In August, the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe sued the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, alleging that the agency has violated the rights of manoomin (“good berry,” Ojibwe for wild rice) by allowing Enbridge to pump up to five billion gallons of water during construction of its expansion of the Line 3 oil pipeline.
“The legal argument is that manoomin, in our culture and world, is a living entity, like everything else,” stated Frank Bibeau, a tribal attorney representing the White Earth Band. “It has rights just like us to exist and flourish and multiply. And it’s not being watched out for.”
The action is part of a burgeoning Rights of Nature movement, which could radically redefine the legal standing of nature and thereby restructure how corporations, individuals, and governments engage with it. The movement represents a new frontier in the fight against climate change.
In April, a Rights of Nature lawsuit was filed in Florida on behalf of waterways, wetlands, and streams. It aims to block a large 1,900-acre housing development. In 2017, Māori in New Zealand won recognition of the Whanganui River as a living entity, granting it the same legal rights as a person. Later that year, the Ganges River and the Yamuna River and their ecosystems were also accorded legal standing in India.
AP Images
Indigenous leaders and their allies set up an Occupy-style camp on the lawn of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul in August 2021, to protest the Canadian oil-and-gas-transport company Enbridge, which is expanding the controversial Line 3 pipeline.
In 2016, Indigenous women initiated and led the Standing Rock movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The campaign brought together Indigenous peoples in one of the largest mobilizations in decades. Environmental organizations and settler allies showed up in solidarity, hosting actions in cities across the United States.
Meanwhile, Anishinaabe peoples including the Red Lake Nation and the White Earth Nation have been waging a fierce fight against the Enbridge Line 3 expansion. They have used a variety of strategies, including ongoing protests, nonviolent direct action, locking themselves to Enbridge equipment, blocking roads that are critical for construction, and filing lawsuits at the federal and state level. They sent a letter to President Joe Biden with more than 200 co-signers to highlight how the expansion violates centuries-old treaties that guarantee the right to hunt, fish, and gather wild rice in the lands, rivers, and lakes of territories that were ceded.
As President, Biden has put climate change at the center of his agenda, through new positions and appointments. Biden created the positions of U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (John Kerry) and National Climate Advisor (Gina McCarthy). He also created the position of Deputy Director for Energy Justice (Shalanda Baker) in the U.S. Department of Energy.
Additionally, Biden appointed Deb Haaland, an enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo, as Secretary of the Interior—the first time an Indigenous person has served in the Cabinet. An Indigenous-led, nationwide movement urged Biden to appoint Haaland.
Taken together, Biden’s appointments are not just window dressing. The history of the appointees’ previous work and their prior positions on topics vital to addressing the climate crisis not only augurs well for getting this job done but also puts forward an intersectional framework.
Of course, many individuals and groups were already engaging in activism against climate change through an intersectional lens. Yet the degree to which this is happening politically and in organizing work amounts to a seismic shift.
“You have been negotiating all of my life. In that time, you’ve failed to meet pledges, you’ve missed targets, and you’ve broken promises.”
In Brooklyn, New York, the group UPROSE, a multiracial, intergenerational grassroots organization that “promotes sustainability and resiliency through community organizing, education, leadership development, and cultural/artistic expression,” uses different media and methods to engage, inform, educate, and agitate.
UPROSE, which aims to move from an “extraction economy and towards climate solutions that put frontline communities in positions of leadership,” works on a broad range of issues. After Hurricane Sandy, it launched the Climate Justice Center, which works to engage the community in planning for a more resilient future. It also focuses on transportation justice, renewable energy, and organizing youth.
In the Bay Area, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network organizes to shift from an extractive economy that subsidizes oil, gas, and the military, and concentrates wealth and power, to a regenerative economy focused on clean, local, renewable energy, jobs, and climate resilience. Locally, the group opposes expansion of the Chevron oil refinery and the transport of coal through the Bay Area. It has offered workshops for thirteen- to seventeen-year-olds on topics ranging from social and environmental justice, to fundraising and communications.
Biden’s record on climate change is far from perfect. For example, he has not nixed Enbridge Line 3, despite the persistent, tenacious organizing and protests of the Anishinaabe, the Red Lake Nation, the White Earth Nation, and environmental groups. And contrary to Biden’s pledge to “get rid of fossil fuels,” drilling approvals for oil and gas on public lands have increased during his administration.
That said, many of his administration’s policies do show that he is responding to the constant pressure of progressives within the halls of Congress and in groups organizing on the ground. Before he was elected, Biden established the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force to make recommendations regarding climate change. It was co-chaired by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and John Kerry, and included people involved in drafting the Green New Deal.
Examples abound of the work of progressive representatives to address the climate crisis, often taking an intersectional approach. Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, has joined the protest against Enbridge Line 3 numerous times and called on Biden to stop construction. On September 4, Omar joined Democratic Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Cori Bush of Missouri, and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts in a roundtable discussion with Indigenous activists on treaty violations.
Omar also helped launch the Global Alliance for a Green New Deal in July. The group’s founding document puts forward an intersectional approach, stating its intent to pursue “social, racial, and environmental justice” and in global solidarity. The Global Alliance aims to ensure that key tenets of the Green New Deal form the foundation in the new COVID-19 economy.
Representative Bush, who introduced the “Unhoused Bill of Rights” in July 2021, slept outside the U.S. Capitol for four nights, lobbying for an extension to the eviction moratorium. She connected the dots, characterizing the moratorium as a climate justice victory, arguing that being homeless would expose people to the unhealthy air quality resulting from the wildfires in the West, heat waves in the Northwest, and floods in Tennessee.
Bush also underscored the relationship to health, noting that, during a pandemic, being unhoused also makes it harder to access clean water and abide by COVID-19 health measures, as a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study published in August found.
On August 30, the Biden Administration recognized the relationship among these issues, opening a federal Office of Climate Change and Health Equity.
The push to elect candidates who seek meaningful action on climate change is afoot not only in the United States but also in Canada, where Anjali Appadurai is currently running for office in Vancouver, British Columbia. As a college student in 2011, Appadurai gave a powerful speech as a youth delegate to the United Nations climate conference COP17.
“I speak for more than half the world’s population,” she began. “We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall. But our interests are not on the table.” She said of the global political response to climate change, “You have been negotiating all of my life. In that time, you’ve failed to meet pledges, you’ve missed targets, and you’ve broken promises.” Her concluding demand: “Get it done.” Now she is taking her energy and her commitment to climate change to political office. She is not alone among youth advocates.
In the United States, the Sunrise Movement, which has been lobbying intensely for action on climate change and was part of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force, is organizing to support young candidates running for local and state offices in 2021 and 2022.
Both the Sunrise Movement and the Sierra Club are currently also grappling with reckonings within their respective organizations. The Sunrise Movement has been accused of “tokenizing” its members of color for political advantage. The Sierra Club, meanwhile, allegedly covered up instances of misogyny and sexual misconduct. Hopefully, these organizations will emerge with a stronger sense of the work that needs to be done to ensure racial and social equity.
With regard to youth organizing, there are also the groups Zero Hour and NextGen America, formerly known as NextGen Climate, founded by Tom Steyer in 2013 to mobilize people under thirty-five to vote.
And, of course, notable youth activists including Xiye Bastida, Isra Hirsi, Vanessa Nakate, and Greta Thunberg have become an influential powerhouse on the global stage, taking action to address the climate crisis through a variety of approaches. As the climate crisis continues to intensify, so will the impact of these organizations and individuals pushing for necessary change. It is a moment for all hands on deck.