Statement on Geoengineering from Faith Gemmill, Pit River/ Wintu and Neets’aii Gwich’in Athabascan from Arctic Village, Alaska and Executive Director of REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands).

Note: Faith Gemmill is a participant in Global Justice Ecology Project’s New Voices on Climate Change program

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“Alaska natives are hit first and hit hardest by catastrophic climate change. We believe that in order to address the crisis, we need to avoid false solutions such as geoengineering, and tackle the root causes of the crisis instead.

We as human beings are acting against natural laws and bringing on our own demise when we pursue technological and profit-driven schemes that do not seek to address the imbalances we’ve caused through our past actions. We need to stop assaulting the sacredness of life, and transform our attitude toward the natural world; we need to stop playing God.

Geoengineering is a political tactic to allow the causes of the current crisis – and therefore the crisis itself – to continue; there is no doubt that it will perpetuate our situation in Alaska. Geoengineering is a way for scientists to remain in denial and for governments to avoid responsibility.

A moratorium on any new fossil-fuel development would be one real solution to the ecological crisis; a moratorium on geoengineering would be a step in the right direction; it would steer those in positions of power toward facing the facts and implementing real solutions, such as ending fossil fuel development and immediately promoting clean, equitable, alternative sources of energy. Our survival as Indigenous Peoples is on the line, and we want real solutions.”

– Faith Gemmill, Director, REDOIL, 10-17-2010