Women at the Frontlines of Climate Justice

This transcription was made in part by an automated service, in some areas it may contain errors.

 

Verda: [00:00:00] This season of break some dishes is made possible by human scale corporation.

Welcome to break some dishes, defying

Jon: the rules to inspire design.

Verda: I am Berta Alexander.

Jon: And I'm John Rasner. Berta. How are you? Great. How are you doing, John? I am hanging in there in the midst of a ridiculous heat wave here in the northeast.

Verda: I'm the opposite. Absolutely. Freezing this morning. San Francisco there.

Yeah. Thank

Jon: God we have the weather. It gives us something to talk about. Right?

Verda: Right,

Jon: right. What else would we talk about? Well, hey, I'll tell you what else we would talk about. We would talk about our latest guest. Oh, yeah. Right.

Verda: Oh yeah. That, yes, that our podcast. Yes.

Jon: We [00:01:00] would talk about our podcast.

Thankfully, we have an outlet. We have, we have a vent for all of our climate frustrations, Virta. We're really pretty fortunate when you think about it.

Verda: Thank goodness.

Jon: Yeah, and so this next guest that we are going to be talking to shortly, I found her within a really amazing article that I read recently.

In the online publication of Inside Climate News and the article focused on a topic, I guess I'm a little bit embarrassed I hadn't heard about before, but focused on a topic called eco feminism. And really that's the first time that I had ever heard of it. Uh, but I was familiar Virta, as you are, as you know, we've been really talking a lot about this.

But, um, specifically I am familiar with the connection between climate change and extractive economics and, and patriarchal cultures and how that interacts with women's health and wellness. So this article [00:02:00] introduced me to Osprey, Oreo Lake, and the organization that she founded called We Can, which stands for Women's Earth and Climate Action Network.

So, Virta, today we're gonna talk to Osprey.

Verda: Yeah, that's exciting. I'm, I'm really looking forward to rounding out our season. As many of you know, we've been. Doing a deep dive into women, women in design, women breaking dishes for various reasons. And we both knew that we wanted to bring this conversation back to climate change because that's where it all started for me and well for both of us, and break some dishes.

We were really looking at plastic pollution, climate change, many of the world's issues. And I kept coming back to inequity and specifically inequity between. Men and women and, and women in our society. And it's, we're half the population. We're not the minority. We are half the population. Yeah. And I have to keep reminding myself of that.

And so today, and, and our next episode, we're going [00:03:00] to dig in a little bit into how climate change impacts women's lives and how women are really at the center of solutions and the challenges. Indeed. Are you ready to talk to Osprey? Let's

Jon: do it. Let's do it.

Here we are with Osprey, Orle Lake Osprey. Thank you again for, for joining Virta and Me Osprey. Uh, founded an organization called We Can Back in 2009, Osprey. That's right. And so, Osprey, we've, we're here with you today because as verus said earlier, we've really been focused this season on women, women in design, women in sustainability.

Um, and so we really wanna talk to you today about some of the global issues that you have tackled with. We can. Um, and these are, I think, unique in how [00:04:00] your perspective is formed, because what happens in the northern part of the globe is very different than what happens in the southern part of the globe.

And so I'm really excited to kind of dig into some of this with you. And I think a great starting point would be for you to take a moment and share your origin story and sort of what inspired you to start. We can back in 2009.

Osprey: Well, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me to be on your podcast, and I'm excited to be here with you both.

So actually before I started the, uh, women's Earth and Climate Action Network, or we can, I was actually doing artwork. I did sculpture work. So I really love hearing about your audience being involved in design. Um, and uh, that's definitely a topic we could go into at some point. But

Jon: a creative verta

Verda: exciting, I do sculpture as well.

Osprey: Oh, I didn't know that. Very exciting.

Jon: Kindred spirits.

Osprey: Yes, I think that creative spirit is needed right now. More than [00:05:00] anything. We need good imaginations and lots of creativities to get out of a lot of these, you know, what scholars are calling a poly crisis. Um, but in, um, so I was going along doing my art.

I also have written some books and, um, I was walking in the Redwood Forest in Northern California near my home. And usually that's a place of, of peace and quietude to go for a walk in nature. But, you know, I was reading more and more about the climate crisis and, and, uh, there had just been the next round of climate negotiations that were in Copenhagen and there was a new administration in the United States, and there was a lot of hope that maybe things would change and be a lot more ambitious action from governments that did not happen.

And to make a long story short, you know, I, you know, I think sometimes. Projects or ideas have our name on them, and I just realized I needed to do everything I could for nature. I think like many of us, I love nature, all different aspects of nature. Thinking about future generations [00:06:00] having lots of concern throughout my life, and I started doing research.

And looking at what could I do that might, you know, change the dial or have some impact and, um, you know, at this stage there's a lot more information. No, but in 2009 it was relatively new to really connect, uh, women's leadership and the climate crisis and really seeing that it was a huge leverage point.

And I'm just gonna give a few stats. I won't go into it deeply, but I think it's important that it's not just sort of intuitive, which it is important that we have gender balance and, um, equity and leadership and governance, but also, you know, things that are, we're finding out like that with a one unit increase in something called the Women's Political Empowerment Index, which just looks at country by country.

What are women's, what is women's agency in a country? Do they have mobility? How are they doing economically? Are they socially engaged? All these sorts of things with just a one unit increase, there is, um, at leads to an [00:07:00] 11.51% decrease in carbon emissions, which is huge. Um, and, um, you know, women are primarily responsible in developing countries for, uh, food production.

And if you don't have women in these programs and they're not allowed to do their work, they're not successful in terms of food production. And I could go on and on, but the thing that really excited me is like, wow, women's leadership is really making a difference and that it was really underserved under reported.

And, you know, due to gender inequ inequality all over the world, it continues to be, you know, a real issue. Even though women are making huge strides and leading a lot of community led solutions leading on, um, legislation that is better for the environment, we still see them not in the forefront, you know, of the headlines or.

Put into positions where they could be doing more. Um, at Cop 29, which was just, uh, last year, Naja Bijan, there were 78 were leaders that were there [00:08:00] attending the conference. Um, only eight of them were women. So there's like this disproportionate fact of, uh, the role that women were playing, the success that they're having, and yet they're not being visualized and uplifted in the manner that they should be.

Hence the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network and how we could uplift women's solutions and support a network globally of women everywhere from the top levels of business and government to the grassroots.

Verda: You know, John, just to digress a little bit and to bring back our book, we've been reading this book.

Yeah. The, this entire season. It was one of our earliest guests suggested this book. Have you seen this Invisible Women Data, data bias in a World designed. For men, and it's speaking to exactly what you were just saying. And one of the things that we've looked at is women in leadership, in design and architecture firms, and you know, women, more women are graduating from college, but the minute they get into the workforce, their numbers start to dwindle.

To less [00:09:00] than half. And then if you're looking at women in leadership, it's, you know, it's, it's in the teens, you know, it's, and it's, and it hasn't changed much. So we, and we need to change that because of all the things that you just said. And we really do need that perspective. And there is a toll chapter, chapter 14, about women in governance and how important that is.

And, and like you said, just a small percentage of more women in those roles can make a huge difference,

Osprey: you know? And, and we always like to say, you know, it's not about putting men down, it's about lifting women up. Like, we want equity, we want equality. And I think that's also really important, uh, because, you know, I always like to include, you know, we're having a conversation with women and men together and across the gender spectrum, and you know, what we're missing are women's voices.

And it's desperately hurting society at every level, socially, economically. Um. You know, in all kinds of leadership and governance. So, you know, this is something that has to change and which is why, you [00:10:00] know, in every sphere, whether it's climate or others, it, it's a desperate time to lift up women's leadership at this point.

So, you know, we'll leave it at that. We'll leave out what is going on in the United States at the topes levels of government, which shows even more why we need women in power.

Verda: Yes. One of the reasons we decided to go go forward with this season. This, this year. Yeah.

Osprey: Mm-hmm.

Verda: Well, did you wanna talk a little bit more about We can,

Osprey: sure.

We do a lot of different type of work from like the grassroots level where we actually have projects on the ground where we do like reforestation work and forest protection in the Amazon, um, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and food sovereignty programs. So there's a lot of hands-on work that, uh, we do with communities that are women led projects.

Um, which are quite successful. And then, you know, moving to, uh, the policy arena, we go to the UN Climate Talks every year. We bring a delegation of indigenous and frontline women to attend so that they can speak for themselves and advocate for themselves. We're very involved [00:11:00] in the negotiations. The U-N-F-C-C-C has different constituencies and their constituency called the Women and gender Constituency, which we've been very active in for many years, and have gotten a lot of ground there.

So there's like a whole conversation we could have about the conference of the parties and the UN climate talks, which is a really essential, uh, negotiating space and advocacy space. So we do a lot of policy work. We write policy briefs, and I think that's been really important. Um, is the narrative. Part of the work that we do, like how do we actually have interventions on the narrative?

What are we talking about needs to be done, uh, regarding the climate crisis? Who needs to be done? Who, who needs to be talking? Who needs to be in the rooms? Who, um, is being impacted the most? It needs the most support. So the conversation around climate also I think needs to be a conversation about climate justice, which is the people part.

Like how, how are people engaged in this conversation and, um, how are. [00:12:00] Different bodies who are making decisions impacting different communities and how we can ensure that everyone is lifted up at the same time, and that there truly is sustainability for everyone. So there's a lot of policy work we do as well as these on the ground projects we called big convenings.

I'll just say, um, last, the last piece on this, which is, um, just two weeks ago, we hosted something called the Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice, uh, path to COP 30 and Beyond. The, the, the next COP will be in Brazil and it's COP 30. And so we brought together over 125, uh, women climate leaders from 50 countries and had this incredible, um, six day event, five hours a day with 25 panels really digging into, you know, every aspect of climate from.

Food security to, um, how do we reduce fossil fuels to, you know, how can we have more energy efficiency to land back indigenous rights, rights of nature, threats to democracy, [00:13:00] feminist foreign climate policy. So I just wanted to share that with your listeners because all of those sessions are on YouTube, which you can find on our website so people can have an opportunity to hear from many, many, many different women leaders, um, about climate.

So we also hold these big convenings because again, I think our movement for climate justice and our work on climate has got to keep moving forward because. Even given the politics we have at this time, and we're not making headlines with climate right now, uh, nature is not caring about politics. Nature is proceeding.

And so we have to keep pushing forward on a climate agenda because as we know, you know, there's more fires, more floods, more people being harmed, more devastation, and it's not gonna stop unless we take action. And so, you know, even amidst everything that's going on in the world, you know, our organization's super passionate about keeping climate front and center as much as possible.[00:14:00]

Jon: Hmm. There's a lot. There's a lot there, man. Th those are a lot of, a lot of heady issues. You're, you're taking on some, some big topics for sure.

Verda: You have a book as well that you, is that it's new, right? It just got,

Osprey: yeah, it came out last year and it's called How World Views and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis.

Verda: And I love how you talk about this idea of world views and just that. We al we already have. So I think about this a lot, right? We're, as a human species, we should be evolving, we should be progressing, right? And we already, already have all the tools to end world hunger, to have equitable, what you could say, equitable pathways to address the greatest problems.

But we keep coming back or this central worldview just for whatever reason we're fixated your words on a cat, on cataclysmic exploits. And those are domination, dominion over nature, structural [00:15:00] patriarchy, white supremacy, things like that. These systems that keep, keep us in this loop of basically exploiting nature to everyone's detriment, right?

Jon: Yeah. Don't forget, I think the extractive economy plays into that as well. Yeah.

Verda: That one.

Jon: Right? And they're all horribly connected, which I didn't, I didn't know until I read that. That article and then I read some of your book to Osprey. So that's the, if you don't know that, you might wonder why we're talking about female equity in the conversation of climate change.

Right.

Osprey: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, um, you know, thank you both for pointing that out. I mean, what I was, what I, um, really wanted to express in my book, um, the stories in our bones is how, you know, kind of like if you don't really have a proper diagnosis when you go to the doctor and you're not well, and then if the doctor didn't really do a [00:16:00] deep dive into the root causes of the illness and just started prescribing stuff, you might feel a little bit better, but you'd still be sick or maybe even get sicker and sicker 'cause you really didn't deal with the problem.

And so what I'm doing in this book is really unpacking the root causes of how we're in this poly crisis, which is environmental, it's social, it's racial, it's, you know, every aspect of society economically. And so, um, you know, in our relationship with nature and so. I really wanted to look like, like how did we get here so that we could go to the root causes and begin to heal that and dismantle and transform and compost and transform, uh, a lot of these systems of oppression, which, which you already have, have named.

Um, and so looking at, you know, how do we address supremacy in all of its so forms, whether that's, you know, domination of women, uh, of men over women or humans over nature. Or white people over people of color and indigenous peoples. How do we [00:17:00] move out of this hierarchy, which has been so destructive?

Where did it come from? How do we change it within ourselves? How do we look at it structurally in society? Um, because it impacts everything, our worldview. And then how do we transition into a worldview of reciprocity, giving back and forth with nature? Um, how do we live in equity with one another? How do we dismantle racism and patriarchy?

How do we look at these things? And so, uh, some of the first processes just naming these things. 'cause if we're just swimming in the water and we don't name it, we don't even know what's going on. And so I think it's really important to go on these journeys of naming. What the root causes are so that we can begin to transform them once we know what they are.

And then the healing process can begin. And you know, it's not easy, it's not comfortable, but it's a whole lot more uncomfortable to see, you know, people dying of things that we can prevent. It's a lot better to do the uncomfortable work we need to do internally, personally, and with society and transform our systems and fight for [00:18:00] democracy and fight for healthy systems of economic structures and how we're living with one another in the earth and see what we're doing to the planet and just, you know, continue on this death march in essence.

And so, um, yeah, I, I took time in the book to really open up. Um, these topics, but also in a story form so we can think about it in a different way in terms of narrative and also, you know, a different exploration of a relationship with nature and how can we, in our modern society, deepen our relationship with the natural world?

Because that's where a lot of the healing takes place is. You know, when we remember that we're part and particle of nature and that can sound kind of, you know, oversimplified, but it's not because we've moved out of a worldview of a living cosmology or a living planet. And that has been very detrimental to the human condition and our human understanding of our place in the world.

And I think a lot of people feel very, um, empty inside and sort of like wondering what this is all [00:19:00] about because we're not really connected to community at the deepest levels, whether that's the human community or also the community of nature. And we have that sense of belonging and connection. It really changes how.

We live our lives, the decisions we make, and it fulfills us in a different way. So we don't need to have, you know, four cars and 30 shoes and the biggest house on the block. It's like, okay, there's other ways that we can feel connection and over consumption or distractions outside of ourselves. And I think these things are all connected, sort of like an internal dialogue with how we live our lives.

And, you know, I kind of just wanted to loop in also that I love that you are all designers or a lot of your audiences, because I also, um, in one of my books also explored, you know, this whole topic of like the space we actually live and how it can connect us to nature or not and to community and how much our living spaces really are important and, and we're up against it because so many people live in very [00:20:00] difficult urban contexts, which influences, you know, how we think, how we live.

And so, yeah, I think there's a, a connection here also with our lived environment that, that we can't skip over either.

Verda: So in the article, it brings up this term eco feminism quite a bit, and some of what you're saying there is reflective of that concept. Could you explain that concept to us? Yeah. And, and, uh, how it relates to the work that you do?

Because

Jon: I had never heard of it. I had never heard you had it. Berta. I don't know, had you, I had never heard this term eco feminism

Verda: before today,

Jon: before I read that article.

Verda: Really?

Jon: Before I read that article. Yeah. Oh my

Verda: goodness, John. I know. And, and I I've heard it. Yeah. I feel like I've heard it. It just feels like it fell off a bit, like it became unpopular as a, as a term.

And we could dive into that a little bit as well.

Osprey: Yeah, no, a good question. I mean, um, it is true. I mean, you know, when I was in college, you know, eco feminism was on the rise and [00:21:00]it was new and it was really this, this, um, you know, there's many definitions, so I'll just give one. But, you know, if we were sitting here with different scholars, I'm sure people would, you know, pull out different aspects of it.

But, you know, in brief, it's this idea that, um, you know, when we look at the violence against nature, it's parallel to the violence against women in the sense of the domination worldview that we were talking about earlier. This idea of dominion over or supremacy over has impacted, um. The way that, you know, primarily men have treated women and have treated nature so that women are there to be extracted from the earth.

Is there to be extracted from, we're there women are there to be used and to, you know, be, you know, second class citizens in the world, order of male domination, just as nature is here to serve us, and we can just have this endless, extra extractive model with nature. Take, take, take, take. No reciprocity, no real understanding of how river ecosystems [00:22:00] work, why forests are important.

You just take whatever you want. Because nature's here to serve us. So this idea of connecting the relationship between dominion over nature, dominion over women is really at the heart of eco feminism to say, you know, no, you know, we, you know, nature needs a voice. Women need a voice. And also that, um, women have a unique relationship with nature.

It's not better or more important than man's relationship with nature. It's not about better or not, it's just that it's been silenced and missing. And it turns out that that voice and that perspective is critical. How women relate to nature, how women care for the water, how women care for forests is.

Very important and missing from, you know, the political discourse or governance discourse. So eco feminism seeks to bring that up. How do we treat nature? How do we treat women and dismantling those systems of oppression and, um, domination to one of equity and wellbeing. So that's sort of at the core, you know, eco feminism in a [00:23:00] few short words.

Verda: And it does feel like there's just been an assault on feminism in general and just anything, anything related to that term and, and yeah, leadership and, and what's people want right now is this idea of being assertive and being dominant and not being soft. And it just seems like that's where a lot of leadership in the world is, is headed.

Jon: Yeah. It's hard to talk about it because. Virta, you and I have this conversation a lot. Like we want to be positive, we wanna focus on solutions, we wanna find the light at the end of the tunnel. And I think that, you know, there's this association with feminism that, you know, you're up there, uh, rattling a saber and calling people out and it's a combative conversation.

Um, and I think it's kind of crazy when we think about, I guess, you know, Rachel Carson was probably an early ecofeminist and look at how she was [00:24:00] attacked, right? When she came out with her book, the Silent Spring. And then we look at somebody more recently like emer Thornberg, right? How she was attacked when she stood up and started to to talk, right?

She was constantly referred to as an angry at the time, an angry girl, right? So, which I think also, this is what we said earlier, ties into how women in leadership are treated. So it's, I think it's a really hard conversation to have without sounding angry and negative. I don't know.

Osprey: Well, I think, you know, um, I love that you're both like getting into this and it, these are really hard, complex conversations and it's great to be having them.

That's how we, we, we work our way through, you know, if everything was going really well and we were all gardening and happy and we weren't blowing the planet and we weren't fighting authoritarian regimes, everything great. So it's gonna be uncomfortable. We're on an uncomfortable ride right now. Yeah. So to have difficult [00:25:00] conversations.

So I really appreciate both of you jumping into this. And, you know, we're all learning. We're all learning. So I think that, you know, it's not sort of uniform. I mean, I think women who have been really hurt or abused by the system have a right to be angry. They're hurt. They've, they need to speak out because there's an outrage there.

Um, and, and, and women asserting that can be a healthy thing because, um, you know, they're, we're trying to balance, uh, an imbalance and people need to, to understand that. Um, but I also think there's other, that's not the only voice that's rising up from women's leadership or from, from gender diverse people.

There's also a lot of love. There's also a lot of, um, gentle kindness that is being expressed. Um, a different way of viewing things, a different way of caring. In a lot of the work that I do, there's also something called the care economy, you know, where women are lifting up, what is women's economics look [00:26:00]like.

So as an example, or feminist economics, it's looking at all the years, year after year after year that women care, take for the children, care, take for the elderly, take care of the ill for free. And actually, you can't have our capitalistic economic system without that free labor of women. Because when you add it up, it's gazillions of dollars every year.

And so we're looking at like, well, what, what does a care economy look like? And what if we actually valued that that time and, and paid for that time and honored that time? It actually is part of decarbonizing the economy, which is good for, for climate. So all these kind of, you know, when we start actually treating people well and nature well, it actually works out well for everyone.

And I think that's the message that's positive in this very messy, difficult, hard conversation is that a lot of things people are afraid of or considered really aggressive when you peel it back. [00:27:00] Basically, people want the same thing. They wanna live in a home that's decent enough, had food and shelter and clothing, and uh, good family relations and live a life.

That they're not just slaving away the job and can care for themselves. And I think that's what we're trying to get on the table. And the problem we're having is that the wealthy elite and these dominant worldviews and these hierarchies are interfering with just the basic hu human impulse to live in peace and live well and, you know, um, have, have your basic needs met.

And we're in a huge struggle because it's been going on for hundreds of years, thousands of years. These systems have been built up for a long time. This extractive economy has been here a very long time. And so, you know, we're grappling with these things and it just so happens we're kind of meeting at the head of it all right now.

I mean, given climate science where we're at is very dangerous. It's not a happy topic, and we shouldn't shy away from talking about how dangerous it is. You know, I'm in California with the [00:28:00] fires and I, I, it's, it's serious. You know, people die. Like we can't shy away from it. At the same time, I think. We can name that when we talk about it and open up, we have a much better opportunity to find our way through.

Because as I was saying earlier, if you know what you're talking about, you actually have a chance to remedy it and respond at the proper level. And so it's a balance in these conversations to be, you know, outrageously correctly honest, so that we can really know what we're talking about, but also realize in that honesty and in that frankness, we can then really talk about, well, what's gonna work?

And there's so many things that are working and that's what also I'm excited about is when you know, you look at all these solutions that are communities are doing. It's not like we don't have the answers. I'm sure the work you do in design. You know, there's energy efficiency in buildings. There's like so much.

Jon: Yeah. Tell us a little bit about what's working.

Osprey: Yeah. Well, um, I, you know, we just came out with a report [00:29:00]about, um, local community, uh, powered, um, energy solutions, renewable energy solutions that communities are leading that don't require these top-down structures that communities are already doing. Or like our reforestation work in the Dr.

Congo. Um, we've been reforesting there for over a decade and we've planted so many trees that now nature's revitalizing herself in the areas we've replanted because the whole ecosystem's changing. Like if you give nature an opportunity, she's gonna heal way more rapidly than we had any idea. Mm-hmm. So, you know, everything from like communities doing community gardens, local renewable energy to big projects where areas are being re forested.

Um, I'm really excited what people are doing. We just need to stop a lot of this bad stuff from going on in this interference so people could get on with the business of doing what we do well, which is caring for each other in the earth. And I don't mean that in a Pollyanna way. I mean, I've seen it and I think there's that [00:30:00] opportunity if we really lift that up and center those conversations and that work.

Jon: Let's be honest, our industry isn't the best when it comes to sustainability, but we're making real progress and there's one company that's pushing us forward human scale. We're thrilled to have them supporting this season of break some dishes.

Verda: In many ways, human scale is redefining what's possible for our industry.

They've been a pioneer in every aspect of sustainability. They were the first to make chairs with reclaimed fishing nets, the most harmful type of ocean plastic. The first to provide product health labels and continue to lead the industry in transparency, the first and only company to eliminate virtually all redless chemicals from their product range.

This includes pfas, Chrome six PVC, and antimicrobials. No other [00:31:00]major furniture company has eliminated any of these. The first to offer carbon negative products, which now account for over 70% of their product range. No other major furniture company offers a single carbon negative offering, and they're the only major brand in the commercial furniture industry to become a certified B Corp.

Jon: This pioneering work has encouraged customers and designers like you to demand the same from everyone, and by doing so, move the entire industry to be more planet positive. We're excited. We've got the Chief Sustainability Officer, Jane Abernathy joining us this season to share more about this groundbreaking work and what's next.

So tune into that episode and all the others as well.

Can you talk a little bit about the women in the Southern Hemisphere and how are they [00:32:00] struggling against this, um, extractive. Culture that we are, we're talking about right now.

Osprey: Yeah. Thank you so much for, for pointing that out. Um, we're really honored that we can to, um, work with a lot of women, um, in Ecuador and Brazil and as I mentioned, the Dr.

Congo and then, you know, in our broader network with, with many women from the global south. And I have to say, I really honor and respect their leadership so much because, as you said, there is not only a gender inequity, but also the inequity of indigenous peoples or women of African descent in these countries.

And, um, how the impacts of the outsized power of the global North has impacted their everyday life in communities and their ecosystems. And this extraction that you mentioned has been going on a very long time is not only [00:33:00] extraction but exploitation. Um, of, of, um, outsized power of wealthy countries. And this has been going on a very long time through colonization of going into countries, you know, basically creating deals with the government and extracting from, um, communities all over the global south for the global north benefit.

And it's a well-known fact that, you know, the climate crisis burden is really on. The wealthier global north countries, primarily in terms of the carbon emissions that, um, have been set forth by wealthy countries. And so those who've contributed the least to the climate crisis are being hurt the most by it.

So there's a huge inequity there. And so, um, a lot of the women we work with are facing that. And, um, and then not only that, if they are land defenders, like those women that we work with, that in the, in, uh, the Ecuador and in Brazilian Amazon also are putting their bodies on the line [00:34:00] to protect their ancestral territories in their forest, which benefit all of us, like, you know, we may be in different countries, but the force of the Amazon are, you know, central to our water ecosystems and the lungs of the earth, as many say.

And so here we have these frontline women. Who are completely underfunded, putting their lives on the line to protect their territories. Um, and they do get threatened. They do get murdered for standing up to corporations and governments and saying, no, we want our force protected. And they're doing that for everyone and like, how are we supporting them?

How are we standing up for them? And there's a lot I could say about that, but just to point out, you know, the inequities that you are talking about are, you know, really life and death challenges for a lot of the women that we work with.

Verda: Hmm. Do you wanna talk about Living Forest and Rights of Nature Osprey?

Do you wanna tell us a little bit about that?

Osprey: Yeah, I'm really excited about the rights of nature work. Um, we've been engaged in that for over a decade. And, um, I think one of the things that I [00:35:00] am really interested in and inspires me in the darkest of times is, you know, a couple of these policy pieces that are really transformative.

And one of them is this idea of rights of nature. And, um, right now it's actually one of the fastest growing environmental movements in the world. And, uh, this is something even that, uh, recently the UN Secretary General mentioned in one of his speeches, and it's this idea that nature has rights to put it simply.

And for the longest time, you know, we have really seen, you know, nature as property and, you know, looking at the ownership of property. And that's a relatively new idea if you think about indigenous peoples all over the world. Um, and before that, the idea of the commons where people shared common land, this idea of owning property has put nature into the marketplace and, you know, added to this extractive economy.

And when we're talking about rights of nature, we're [00:36:00] saying that nature has the right to thrive and live and grow and be healthy just like humans. And so right now there's about 39 countries around the world that have, you know, different levels of progression in the rights of nature movement. But Ecuador as an example, in 2008, became the first country in the world to put rights of nature into their constitution.

And there have been multiple cases now, one. At the state level, the federal level of, you know, a river system being protected or another region being protected, using rights of nature law, saying no, that project or that activity will harm nature and be too destructive. Um, so yeah, it's been really thrilling.

There's, uh, um, a case in Columbia that was one to protect the Amazon for future generations. Um, and so it's not just an idea, it's, you know, fully in practice right now.

Jon: So, like, literally a river can sue an extractive [00:37:00] organization like an oil company.

Osprey: Yes. Which is cool. So, um, you know, it, it has rights.

It's like giving, it's basically saying, you know, though the river or the forest or the mountain can't, you know, physically stand in a court of law. Human beings can represent the voice of the river, the voice of the forest, and recognize that entity as a rights bearing. Body, and that's really powerful. Um, I was able to go to New Zealand several years ago where one form of rights of nature is to view, in this case the won Nui River as having personhood.

And so a lot of the indigenous people, the won Nui tribe, sees the won Nui River as their ancestor, their living ancestor. And so it took them over a hundred years. But they finally got the government of New Zealand to have, um, a, a legislation that puts, um, one person from the government and one person from the Wangee tribe as custodians [00:38:00] of the river.

And nothing can, you know, no developments can happen that will harm the river's ecosystem because the river is seen as having its own rights. So it's a very powerful different view. It's not environmental laws, which mostly. Have to do with regulation and how we regulate harms, but they don't actually stop harms.

It's saying, no, we need to put Nature Mother Earth in the center of the conversation or another way of saying it. Honoring, honoring planetary boundaries first and foremost. And then we can think about economy, then we can think about development, but only from the context of Mother Earth's wellbeing. So it's a really powerful idea and I'm really love engaging in that work.

And all the people who engaged in that advocacy are are really amazing people around the world. And we will be actually at Cop 30 in Brazil putting on a Rights of Nature Tribunal to teach people more about what rights of nature is and how they can apply it to their own communities and country.

Jon: That

Verda: sounds amazing.[00:39:00]

Jon: Love it. Yeah. What about the Living Forest? Is that.

Osprey: Yes, the living forest is, is interwoven into rights of nature in that, um, the living forest, um, is something I also wrote about in my book, the Stories in the Bone, in Our Bones, um, which is really, really interesting and, and very powerful. The study aqua people who live in southern Ecuador developed this idea of the living forest declaration.

And in short, what it is, is that, you know, as indigenous people, they are the custodians of these ancient forests and have lived in harmony and taken care of these forests and stewarded them for thousands and thousands of years. And the Sadko people, rightly so, said, you know, we're really tired of hearing from the government and conservationists about what we should do with our forest when we've been caring for this forest in a good way for thousands of years.

So they developed something called the Living Forest Declaration to share what is an indigenous [00:40:00] view of forest management look like. You can find the Living Force declaration online. So I won't go into a lot of details, but it's super beautiful. It's like very comprehensive and um, from many angles. It's ecological, it's economic, it's um, it has a lot of legislation in it, ideas about governance, but it's also very spiritual about the living forest itself and how we should be relating to this living entity.

So yeah, I would just encourage people to look because it's, you know, a part of the concept of rights of nature as well.

Jon: This is great Verde. It's going back to like our first episode when we were talking about some of this.

Verda: Oh yeah, definitely. Tell us a little bit more. Wecan is also participating in a big fossil, is it a treaty?

Fossil fuel treaty?

Osprey: Yes. Yes. This is something, another piece of hopeful advocacy work that I think is really important. Um, you know, 'cause you can see, you know, my [00:41:00] day-to-day work is a lot of struggle on like frontline work, stopping some bad project harmful pipeline, um, you know, protecting this or that forest doing all this, you know, very kind of hardcore advocacy activity, getting ready to go to the climate talks, all of these things.

But it's also really important to have these, um, policy pieces like rights of nature. So the Fossil Fuel Proliferation Treaty originated from wonderful woman leaders, poor Berman, from uh, an activist from Canada. And basically it's a compliment to the Paris Climate Agreement, which all governments agreed to in 2015.

And the Paris Climate Agreement is absolutely critical because, you know, it was the first time that all governments came together and agreed to the 1.5 degree guardrail in terms of temperature rise, but also like agreed to address climate change at a certain level. And so we need that, but it mainly deals with carbon emission reductions and carbon emission reductions are very important.

We've gotta get carbon [00:42:00] emissions down, no question. However, it misses the supply chain end because in essence, you could just keep producing fossil fuels, expanding fossil fuels, and the Paris of Climate Agreement just deal with, you know, negotiating around how we reduce carbon emissions. Fine, but it really doesn't stop.

You know where the flood is coming from, which is the expansion of fossil fuels. So what's exciting about the fossil fuel non proliferation treaty is that, you know, it's modeled after the non proliferations of nuclear weapons, which was quite successful. Oh, interesting.

Jon: Okay. And

Osprey: so it models like how do we get all governments to sit around the table Yeah.

And create a treaty that you will not produce any more fossil fuels. How do we have a supply chain discussion?

Jon: What a moonshot. That is

Verda: it. That's it. That's a big one. It really shouldn't be. Since I was just reading, there was a headline, and I think it might've been in the Guardian, that [00:43:00] that green energy is cheaper already.

It's cheaper than fossil fuel energy already much cheaper. Yeah.

Osprey: Yeah. But, but to that point, why we said earlier, like I was saying, it's not that we don't know what to do. Renewable energy is cheaper. The problem is. The, the corporations and the wealthy elite holding onto this

Jon: Exactly.

Osprey: Economy. So like it's not like we don't have solutions.

We, that's why like we try, we can to do all the solution stuff, but we have to do a lot of fighting too.

Jon: Yeah. Yeah. The problem is that there's still a lot of people making a lot of money on fossil fuels.

Verda: I still love your term. We're fixated on cataclysmic exploits. Not that's very appropriate, not gonna serve.

I do love that. Not us or our future generations.

Jon: I, you're right, Verta. That is, when you said it a second time, I really listened to it.

Verda: It it, it resonates. Your book is beautifully written. I, we, I, I've really only dug into the intro, but, uh, I love, I [00:44:00] love some of the way you've, you've phrased things and, and just, just in the intro alone, so I look forward to digging into the rest of the book.

We'll put it in the show notes for sure.

music: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.

Verda: Actually, this might be a great segue to what other projects you're working on. What are you're excited about besides Cop 30 getting prepared for that Is, that, is Cop 30 this year? I should know this. It's next year, right?

Osprey: No, it's this year.

It's in November and it will be in Brazil. So that, the one thing about that I would say is that a lot of people are excited about it 'cause it's gonna be in the Amazon. There's gonna be a lot of indigenous peoples there, which is really important because of speaking of worldview in a different way of relating to nature, that influence could be really important.

Um, and you know, for the last three years, the cop has been in petro states and wherever the cop is. That country gets to be the presidency of that cop and it influences negotiations. And so for three years, 'cause we go every year, it's not been great [00:45:00] conditions for forward momentum and we've gotten some victories, things have happened, but we're hoping this will be more transformative.

But always to say, you know, I would say maybe a quarter of our work is caught up in the cop. Because let's face it, the cop is not where all this is gonna get resolved. It's a key component because that's where government leaders are. We need to push those negotiations as far as we can. But you know, it's not the end all, but it's really important.

So I'm excited. We're gonna be going, um, to Brazil in November. For the cop. And, um, we have a lot of, um, indigenous women leaders that we work with. Um, and it's been very exciting to work with them. I'll just mention in Brazil, um, some of the, there's a group called Amiga, which is a group of amazing indigenous women leaders who've been building power over several years, and they actually got, um, several of the women leaders, um, that were from the grassroots into political position.

One of them even now being the minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil. So it's really interesting to see, you know, how [00:46:00] we can we, when we collect together, how we can also reclaim power and influence government. So yeah, so the cop is coming up. Um, I'm really excited about, you know, this is wonky, but like I'm really excited about the reports that we're putting out.

Um, you know, we do a lot of research and again, I'm really excited about narrative, like. If we don't provide a narrative or ideas about solutions and really work them out, like we don't have a map and we have to have maps that really agreed fill out, like what are we talking about at a foundational level?

How do we, um, really plan in a way that has a lot of practicality to it? So we have a new, uh, renewable energy report that just came out that we're gonna be bringing to cop. Uh, we have a report coming out about what is real zero versus net zero. Again, I won't get into in a lot of detail, but a lot of misunderstanding about net zero and economics for corporations and [00:47:00] businesses and governments, and how to actually get to real zero versus kicking the can down the road with false solutions.

Um, so I'm, I'm really excited about these narrative interventions. We're working on a, uh, a short video right now on our project in Ecuador, which is working with a lot of indigenous women to reforest this one area in the Ecuador and Amazon, where due to climate change and also fossil fuel extraction and mining in their territory, certain trees are going extinct.

And so, um, it's all women led and they're going deep into the forest and collecting these seeds from these trees that are going extinct. And we've already planted tens of thousands of trees and it's just, you know, really, it just feels good. It's just like really renewing, like we're bringing back this forest we're bringing back.

Yeah. You know, these trees and helping ecological integrity of the board. You see the

Jon: change, like you can physically see the change. Yeah.

Osprey: Yeah.

Jon: Osprey, are you doing anything in the US right now?

Osprey: Yes. Uh, there's several things we're doing in the US one, uh, we're really honored to work with our coordinator [00:48:00] who, um, uh, a woman named Monique Verden from the Huma Nation, and it's a, a series of, um, indigenous.

Women along an old trade route in the Gulf South, um, through Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. And we're doing food security programs where each of the farmers has their own land and you know, like how do we create food security as a climate crisis worsens. Hmm. And so building like what we call islands of resilience or you know, how do you create these spaces which are becoming more and more important.

Um, and then we work with a punk nation. So there's a lot of frontline communities we work with here to provide. Making sure that they have solar power, making sure they have food because no matter what's going on, like people have to have basic survival. Yeah. And we need to go into communities that are most impacted and most vulnerable.

Um, so that's one project we're working on here. We're working to stop this really bad pipeline up in, uh, called the Line Five Pipeline. We don't need more fossil fuel pipelines. A so we're working on stopping a [00:49:00] pipeline in, uh, Michigan and Wisconsin that will damage the, uh, great Lakes if it ever burst.

And then lastly I would mention it, um, something we had a huge victory on. And now in this new administration, it's backtracking, which is, um, a lot of people don't know that one of the main ways through forest that we sequester carbon in the United States is through the Tongass rainforest in Alaska.

It's the largest, um, temperate rainforest in the world. And it's stunning and it's beautiful and it's now being threatened again by this administration. So we're working to reinstate, um, to, to maintain something called the Roadless Rule, which keeps roads outta. Forested areas, which means it won't get logged or mined.

And, um, we work with Tinga indigenous women on a campaign there to protect the Roadless rule and the the Tongass, which is truly an amazing ecosystem that we have here in the United States that's critical for our climate plan going forward. So some of those things, uh, that we're doing here and we're always doing education [00:50:00] webinars for people in the US and, you know, teaching about advocacy and how to get engaged and, you know, more general things.

But those are kind of the, the campaigns that came to mind immediately.

Verda: I look forward to reading the Net zero report, 'cause we, John and I talk about, have talked about that quite a bit in the past. And you must know this, you know, net zero is in some ways, I think an an easy, easier lift than, than an embodied carbon reduction, right.

Of a building where you're, you're really just dealing with the heating and cooling and you can, you can a lot of times. Mitigate that through all kinds of ways, including, uh, green energy, right? But, but another big factor in. Carbon emissions is the built environment, the embodied carbon in the materials, and reducing that in any way is much, much harder to do, but also also quite significant, especially if you look at the lifespan of a building.[00:51:00]

And so we talk about that all the time.

Osprey: No, that's really important. And also how, um, I love that you're having that discussion also, you know, I think we also underestimate in a lot of plans around how we can reduce carbon emissions, about energy efficiency, which I'm sure you both know a lot about. Like how in the built world, in the built environment.

We have not in the past really built for energy efficiency and it's critical. It's one of the best ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint is through energy efficiency, um, in our built spaces. And yeah, I think it's just really important. And I also love seeing all these buildings where, you know, the whole building is covered in, you know, plants and you know how that cools system, so there, there's just so much going on.

Um, I don't know if you're familiar with the topic of biomimicry. Oh, is that something? Oh, yes, of course.

Verda: Yeah. Big time. Yeah. We use it a lot in our work.

Osprey: I love all of that work. I think it's amazing.

Verda: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And circularity, John and I were just [00:52:00] pondering circularity and that comes all, it comes back to living.

It's the living forest really.

Jon: It's all wonderfully interconnected. Yes. You know? Yes. It's very systemic. Uh, Verta, we're out of time as usual.

Verda: Osby. This has just been an incredible conversation and we learned so much today about what you're doing. Yeah. And

Jon: I feel like we just scratch the surface. I feel like there's several conversations here that I would love to dig.

We need to have Osprey back for some more talking, I think.

Verda: Yeah. And thanks for some positivity too. We really appreciate it. Yeah, we need it right now.

Osprey: Oh my goodness. Do we need it? All of us. All of us. Like it's let you know. Let's face it, these are really hard times and you know, the administration pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

I mean, like, I could tell you a lot of bad stuff, but

Jon: No,

Osprey: don't, yeah, we'll leave it at, we'll leave it where we've had it. But it's just been a pleasure to talk to both of you and I love the way that you're approaching your thinking and exploring things. It's, it's [00:53:00] really inspiring actually. Thank you. It's

Verda: been a little challenging, but we're, you know, we're not giving up.

Jon: We've stayed together, that's for sure. Thank you, Osprey. It's been great.

Wow. Virta, I think that. Good. I feel like we're always exhausted after recording these episodes. It's too much brain power for me,

Verda: especially those episodes that really, this one really challenged me. She's so smart and just so well spoken and had so much to say in and was so succinct. I just, yeah.

Jon: I think part of the challenge we have here in the US um, and I think it's a northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere, uh, distinction, is that, you know, in the southern hemisphere you have these countries that are most impacted by climate [00:54:00] change and they're being impacted by a climate change brought on by the wealthy industrialized countries in the northern hemisphere.

Right? And so it's hard for us to imagine women, I. Who are, whose, whose health and wellness is are affected by things like extractive policies and practices and deforestation and climate change. But we don't realize that they are the predominant breadwinners, the predominant farmers workers. They really have their people, their families on their shoulders.

Verda: Yeah, no, and I totally agree about the global south and the global north, but I do wanna challenge that a little bit in that we do have. Huge pockets of less wealthy communities, fence [00:55:00] line communities. That's true in the United States, and it's the women often that do bear that burden because there are the more immediate caretakers, more often of children and elderly and providers, and if poverty or some catastrophe hits, they're often.

I mean, we, we talked about this statistic, 80% of single parents are women and if some catastrophe hits and you can't pay your rent and you're on the street for whatever reason. And we talked a little bit too about this, I dunno if we talked about it on the air, but in that book, our, our Invisible,

Jon: invisible Women,

Verda: yeah.

I, why I can't even memorize that title by now. They did a, showed a lot of examples about, um, women being hit by catastrophes, climate catastrophes, and, and the challenges with sheltering and a after, you know, post catastrophe relief efforts. Right? Yeah. And we are thinking, oh, those are all in, you know, all in, in India or Africa or all these [00:56:00] different places.

That's true. But there was just one. Hawaii and it had to do a lot with the, the social structure of Hawaii in Lanai and the fires after Lanai. And I read a whole article about how that impacted women. There was more domestic violence, there was more exchange of food for, for sexual services, things like that.

Like, like people in desperate need do things that they wouldn't normally do, and that isn't just happening in the south. Right. We're not immune from it. Mm-hmm. And I think that we need to understand that's true. That as here in America, we're like, oh, this isn't gonna happen to us, but here we are. Right.

Jon: Yeah.

Verda: I love Osprey's quote. I ask how humanity and I personally can live responsibly and vibrantly in this perilous uncertain moment. And I think there's, she, she, she talks about a lot about morality and this idea of worldviews and that there's these worldviews that we [00:57:00] just need to eliminate. She says some worldview views need radical dismantling and reimagining.

And I think that's one of the things that we, we try to talk about. I don't think we do it as intelligently as Osprey, but uh, that's what we're trying to do. Right. We're really trying to, to expose those worldviews that are, are not, are not conducive to a future that we wanna leave my children And your children, I'm sure.

Jon: Yeah, absolutely. And you used the term, you said it a couple of times while we were talking to her, and the second time that you said it. It really, um, made a mark for me. It was the how we're headed towards cataclysmic. Now, of course, I can't remember exactly what it was,

Verda: the central worldview, the worldview that we have right now with what's going on.

Yeah. In the world, right? We can all think about, right. Russia, China, America, you know, [00:58:00] all these crazy places. The central view right now is fixated on a cat on cataclysmic exploits. Ah, that's o's words. That's Osprey's words. She's poetic. Cataclysm. She has great book. We're gonna put all of that in the show notes, the article that John has mentioned, and a few.

Anything else that we've mentioned in this episode will be in our show notes.

Jon: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it also, you know, one final thought for me, I, I do think we came around full circle. I keep saying that maybe we're, maybe we've got a lot of concentric circularity in our conversations. I actually think we do, we have a lot of overlap, but we're talking about a matriarchal approach to sustainability, which is very similar to what we talked about with, um, Keisha DRIs in like our first episode of the year.

We talked about a matriarchal indigenous approach to dealing with climate, right? We, and [00:59:00] Osprey talks about that as well. Um, and we also talk about if we can get more women into the room, if we can get more women into positions of leadership, the conversation grows and it's so much more productive and it doesn't.

Sound like it should be that hard, but it truly is.

Verda: Yeah. Yeah. I, I would love to, um, dissect this idea of matriarchal approach a little bit more maybe in a, maybe in another episode. But I, I do think, you know, we're, again, we're, we're looking at how we define genders, right? And, and kind of, to me, these are the extremes of genders, right?

Male dominant, aggressive, assertive women can be a dominant, aggressive, assertive as well. We, we categorize fe feminine as caring and nurturing, but men are also caring and nurturing. So, you know, if you were substitute matriarch, uh, this is kind of my [01:00:00] issue. Like you sub substitute matriarchy for patriarchy, you're really gonna get, we, we need, we need unity.

We need, we really need to be communicating across the sexes and we really need to be. Understanding that all of these traits, we have all of these traits within us, and we just need to pull out the best of them. In some cases, assertiveness and aggressiveness is important to have, but so is nurturing and caring and kindness and love and all of that stuff, right?

Jon: Mm. So well put, I'm not gonna add anything on top of that. I think that's, that's it. That's, that's what we should aspire for. That's what we should be aspiring to.

Verda: Yes. And that is, seriously, that is how we can personally live responsibly and vibrantly in this crazy time we're in.

Jon: Mm-hmm. Fingers crossed.

Well,

Verda: great episode with Osprey. Thanks for finding her, John. Thanks.

Jon: Thanks, Virta. Yeah, it was a lot of fun and work. All right. We

Verda: look forward to our next episode with [01:01:00] another climate person, right?

Jon: Yeah. It's gonna be another good one. I know it. All right. Thanks to Osprey, Orel Lake, founder of We Can for joining us today.

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Verda: Break Some Dishes is a surround podcast by Sandow Design Group. Thanks to the team behind the scenes. This episode is produced by Rob Schulte and edited by Rob Adler.

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Human scale is redefining sustainability in design, setting new standards like creating the first chair from reclaimed fishing nets, [01:02:00] eliminating toxic chemicals like pfas, and becoming the only major commercial furniture brand to achieve certified B Corp status.

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