This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is Solvable. I'm Ronald Young Jr.

Last month, I spoke with Dr. Adrian King, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and notable

Native scholar and author. We talked about Native erasure. We covered everything from

visibility to land sovereignty to appropriation. But there was one part of our conversation

that didn't make it into the episode that I kept returning to when putting together this week's show.

If we're thinking about the future and the climate catastrophe that is coming and everything that just feels like it's about to come tumbling down around us,

indigenous knowledge is to me really offer us a pathway forward.

We talk about climate change a lot on this show, but not often enough with members of

indigenous communities. In fact, indigenous voices and native perspectives are noticeably

underrepresented in climate conversations overall on a global scale. But the NDN collective,

an indigenous-led organization based in South Dakota, believes that effective climate policy can only be achieved by considering all communities, perspectives,

and solutions.

Indigenous peoples across the world are the world's first climate scientists.

We were understanding ecosystems and how they worked long before Columbus set foot in the Americas, long before there was such a thing as a climate scientist.

Jade Begay is the director of the Indian Collective's Climate Justice Campaign,

and is Navajo and Tusuki Pueblo of New Mexico.

Much of her work centers around including indigenous voices and climate discussions

and finding opportunities to employ

indigenous solutions in the fight for our future.

I want to see climate policy informed by our people for our people.

We spoke with Jade as she was attending the United Nations Conference of the Parties, or the

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