Transcript
[Suspenseful sci-fi music begins quietly] – Timor injuria by Loam Zoku – Composed and produced by Schuyler Lindberg and Y'honatex
Mendel Skulski 00:00
Fear is primal, ancient, and essential for survival. Without fear, all creatures would be oblivious to danger. The absence of fear is the inability to assess risk– to assess and predict hazards before they come to bear. And when a hazard is revealed, our catalogue of responses is reduced to only three– to fight, to flee, or to freeze. The crisis that we face is not purely ecological. It implicates all of our social structures, our systemic injustices, and our relationship to progress and exploitation.
Mendel Skulski 00:51
Around the world, the risks posed by the climate are distributed as unevenly as wealth and power of all kinds.
[Sci-fi music climaxes with deep bass roar]
There is no running from this problem, and inaction is no solution at all. So as we pause at the threshold of change, we may ask ourselves, what does it mean to fight for our future? Where will we find the courage?
Mendel Skulski 01:20
There are dragons lurking in every direction. And while you can't see their bodies, you can see their tracks. These are the Dragons of Climate Inaction. Their habitat is in our minds, and this podcast is your field guide. Welcome to Chapter Five: Force Majeure.
Introduction Voiceover 01:44
This is Scales of Change: a field guide to the Dragons of Climate Inaction. Join us as we learn to spot them in the wild, and discover how they can be disarmed. Produced by Future Ecologies on the traditional territories of the Lekwungen and WSÁNEĆ peoples, with support from the University of Victoria.
[Music stops]
Mendel Skulski 02:18
Hey, welcome back. I'm Mendel.
Adam Huggins 02:21
And I'm Adam. And we're back with Professor Robert Gifford.
Robert Gifford 02:25
Hello World.
Adam Huggins 02:26
If you've jumped into the deep end with this series, and you're not sure why on earth we're talking about dragons, you may want to pause this episode and listen to the introduction, entitled "A Theory of Change."
Mendel Skulski 02:39
Today, we're bringing you the dragons of perceived risk.
Adam Huggins 02:43
The operative word there, being, perceived. The risks, real or imaginary, aren't themselves shaping decision making. It's our assessment of the risks that makes all the difference.
Robert Gifford 02:55
Yes, I became sensitive to the idea of risk when I was teaching consumer psychology from a green perspective. But a lot of decisions that consumers make or don't make is because they're afraid something won't work. Usually a product won't work. What if it's not so much true now, but in the early days of electric cars, what if the battery doesn't work? Or what if I put solar panels on my house, and then I decide to sell the house and I don't get the, the repayment over seven years or whatever.
Mendel Skulski 03:24
So we named this genus Timor, which is just Latin for fear. These dragons are all of the different ways we might fear doing something and making our lives worse.
Adam Huggins 03:36
Starting off, there's the fear of functional risk, which is that some kind of change you might make simply won't work as you need it to, or, when you need it to. Electric vehicle range anxiety is a great example. And, as an electric vehicle owner myself, I can definitely attest to that sinking feeling when you suddenly realize that you're gonna get stuck on an off ramp and you have no juice left.
Mendel Skulski 04:01
Things are getting better, but the risk is, is still there. And there's also financial risk, which is pretty straightforward. And that's simply that some investment that you make, won't ever pay back that upfront cost. And that's a fear that we dealt with a little bit in Chapter Four: Driving Decisions.
Adam Huggins 04:20
Some of the dragons of perceived risk are more subtle, like temporal risk, which is the fear that a different choice will waste your precious time. This is also sometimes referred to as opportunity cost.
Robert Gifford 04:33
You know, one of the interesting myths that was disproven by the geography students several years ago is which, which is the fastest way to get from campus to downtown. So the standard default answer is driving – hellooo. And, and so what they did is, you have to leave your office here and be in an office down there. And by the time people walk to their car, find a parking place, bicyclists– and this is real, I mean, they did it– and bicyclists were getting there faster.
Adam Huggins 05:02
Which, if you're a cyclist you probably already knew. But apparently, this was news to the motorists.
Robert Gifford 05:08
So temporal risk is a drag. And if you believe that taking your bike would take you longer, it's just not true. [Laughs]
Adam Huggins 05:18
And then there is the Dragon of social risks, which is, like, maybe your pro-climate behavior would mark you somehow as a hippie, or, a lycra-clad bicycle dork.
Mendel Skulski 05:29
You know, it actually helps. And it's comfortable.
Adam Huggins 05:33
We love you just the way that you are, Mendel.
Mendel Skulski 05:35
Thank you.
Adam Huggins 05:36
The Dragon of Social Risks bears a resemblance to the Dragon of Social Norms. But, rather than just modeling our behavior on others, the Dragon of Social Risk is rooted in anxiety. It's a fear of the consequences of nonconformity, which, you know, can be extreme in certain places and times, like, for example, medieval England, or, middle school.
Mendel Skulski 06:01
And finally, there's the most basic risk, Timor injuria, the fear that our climate actions may bring us physical harm.
Robert Gifford 06:11
Yeah, I mean, I always just use a very prosaic example of riding your bike can be dangerous. And I've broken my own arm twice, by the way, riding my bikes.
Adam Huggins 06:19
I've taken a tumble or two off my bike over the years as well. No broken bones, fortunately, just bruised ego. Some, like Robert, would just brush themselves off and keep biking. But I know lots of folks who say they would ride their bike if they felt safer and more confident on the road. And, that's totally understandable.
Mendel Skulski 06:39
You know what gives you more confidence? Lycra.
Adam Huggins 06:42
[Laughs] I'll take your word for it. In any case, I guess I, I just tend to filter out any information suggesting that cycling could be dangerous.
Mendel Skulski 06:52
Which again, is why this episode is about perceived risk.
Adam Huggins 06:57
And, clearly, our aversion to physical risk can be a huge motivator at both an individual and societal scale. In just the past few months, we've seen incredible mobilizations of people acting to avoid physical risk. On the one hand, there's the Coronavirus, which forced us to establish entirely new ways of life once we recognized the very real threat to our personal health, and the health of the community at large. So, we hopped on zoom to ask Robert, why we've been able to adapt so quickly to COVID, and why the response has been so different when it comes to the climate.
Robert Gifford 07:31
Both COVID-19 and the climate are global issues. They're affecting people in Ecuador, Africa, Middle East, China, and Europe and North America. So they're similar in that sense of being extremely important global issues. Uh, I think the obvious difference between them is that COVID is much more immediate, happening right now, and also will go away. Whereas the climate issue, as Barack Obama said, is going to be the issue that defines the contours of the century. COVID is not going to define the contours of the 21st century. People will remember it, but its effects will stop pretty soon compared to the climate issues.
Mendel Skulski 08:16
Unsurprisingly, we tend to focus our concern on the most clear and present danger.
Robert Gifford 08:22
In the longer term, climate is a huge risk, and it's, I should say, to our health too, but not as immediately as the virus is. And this is tied into the different risks that we face. Most of us just walking to the grocery store aren't faced with being, you know, sort of hit in the face by the climate, but we are uh, actually afraid of little droplets hitting us in the face from the person walking next to us. So it's pretty hard in the short term, to be, uh, as concerned about the climate as about the COVID-19.
Mendel Skulski 09:00
And then of course, more recently, we've seen incredible numbers of people who are willing to gamble, not only with COVID, but direct physical violence in order to mitigate a whole other form of physical risk – protesting systemic police brutality, on mass.
Adam Huggins 09:15
Which highlights the fact that risk tolerance is sort of like triage. We have to take some risks in order to alleviate others.
Mendel Skulski 09:23
Totally. And it's still an open question, which of these massive societal changes are temporary, and which will continue to be part of our lives. But, we planned this episode before anyone had heard of shelter in place, and, long before George Floyd's death catalyzed a movement. So, we want to bring you a story of how, for some people, confronting the climate crisis doesn't pose physical risks sometime in the distant future. It can be a matter of life and death right now. So, please be advised. This episode will contain brief descriptions of violence and murder.
Adam Huggins 10:01
This is a story about a person who faced down enormous risks to fight for the climate, and, in the process, transformed herself into a literal force of nature. And to help tell it, we reached out to a friend and journalist, Sarah Sax.
Sarah Sax 10:17
Hey, thanks for having me on the show.
Adam Huggins 10:20
Hey, Sarah, would you mind introducing yourself for our listeners?
Sarah Sax 10:24
Sure. I'm a freelance environmental journalist who covers the intersection of forests, food, and people, with a big focus on tropical rainforests like the Amazon.
Mendel Skulski 10:35
And today, she's taking us into the southern Ecuadorian Amazon – into Pastaza.
[Woman starts singing in Sápara] – Sápara song by Nokakayara
Sarah Sax 10:46
Pastaza is a province in Ecuador. It's one of the most biodiverse places in the world and home to several indigenous peoples. I've been lucky to spend some time getting to know a leader and a land defender from one of these peoples, or nations, the Sápara. Her name is Gloria Ushigua.
Gloria Ushigua 11:03
Bueno, mi nombre es Gloria Ushigua y yo soy pueblo zápara de mujeres,asociacion de mujeres, la presidenta.
Translator 11:10
My name is Gloria Ushigua. I am president of the Sápara Woman's Association.
Gloria Ushigua 11:16
Nosotros, trabajamos sobre el cambio climático, lo que pasa, El mundo está cambiando mucho en Amazonía.
Translator 11:16
Our work here is in climate change. What is happening right now is that the world of the Amazon is changing rapidly.
Adam Huggins 11:29
Gloria has features in several of Sarah's articles for Bustle Magazine and Mongabay News.
Sarah Sax 11:37
Gloria, along with, I think the rest of the world, is becoming really concerned with just how devastating the effects of climate change are going to be. And being on the frontlines of ecosystem changes, Indigenous folks generally know that better than most.
Gloria Ushigua 11:53
Ahora no hay cómo. Coge Huracán. Viene todo fuerte.
Translator 11:55
There is no way to deal with it. There are hurricanes becoming stronger every year.
Gloria Ushigua 12:00
[Makes wind noise] Así le cae árboles.
Translator 12:02
More and more trees fall.
Gloria Ushigua 12:04
[Makes sound of a falling tree] Es peligroso. Por eso lo que tomamos eso. Porque todo el mundo comienza a preguntar que esta pasando.
Translator 12:05
It's dangerous. Our community is getting very concerned.
Sarah Sax 12:10
Sápara territory is deep in the rain forest and completely inaccessible by road. Travel is done by canoes on these small rivers. Planes are really only used to go back and forth to the city. So for the Sápara, falling trees are a serious liability.
Adam Huggins 12:28
So, Sarah, you referred to Gloria as a land defender. Could you break that term down for us?
Sarah Sax 12:34
Sure, yeah. To put it simply, a land defender is an activist who resists resource extraction, pollution, or any activity that threatens their rights to use or access their land. Often those lands are important ecosystems like rain forests.
Adam Huggins 12:49
Which is a, a pretty dangerous gig, right?
Sarah Sax 12:52
Absolutely. And especially so for black and indigenous people of color who disproportionately bear the brunt of extractivist projects around the world. The watchdog organization Global Witness has tallied more than 1,700 land defenders who have been murdered since the year 2000. And more than a third of those were indigenous.
[Soft choir music starts]
Mendel Skulski 13:12
So, why do you think Gloria chose this for herself? How did she get started on this path?
Sarah Sax 13:19
She's been active in her community since the death of her father Manari Basushigua who was widely seen as the last Sápara shaman. So as Gloria tells it, just before he died, he told his sons and daughters, I had this vision and I dreamt that you children would go out into the world and fight for our rights as a people and fight for our rights to our territory. And so all of the children of Manari have this very, very strong sense of responsibility to their land and their culture and their people.
Gloria Ushigua 13:49
Nuestra comunidad. Porque son 400.000 hectáreas.
Translator 13:50
Our community has 400,000 hectares.
Gloria Ushigua 13:54
Queremos mantener ahí sin explotación
Translator 13:56
We want to maintain it without exploitation, without deforestation.
Gloria Ushigua 14:01
No cortar, cortar no. No tener ni ganado.
Translator 14:03
No logging, no deforestation, no cattle.
Sarah Sax 14:07
After the death of her father, Gloria started organizing and became more and more of a local leader. And, in 2010, 2011, she made a couple of high profile trips to the United States and formed her own group, the Association of Sápara Women. And since then she's been really active in attending protests going to the UN, and she's taken on an international role of being a spokesperson for the Sápara.
Mendel Skulski 14:34
And the Sápara, along with six other indigenous nations in Pastaza, are standing up to all of the usual suspects– mining, logging, ranching, and especially petroleum interests in their ancestral territories.
Sarah Sax 14:48
So since the new constitution in 2008, Ecuador has legally recognized the land rights of indigenous peoples, but, the state still maintains a claim to everything beneath the surface – what they call the sub-soil rights.
Gloria Ushigua 15:02
Porque en nuestro territorio hay muchos petroleos.
Translator 15:04
In our territory, there is a lot of oil...
Gloria Ushigua 15:07
Todavía no está explotado
Translator 15:08
...and it has not been exploited yet.
Sarah Sax 15:11
And in 2010, then President Rafael Correa, tried to make a deal with the world, basically saying, we have all of these proven oil reserves, but the world is telling us not to exploit it. And we won't if you pay us not to.
Adam Huggins 15:24
Yeah, so this was when Ecuador essentially tried to crowdfund from other nation states, the billions of dollars that they could have made from the oil, like, pay us so that we can afford to keep it in the ground, and not destroy one of the most biodiverse places on earth.
Mendel Skulski 15:41
They called it the Yasuní-ITT Initiative, and it was a groundbreaking proposal, kind of like the new Ecuadorian constitution before it.
Adam Huggins 15:51
But unfortunately, other countries didn't exactly leap at the opportunity. Only a few hundred million dollars were pledged. So Ecuador scrapped the plan and decided to sell the oil after all.
Mendel Skulski 16:03
So they took development loans from China, with a promise to pay them back in barrels of crude oil.
Sarah Sax 16:10
In Ecuadorian politics, and arguably politics all over the world, there's this strong divorce, or, disjuncture between what is said about the importance of protecting nature, and then, what actually goes on in the background.
[Soft ominous music begins]
Adam Huggins 16:24
It's a timeless refrain.
Mendel Skulski 16:26
Enter the land defenders. In 2013, Gloria and over 100 other indigenous women walked from Puyo, the capital city of Pastaza, to Quito, the National Capital. 250 kilometers away. They marched and demonstrated in front of the presidential office, protesting the new oil concessions and rallying international support for their cause. But not all the publicity was good.
[Spanish guitar riff] Klezmatic by Erez Sussman
Sarah Sax 16:54
Gloria became the center of the smear attack from the government.
[Spanish guitar continues]
Sarah Sax 16:58
They put her face on public television with journalists making fun of her and comparing her to a monkey and making all of these crude jokes about her clothing– it was all incredibly racist and condescending
Gloria Ushigua 17:14
[Laughs] A primerita me pusieron en televisión.
Translator 17:16
So first, the government put me on television.
Gloria Ushigua 17:19
El gobierno, Rafael Correa me puso en televisión todo eso...
Translator 17:21
Rafael Correa put me on television.
Gloria Ushigua 17:24
ahi me dijo vestido de payaso esta indio!
Translator 17:26
He said, look at this Indian dressing like a clown.
Sarah Sax 17:30
But the intimidation didn't stop there. The Ecuadorian government declared her a persona non grata and accused her of being a domestic terrorist.
Gloria Ushigua 17:41
Está bien que me diga lo que sea.
Translator 17:42
Correa can say whatever he wants.
Gloria Ushigua 17:44
Pero yo como 5 balass en mi casa..
Translator 17:46
Afterwards, five bullets hit my house...
Gloria Ushigua 17:48
y me escondí.
Translator 17:49
...and so I hid.
Sarah Sax 17:51
Her home was attacked by rocks and drive by shootings. At one point she even fought off assailants who broke into her house and tear gassed her. But what's incredible about Gloria is how she just doesn't seem to get fazed by these threats.
Gloria Ushigua 18:07
Y no tenía miedo. Sabes por qué? Y si es que si estuviera es solo para mí, no - ya si tengo miedo. Claro que me va a acosar.
Translator 18:09
I wasn't afraid. Do you know why? It's like, if it were only about me, I would be afraid. Of course, I would worry.
Gloria Ushigua 18:19
Es que es para todos.
Translator 18:20
But this fight is for everyone.
Adam Huggins 18:24
So it seems like she has this ability to face this kind of danger, a level of physical risk that would seriously intimidate any of us under any circumstances. Part of that is probably just the kind of person that Gloria is, but it's also how she feels that she's part of something much bigger than just herself.
Sarah Sax 18:45
It seems like for her, the more she's also interacted with other groups that are facing similar difficulties, the more she feels a solidarity towards this larger movement. Part of what makes Gloria such an incredible person and a phenomenal leader is her ability to make human connections even across huge differences. So like, I've seen her talk to someone through four different translators from Kichwa to Spanish to Bahasa to an indigenous Indonesian language, and somehow she still manages to learn, to communicate the commonalities and their struggle, and to motivate them in this beautiful, optimistic way.
Mendel Skulski 19:25
Because for Gloria, finding common ground with a global community is critical to her mission.
[Guitar music stops]
Mendel Skulski 19:31
The Sápara are the smallest indigenous nationality within Ecuador.
Sarah Sax 19:35
Exactly. There's only 400 Sápara left and they're spread out over 400,000 hectares in the Ecuadorian Amazon. And each community only has a dozen or a few dozen people that live there.
Gloria Ushigua 19:47
Como gloria, yo pueda ser solo para mí. Y si puede tener miedo. Claro que nadie me van a a apoyar. Y ahora la lucha es para todos, todos, todos son humanos lo que vivimos. Alguien de apoyar pues. Alguien, de sacar de la cárcel.
Translator 19:51
As Gloria, I could be just for myself, but then I would be afraid that no one will support me. Instead, this fight is for everyone, every person alive. We all need someone to support. Someone to get out of jail.
Mendel Skulski 20:07
But in 2016, the threats to glory intensified. Things took a turn for the worse. And, ultimately, it cost her something irreplaceable. The life of her sister in law.
[Somber music begins]
Sarah Sax 20:21
They were working together in the fields, in the chacras, as they call it, planting Yuka, planting other crops and Gloria had to leave to go to a conference in the States. And a day or so later, her sister in law is found dead in the fields.
Gloria Ushigua 20:36
Primero mataron a mi cuñada en la chacra.
Translator 20:39
They killed my sister in law in the field.
Gloria Ushigua 20:43
Después, cuando todos salen.
Translator 20:46
They did it after everyone had gone. [Translator speaks over Gloria] Later that day, a lot of people were talking... because they thought they had killed me.
Sarah Sax 20:56
Some land defenders and other people who know Gloria think that it was a case of mistaken identity.
Adam Huggins 21:03
Already burdened with the loss of a loved one, Gloria would have to face the guilt of survivorship as well, knowing that the murder of her sister in law was intended for her. Her attackers would at least hope that, in her grief, she would abandon her fight.
Sarah Sax 21:19
But instead of stepping back and being defeated, she doubles her resolve. And this is actually a really common thread that I've seen, where there's often a point in which many of these indigenous leaders, especially if they're land defenders, come into the public gaze, and often have very, very traumatic, violent experiences, either to themselves or their loved ones. And it's interesting to me that very few then decided to step back and, kind of step back into security. Instead, many of these leaders become way more radical, way more invested, and really step up to the plate.
Mendel Skulski 21:56
And for Gloria, stepping up to the plate meant doing whatever it took to block the oil concessions. Environmental disaster is not hypothetical in Ecuador.
[Somber music shifts to swelling synthesizer melody] Timor injuria by Loam Zoku – Composed and produced by Schuyler Lindberg and Y'honatex
Adam Huggins 22:07
In the northern province of Sucumbíos decades of illegal dumping of crude oil and wastewater by Texaco, now Chevron, has been alleged to outweigh the Exxon Valdez spill by over 30 times. A class action lawsuit found Chevron responsible for $9.5 billion. As of today, they've paid nothing. And the lawyer who won the case had his passport seized and was put under house arrest in New York, a move which earned Chevron international condemnation for, quote unquote, judicial harassment.
Mendel Skulski 22:38
So Gloria knew how serious it was to keep the oil in the ground in her territory, and she hatched a strategy. It so happens that the provincial capital, Puyo, is neighbored by the tiny town of Shell.
Adam Huggins 22:53
Yes, that Shell. The town was founded by the Dutch oil company who abandoned it to local resistance in 1948.
Mendel Skulski 23:01
Its surviving function is as a landing strip, providing access by airplane to the remote corners of Pastaza.
Sarah Sax 23:09
Ecuador had just given the contract for the oil to China and Gloria got wind that there was a plan to send a group of engineers and seismologists into her territory. And Gloria has friends in Shell so she casually asks when the exploration team is planning to take off.
Gloria Ushigua 23:26
Dije está bien que lleven nomás, le dije. Y cuando van a entrar?
Translator 23:28
I asked when are they going to go?
Gloria Ushigua 23:30
Yo pregunté. Me dijeron mañana.
Translator 23:32
They told me tomorrow.
Gloria Ushigua 23:33
Qué hora? Las diez.
Translator 23:36
What time? 10 o'clock.
Gloria Ushigua 23:38
Ahí le compramos fósforo, vela
Translator 23:40
Then, we bought matches and a torch.
Sarah Sax 23:45
And then with a group of five other woman, she hides down the runway.
Gloria Ushigua 23:49
Porque el avión prende no más.
Translator 23:51
Because the plane was leaving soon.
Sarah Sax 23:54
It's important to note that these planes are really small. They're like five seater Cessnas They're tiny. You have to weigh yourself and everything you're taking on beforehand and you have to calculate the exact amount of gas you need. And you can't mess it up. Otherwise you were just stranded.
Gloria Ushigua 24:10
Después metieron todo, pero nos cercamos. Así estamos por abajo. Así, escondidas.
Translator 24:13
They started loading everything in, and we got closer. So we were hidden below the plane.
Sarah Sax 24:20
And as the plane is about to start going down the runway, Gloria and these woman run up to it with these burning torches and stop the plane from taking off.
Gloria Ushigua 24:29
El blume en el avion estaba para salir pues…
Translator 24:32
Just as it was about to take off...
Gloria Ushigua 24:34
y boom le entramos.
Translator 24:35
Boom, we entered.
Gloria Ushigua 24:37
No tenía puerta.
Translator 24:38
It had no door.
Gloria Ushigua 24:39
Le entramos con fósforo.
Translator 24:41
We jumped inside with the torches.
Gloria Ushigua 24:43
El Capitan. Yo le dije "callate vos no es territorio," le dije, para aterriza alla.
Translator 24:48
I said to the captain, shut up. This is not your territory.
Gloria Ushigua 24:52
“No es tuyo yo voy a aprender ya.”
Translator 24:54
Turn it off. Now.
Mendel Skulski 25:00
And with that, she blocks the exploration team from Sápara territory, and this is only one of the many tools at her disposal. In her fight to prevent oil extraction, Gloria takes direct action on all sorts of different levels.
Adam Huggins 25:14
She marches and demonstrates and mobilizes her global network.
Sarah Sax 25:19
She just keeps the pressure on and it works.
Mendel Skulski 25:23
At the end of 2019, the Chinese declared the Sápara and other indigenous resistance to be a force majeure, and they terminate their oil contract with Ecuador.
Adam Huggins 25:34
Force majeure, an insurance clause meaning an act of God. An unpreventable, unforeseeable circumstance.
Sarah Sax 25:43
It's something that's usually reserved for earthquakes, hurricanes, and things beyond human control. The Chinese basically said Sápara resistance to us drilling is simply too strong and it's not worth it.
Mendel Skulski 25:55
And so they canceled the billion dollar contract.
Gloria Ushigua 25:58
Bueno, gane
Translator 25:59
I won.
Adam Huggins 26:02
So today, Gloria is a legally recognized force of nature. She overcame public shaming, harassment, violence and even attempted murder to protect her home.
Sarah Sax 26:14
Exactly, yeah. Gloria is resolute that the Sápara are in control of their territory, that indigenous rights matter, and that the government may not override her rights in the name of resource extraction or development.
Gloria Ushigua 26:27
Eso es eso, es desarrollar?
Translator 26:29
So what does it mean to develop?
Gloria Ushigua 26:31
Contaminará?
Translator 26:32
To pollute?
Gloria Ushigua 26:33
que es el desarrollo para ti.
Translator 26:34
Is that development for you?
Sarah Sax 26:37
I think at the core of it, Gloria has keyed into the links between her fight for indigenous land rights and the global movement to take action against climate change. To her, both problems share a root cause of exploitation and justice and disconnection from the land.
Gloria Ushigua 26:54
Como nosotros no manejamos el dinero. Los que vivimos de nuestra tierra.
Translator 26:56
We don't handle money. We live from the land.
Gloria Ushigua 27:00
No, no compramos out come, entramos a la selva, cogemos fruta, sembramos, comimos…
Translator 27:02
We don't buy food. We go into the jungle– we pick fruit, we sow seeds...
Gloria Ushigua 27:08
único, lo queremos.
Translator 27:09
...we take what we need.
Sarah Sax 27:11
Her biggest goal is to simply protect her way of life and her culture which has been sustained for thousands of years.
Gloria Ushigua 27:18
El futuro para los para los niños no que están creciendo, ellos también pueden divertir igual como yo.
Translator 27:20
In the future, the children growing up today will be able to have fun just like me.
Gloria Ushigua 27:26
Pero aunque va a estar mucho cambio.
Translator 27:29
But they will see a lot of change.
Adam Huggins 27:35
Risk is just a fact of life for all of us. But the Dragons of Inaction aren't really concerned with risk itself, rather our perception of it. Our actions are determined by our outlook.
Mendel Skulski 27:50
And we could all take a few lessons from Gloria. Perhaps the secret to being unshaken by the dragons of perceived risk is just to have a stronger perception of the reward. To take advantage of our selective memories.
Sarah Sax 28:04
I had a chance to sit down in a cafe with both her and her close friend and colleague Rosa. And at one point when Gloria got up to get a drink, Rosa was telling me about some of the sketchy situations that they've been in. For example, on the frontlines, protesting and facing off against the Ecuadorian army in full riot gear, or rushing the presidential building to demand an audience with Rafael Correa. And this is Ecuador, and things get violent pretty quickly. For Rosa, who you might say is slightly more risk averse, the element of danger is front and center. And she's constantly worried about how Gloria could get hurt and lose an eye or worse. And in her telling of the story, a lot of it is focused around the physical danger. And then Gloria comes back, sits down, and starts to tell the exact same story of the protests. But as she tells it, things got intense, sure, and they were maybe a bit dangerous, but the focus is always on how amazing it felt to be there with everyone, right at the front, linking arms standing up for what they believe in. And it seems almost difficult for Gloria to remember the risk when all she wants to remember is the adventure.
Gloria Ushigua 29:18
yo soy Gloria porque y siempre te digo siempre estas cosas, no tengo miedo de luchar.
Translator 29:26
I am Gloria, and I am not afraid to fight for these things.
Gloria Ushigua 29:31
Y terminará ganando.
Translator 29:32
We will end up winning.
Sarah Sax 29:38
I should clarify that this fight isn't over for Gloria. The threat of oil has definitely not gone away– it's just shifted. While the Ecuadorian state is now renegotiating or canceling its contracts with the Chinese, they've also had significant interest from the Argentinians and from the Chileans. But when I asked her about it, she basically just laughed and said, oh, you know, if I can get the Chinese, I can definitely deal with the Chileans. They're basically just a boat ride away.
Gloria Ushigua 30:06
Esa es la lucha del pueblo zápara.
Translator 30:07
That is the fight of the Sápara people.
Adam Huggins 30:12
And, in the face of the biggest existential risk any of us have ever known, that is the fight of all people on Earth.
Mendel Skulski 30:23
From Pastaza, to Standing Rock, to Wet’sewet’en land defenders are standing up to forces of violent displacement, which are in turn driven by our global addiction to fossil fuels. They do this because they are deeply connected to the land. Because they want their children to grow up drinking clean water, and because they want to keep that carbon in the ground. Many of those on the frontlines are indigenous, black, and brown. Historically, these communities have faced the worst pollution and dispossession. In other words, the greatest risk. It really shouldn't be a surprise that leaders from these communities are willing to accept the additional risks that come with being a vocal land defender.
Adam Huggins 31:09
Increasingly, though, white people and settlers from all backgrounds are joining in these struggles. In some cases, in solidarity for justice, and in others, for a deep love and attachment to the very same lands and waters. We'll be discussing place attachment in the next chapter. But for now, I think it's worth asking– why has it taken so many of us so long to recognize that the tremendously unequal distribution of risk in our society puts us all at risk in the long run?
[Music changes to mellow electronic music] Fennessey by Lloyd Richards
Robert Gifford 31:41
I think as we look forward, we face, uh, conflicting risks. One is doing nothing or very little, certainly has one kind of risk to ourselves and to the environment. But sometimes standing up for what we should be doing in the face of forces that don't want change to happen is another kind of risk. And so, in some ways, we're faced with a choice, uh, this risk or that risk? A risk to ourselves for not doing something, or maybe sometimes risk because we have done something.
[Music intensifies with percussion]
Mendel Skulski 32:20
More and more of us are realizing that the risks of inaction outweigh the risks of action.
Adam Huggins 32:27
As we face the climate crisis, the risks we take will range wildly, from things as prosaic as biking to work, to putting our lives at stake for what we believe in.
Media Clip 32:40
[Protestors chanting] What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now! ... Don't shoot, hands up, don't shoot!...
Mendel Skulski 32:45
But the more of us who take that risk together, the more of us who join hands,
Adam Huggins 32:50
figuratively, for the time being,
Mendel Skulski 32:52
the safer it will be for all of us. It will feel less like a leap of faith and more like an adventure.
[Music grows louder]
Adam Huggins 33:07
This has been Chapter Five of Scales of Change, a field guide to the Dragons of Climate Inaction. We'll be back next week with Chapter Six: Relatives of the Deep.
Mendel Skulski 33:19
Scales of Change is a production of Future Ecologies with support from the University of Victoria.
Adam Huggins 33:26
In this chapter, you heard: Robert Gifford, Gloria Ushigua, her interpreter, Claudia Cuesta, myself, Adam Huggins,
Sarah Sax 33:35
me, Sarah Sax,
Mendel Skulski 33:37
and me, Mendel Skulski. Special thanks to Carolina Loza Leon, and thanks to Simone Miller, Suzanne Ahearn, and Anne MacLaurin. Besides discovering the Dragons of Inaction, Robert Gifford is the author of the textbook, Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice.
Adam Huggins 33:56
Sarah Sax is a freelance environmental journalist. You can find her work at sarahlsax.com.
Mendel Skulski 34:03
And Gloria Ushigua is president of Ashiñwaka, the Sápara Women's Association. You can read more about her in Sarah's piece in Bustle Magazine, or through the organization, Frontline Defenders.
Adam Huggins 34:15
Our theme song and composition for this chapter is by Loam Zoku. Other music in this episode was contributed by IKSRE, Blear Moon, Nokakayara, Krackatoa, 3eese, Erez Sussman, and Lloyd Richards.
Mendel Skulski 34:32
You can tweet at us or follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Future Ecologies.
Adam Huggins 34:37
To learn more about each one of the Dragons of Inaction, including silly things like the Latin names we gave them, go to futureecologies.net/dragons.
Mendel Skulski 34:46
Alright, that's it for this one. Bye for now.
[Music fades out]
Transcribed by https://otter.ai and edited by Victoria Klein