Culture change to address climate change: Collaborations with Indigenous and Earth sciences for more just, equitable, and sustainable responses to our climate crisis

Abstract

What humankind actually requires is a climate change-a cultural climate change, a change in our thinking and actions-if we are to have any reasonable expectation that we might mitigate what increasingly appears to be dramatic plant and animal extinction [1]. Intercultural collaborations to understand the climate crisis Engaging both Indigenous and Earth sciences to address climate change challenges is increasingly accepted and promoted within mainstream scientific enterprises [2-4]. Intercultural collaborations are necessary to bring all relevant knowledge to bear on the pressing climate crisis and are opportunities to produce more just, equitable, and sustainable climate science and responses to climate change. Without cultural diversity in science "we pay an opportunity cost, a cost in designs not thought of, in solutions not produced" [5]. Indigenous Knowledges (see [6] for use of plural) represent intergenerational understandings and practices based on lifetimes of observing and interacting with the environment [7]. These rigorous knowledge systems are based on holistic, place-and experience-based observations, long-term monitoring , testing, hypothesizing, and evaluation developed over millennia. Because they focus on relationships within ecosystems that constitute the web of life, Indigenous Knowledges are keenly attuned to local changes in those relationships [1]. Earth sciences can complement Indigenous Knowledges by identifying the underlying and larger-scale causes of change and enabling prediction of future changes. Intercultural collaboration is about interacting-not integrating-between complementary but distinct knowledge systems so that the integrity of each remains intact.