Cool Ideas for a Long, Hot Summer: Indigenous Sustainability

In our miniseries Cool Ideas for a Long, Hot Summer, we’re working with Arizona State University’s Global Futures Lab to highlight bold ideas about how to mitigate and adapt to climate change. The miniseries has explored how economics can be used to advance environmental justice, how solar-powered canoes can protect the Amazon from deforestation, and how refugees create communication networks to respond to climate change.

On the final episode, host Kimberly Quach is joined by ASU professor Melissa K. Nelson. Nelson shares her thoughts about the impacts of climate change on Native American communities, agriculture, and what can be learned from Indigenous sustainability practices. 

Resources: 

See more of Melissa K. Nelson’s work on her website. 

Listen to the Cultural Conservancy’s Native Seed Pod, a podcast hosted by Nelson about Native foodways, ancestral seeds, and traditional ecological knowledge, and visit their Native Foodways page. 

Visit the Native American Food Sovereignty Alliance and the Traditional Native American Farmers Association websites to learn more about Indigenous farming techniques.

Learn more about indigenous practices and environmental sustainability by reading Traditional Ecological Knowledge Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability edited by Melissa K. Nelson and Daniel Shilling. 
Check out the other episodes in our Cool Ideas for a Long Hot Summer mini-series!