Winona LaDuke lecture

Winona LaDuke gave a talk today entitled "Indigenous Thinking about a Post Carbon, Post Empire Economy." It would have been better if I'd posted that before the talk...oops. Anyway, she was a powerful speaker and a very inspiring woman. She advocated for a cyclical worldview rather than the linear one we currently ascribe to, arguing thinking in cycles is the way to sustainability. I highly recommend her book All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. I read it freshman year and I'm really glad to have been reminded of it today because it represents an important perspective on our relationship with the natural environment. During her talk, LaDuke detailed actions her community (the White Earth Reservation) has taken to grow local foods, install solar panels, and concentrate jobs on the reservation so people don't have to commute to off-reservation jobs. She said that if her community could do it, so could we. This really inspires me to continue working for change here at Wesleyan--I hope it does the same for you.