working on it. All of a sudden there's a tipping point and there's change.

So let's not forget also that that can happen as well. So I think there's some things that we might not see in our lifetime, and other things that could surprise the heck out of us can happen like that.

RAY: Just got goosebumps. Thank you. So just just to.

LAKE: Say that those two realities are also true, and have happened historically. So, I think that it's just being open minded to how change happens. And it's also important for people who are thinking like nothing really matters, nothing can really help. Look at what's going on. Like a lot of people are engaged in the climate crisis from every angle. We've talked about a ton of people are working on it.

And maybe like, you know, we keep seeing this is the hottest year on record and on and on it goes like, yes. But also I was just reading a report about like the scientists are telling us we still could get back down to 1.5 degrees C, we can still do that. It's not scientifically impossible. Now, this is the tricky part, which is where I have, like, a lot of fierce rage is that, you know, the, financial institutions. I mean, there's some articles even out about how they're already planning for 2.0 or higher degree world to their financing around that, or, you know, even the lack of ambition at the UN climate talks around keeping the 1.5 degree guardrail. For me, this is infuriating because scientifically it is possible.

But if we have a worldview or a mindset that, well, this is what's going on and everybody just sort of robotically goes forward, we're creating that future. And for me, the future is a description of the present. What we are doing now, every living breath, every thought we have, every action we take is writing the future.

And so it's waking up to the fact of our own agency, every single human being deciding that we're going to have a different future than the one that the, you know, business as usual, just looking at, the culture never changing. Of course, horrible things will happen if we keep doing that. But look at Mother Earth. Look at the science the natural sciences are telling us. The scientists are telling us we could have a different future.

So that means if you're saying, I can't do this or it doesn't matter, like you're part of the problem, you need to be managing your own worldview and your own psychology, your own ontology about like the fact of, wow, if I wake up, then the next person can wake up and it's kind of contagious. Hope is very contagious and action is very contagious. So like we also need to remember that, a lot of people who are on the frontlines, like, you know, of war are on the front lines of a genocide or front lines of their community being torn apart. They don't have the privilege to say, I don't play the game, I'm out.

So remember also that that voice of doubt or saying I can't do something is also a misplaced privilege. Like if you're privileged to say whatever, like you probably, you know, are not directly being impacted where you're trying to stop someone from hauling off your mother and father or your child, like you're going to fight because you're going to say, like, I can do. So now I'm just sitting on the sidelines as one of my family members being hauled off.

RAY: So like it also brings back to your point about scarcity and abundance, right? Like if you don't recognize that you have an abundance of privilege to use and give in this moment, then you know, by saying, by abdicating, right, by abdicating agency, like you just said, sort of unnecessarily abdicating agency, that's the sort of sense of false scarcity again. Right? Like I don't have anything to give. I don't matter. Right.

This kind of learned helplessness or whatever, like I'm not and you're saying I call you out. That's just a mindset. There's a mindset of scarcity as a mindset that you have nothing to offer and that you are okay just taking well.

LAKE: And also I think that we have to remember, as many people have pointed out, you know, just again, looking at what's happening in the United States, but it's true around the world. That part of authoritarian, strategies and the rise of authority in governments is to create so much chaos and so much attack that it makes you feel overwhelmed and helpless, and then you begin to, already give up things that you shouldn't give up yet, you know, you've already given over to the authorities before they've even said anything to you. So we have to remember that in this particular moment, we're also experiencing that very heavily. Like, I can't do anything. Look at all the stuff like that's the point.

And so we have to say, no, I do have agency. I'm still standing. I'm going to collect with my community. I'm going to be with the groups that I'm in alignment with and stand up.

And so there's that, that. But I also want to talk about it like a smaller piece just to, to close out is that, you know, also everyone can do something and nothing's too small. And that's really important. Maybe you're not going to go be in an organization. Maybe you're not going to go march. We were not going to go like start some project.

But what people need to also understand we've made, we were made to believe that that's true. But the fact is that if someone brings, you know, some homemade cookies to an action and then leaves because it's not their place to be, they're standing outside on the street, that is everything. Because that cookie and that nurturance and that sort of care feeds those people hugely. You know, people writing a poem that lifts our hearts and spirits while we're doing this frontline work. It matters. It matters hugely.

So. Or articulating things in a way that inspires us to keep going on. It being at home, like, so you can't even leave your house for whatever reason. You know, you can write a letter to your elected officials. There's so many ways, you know, if you're caretaking for children and just being there with them and being present with kids who are really afraid right now, there is literally no end to what one person can do, and no act is too small.

That is a reality. The only thing I think we can't do is give up or say, I don't matter or nothing matters. That's the only refusal I have because it's just not true.

RAY: I can't imagine a better way to end. So thank you for that. Is there anything else you'd like to say? You feel like you haven't had a chance to share?

LAKE: This has been such a rich conversation. You're a great thought partner. Conversation partner. Thank you for having your beautiful podcast that you've put together.

And thanks so much for everything.

RAY: You've just listened to my conversation with Osprey Orielle Lake, author of The Story is In Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis. You can find show notes at KHSU.org. I'm Sarah Jaquette Ray. And thanks for listening to Climate Magic.

Produced at Cal Poly Humboldt.

___________

Questions

1. Your work has been to bring a feminist and indigenous lens to climate advocacy. How does mainstream climate advocacy often fail to include these perspectives, and why is it so important? 

   1. What is the Women’s Empowerment Index and how does it help us think about climate change? 

2. You describe a book that defines imperialism and even capitalism as “the consuming of another’s life for one’s own private purpose or profit”-- as a kind of cannabalism. Anishinaabe environmental activist Winona LaDuke also calls this the “Wendigo economy” which “destroys its mother.” What is this concept of the wétiko, and how does this indigenous perspective shed light on what is happening around us? 

3. The subtitle of your book is about how worldviews can help us in the climate crisis. What do you mean by that? What is a worldview, and why does it have so much power?

4. You write, “By embracing our Origin Story of the universe on a regular basis through educational, spiritual, artistic, and personal practices, we have an opportunity to understand that we are kin to all of life in every way possible. Do I think living with this worldview will ‘solve’ all the injustices and environmental crises of our time? Quite simply, no. But I do propose that by regularly integrating science-based and cultural Origin Stories into our lives, there can be no misconception of separation.”

   1. You’re speaking about how our lack of awareness of pre-colonial connection to the land shapes our lives now. How can we begin to remember our interconnection?

If you’re joining me right now…

5. What are some of the policy applications of these worldview insights? 

   1. What are the environmental and climate reasons for getting more land back into the jurisdiction of indigenous peoples?
   2. How about reparations– what is that, and why is it an important climate action?
   3. The commons/commoning, p 226
   4. Rights of Nature
   5. You attended COP30 in Brazil in 2025. What did you take away from that experience? Based on that experience, what would you say we have achieved so far in terms of changing mindsets and implementing policies aligned with them? And what is the work ahead? 

6. This show, Climate Magic, really tries to focus on the role of emotions, our hearts and minds, in helping us address climate change and the polycrisis. Can you explain why that might be a feminist thing to do?

   1. Is caring for the earth feminine? Is there a masculine way of caring for the earth? Does it align with people’s actual gender identity, or is it more about feminine and masculine forces or essences, which are in us all? 
   2. And how can we get people who don’t identify as female, much less feminist, to lean into caring more about the earth? 

7. You write about “grasping the epic nature and gift of our existence”; this couldn’t be a better definition of what I think of when I imagine a definition of “Climate Magic.” What does this entail, and why is understanding our lives as an epic gift so important for the planet? 

8. You reference this famous quote in your book often attributed to the cultural theorist Fredric Jameson: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism,” and ecological folks replace that last bit with “the end of a fossil-fuel world.” 

   1. Why is that easier for people, do you think? And why is this lack of imagination about what could be so harmful? 

9. On this show, I talk a lot about this concept of pseudoinefficacy– that the scale of problems just feels too big and impossible to address, we just give up and accept things as they are. The expression I often hear is “nothing I do will matter, and nothing that matters is doable.” 

   1. What do you say to people who feel overwhelmed by all the problems? 
   2. How do you avoid being overwhelmed by the amount of problems that seem impossible to fix? 
   3. Ursula leGuin’s acceptance speech for the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters: “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable– but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”
   4. What do you say to people who give up because it’s all just too slow? “How do we generate and demand policies that are really needed to meet this moment if only a narrow path of incrementalism and dangerous compromise are offered?” It feels like this narrow path of doing tinier and tinier things, and compromising on so many ideals, is just getting narrower by the day. Is incremental change our only option? Will we ever see the outcomes of these efforts toward climate justice?

10. You write that you hope these crises we’re facing will help us all become the Earth’s “immune system rising to protect and defend her.” Typically, we hear of humans being the virus, not the Earth’s immune system. What is this reframe you’re doing here, situating humans as Earth’s immune system? Why is it so important to include humans as a healing force in this metaphor? 

11. Words– page 278. 

    1. Language revitalization as a climate action?

12. What else?

INTRO

Today’s show pulls the curtain back on what it’s been like for a major mover and shaker in the climate justice space to figure out their Climate Magic, and to advocate for communities most vulnerable to climate change. That mover and shaker is the founder and director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International, Osprey Orielle Lake. Osprey is also the author of a recently published book, The Story Is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis. 

I wanted to bring Osprey on to the show to share how she came to figure out her climate magic– spoiler alert: it’s a neverending journey. And to continue this the conversation from the last Climate Magic episode with Joseph Henderson, which was about masculinity and climate change, on the question of women and climate change, which is the driving purpose of Osprey’s whole life.

Osprey helps us understand why women should be at the forefront of climate efforts, and why they are uniquely vulnerable to climate disruption. We talk about people in power often use an ideology of false scarcity to hoard resources, what we can do to combat that idea, and how scarcity mindset can impact women uniquely. Instead of that ideology, or other merely technological solutions to climate change, Osprey offers a solution of the mind and way of being in the world: a worldview that she calls “a living cosmology” of kinship with the earth.

To her, this concept of worldview is the root of politics, and it’s where the real healing can happen. Whether that’s something we learn from indigenous worldviews, or that we implement or recover from our own ancestral knowledge, practicing kinship with the earth in a daily way is the most political act of intervention and resistance, she argues. That’s the heady stuff. We also just have a great time thinking about her own journey to figuring out how to feel useful in this work.

A little about Osprey and WECAN. She created WECAN to accelerate the global women's movement for the protection and defense of the Earth’s diverse ecosystems and communities. WECAN focuses on systemic change nationally and internationally with grassroots and frontline women leaders, policy-makers, and diverse coalitions.

Osprey is also the Co-Director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations, serves on the Executive Committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, served on the board of the Praxis Peace Institute, and on the Steering Committee for The UN Women’s Major Group for the Rio+20 Earth Summit.

Are you ready to think about the worldview at the root of our polycrisis, and how to tap the climate magic of a living cosmology in your own life? Let’s dive in.

Outro-

You’ve just listened to my conversation with Osprey Orielle Lake, author of The Story is In Our Bones: HOw worldviews and Cliamte Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis. You can find shownotes at KHSU.org. I’m Sarah Jaquette ray, and thanks for listening to Climate Magic.