There has never been a more important time to talk about the climate and its effect on the planet we call home. Multiple high-profile reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned us of what the future could look like if we continued our business-as-usual approach. It is clear that we need collective climate action now.

This is why, in partnership with the city of Miami Beach, the Aspen Institute is hosting Aspen Ideas: Climate, a multi-day gathering focused on global and local solutions to the climate crisis. Before we head to Miami Beach, we interviewed five Aspen policy program directors who will be joining us on the collective ‘why’ for an event like this and what they hope the audience will learn.

What is one thing you wished everyone knew about the potential solutions to climate change?

Before understanding potential solutions, everyone needs to understand what climate change is and what is really happening to our world. We need better access to education in our schools, and communities to raise awareness and depoliticize the reality of our changing world.

Solutions need to be rooted in Indigenous ways of knowing. The reality is, too often the conversation and philanthropic investment in environmental justice and climate change leaves out Indigenous and Native voices. This misstep perpetuates a colonial narrative that disregards ancestral ways of knowing and the erasure of the first caretakers of this land. Solutions that lack a cultural lens continue to promote systems failure. Our nation is witnessing a loss of access to traditional hunting and fishing grounds, an inability to grow traditional crops, disruption to sacred sites, and a lack of green spaces. Many policies affecting Native people are done in the name of conservation, without considering the cultural impact.

In a rapidly changing world, we have a collective responsibility to ensure that traditional forms of ecological knowledge are not only respected but utilized and preserved. It is imperative to include Indigenous voices and to recognize that traditional knowledge systems have existed since time immemorial and can be solutions to our most pressing climate issues.

Read the full article about climate change solutions at The Aspen Institute.