Helping the Prez, Greening the Rez
Air Date: Week of January 16, 2009
Winona LaDuke, rural development economist, environmentalist, and member of
the Ojibwe tribe of Minnesota. (Courtesy of Honor the Earth)
Armed with big potential for wind and solar generation, Native America says
it's ready to help Barack Obama build a green economy. A policy statement,
signed by 250 tribes and tribal organizations and submitted to the new
administration, outlines ways to tackle global warming while addressing
unemployment and fuel poverty on tribal lands. Economist Winona LaDuke,
director of Honor the Earth, talks with host Steve Curwood about the need to
develop tribal economies without degrading tribal lands and beliefs.
CURWOOD: When it comes to U.S. energy policy and Native Americans, the
record's pretty poor. Uranium and coal mining have brought pollution to
native communities and lands - but relatively few jobs - and rising sea
waters due to fossil fuel consumption are forcing native villages in Alaska
to abandon their coastal lands.
But now that Barack Obama has brought his promise of a lean, clean economy
to the White House, many tribes are feeling hopeful. So hopeful, in fact,
that a green policy statement representing more than 200 tribes and tribal
organizations has been submitted to the Obama team.
Winona LaDuke is a rural development economist and writer - you might know
her as Ralph Nader's running mate on the Green Party ticket in the 2000
presidential elections. She now directs Honor the Earth, a non-profit that
helped draw up the green petition, which outlines what Native America needs
from the Obama administration, and what the Obama administration needs from
Native America.
Winona LaDuke, rural development economist, environmentalist, and member of
the Ojibwe tribe of Minnesota. (Courtesy of Honor the Earth)
LADUKE: We have this vast potential for renewable energy. The best potential
in the whole country comes from Indian tribes and Indian tribal communities.
We have been the most impacted by the last energy economy of anyone. And
what we need to do is to capitalize the next energy economy in Indian
country on terms that are just and are fair. So that we aren't selling our
wind rights out to major corporations, you know, and just receiving a
pittance. I'm relatively aware of the fact that 1) the Obama administration
has inherited a huge mess and 2) the Obama administration is full of vital
energy to make a change. So we have infused our strategy, saying that you
want a green economy? This is what a green economy looks like in Indian
Country, and this is how you would do it.
CURWOOD: So what is it that you're asking the Obama administration to do?
Members of the Ojibwe tribe pour the foundation for a 75 kW wind turbine on
the White Earth Reservation. (Courtesy of Honor the Earth)
LADUKE: What we are asking the Obama administration to do is 1) increase
tribal capacity in training to create a work force that is able to move into
renewable energy through financing. We are asking them for energy
assistance, efficiency work, because most of our homes are trailers on our
reservations, and, in addition to that, homes that are already up are highly
inefficient. So in order to reduce fuel poverty in Indian country, we have
to have efficient homes. We are asking for renewable production refund for
tribal projects that can't utilize tax credits in order to ensure that
tribal governments are able to capitalize renewable energy in Indian
Country. We are asking for access to the federal grid in ways that will
address tribal ability to bring our projects online at a level that is
meaningful both for tribal economies and to address climate change.
CURWOOD: Now, your organization also made it very clear that you don't want
to see the U.S. pursuing nuclear energy and what's been called clean coal.
Why is that?
LADUKE: Well clean coal doesn't exist. You can't wash it enough, you can't ¬
strip mining or blowing off the top of a mountain is not clean. There's no
way to clean up coal. And so, we just think that we shouldn't waste our time
and the billions or trillions of dollars that it would take to try to
sequester something for forever ¬ because that is what you would have to do
is for forever. So just leave it in the ground. Nuclear power ¬ our tribes
have been heavily impacted and are presently impacted by uranium mining. We
are fighting uranium mining out in South Dakota and in Nebraska and all
through the north. You know we have thousands of abandoned uranium mines and
thousands of people who are impacted by radiation exposure. Nuclear is
expensive, is dangerous and is not the answer to climate change. There is no
way you can bring enough nuclear power plants on line in time to address
climate change disasters. What we need to do is we need to put the money
that would be wasted on clean coal and wasted on nuclear power into a full
scale efficiency, renewable economy that treats people with dignity and
doesn't treat people as second class citizens and assume that we can dump
our waste in third world countries or in Indian reservations.
Installing solar panels at Little Earth in Minneapolis. (Courtesy of Honor
the Earth, Photo: Aimee Loiselle)
CURWOOD: So, let's look at some specifics here Winona LaDuke. I understand
about a hundred tribes have already done some feasibility studies to look at
what could be done in terms of wind and solar energy generation. What are
those numbers? What kind of potential are we looking at here?
LADUKE: So the United States needs to produce about 185,000 megawatts of
green power in the next decade in order to address climate change. That is
the reality. Tribal communities are probably in a position to produce about
120,000 megawatts of that. Between wind potential, they're saying that our
tribal communities have the potential to produce about one third of present
installed U.S. electrical capacity to massive solar projects that are, you
know, tribal projects and have the potential to feed into the present grids
and create a green energy that will help this country address climate
change. So, we are the people of color with land and natural resources,
that's what distinguishes us, aside from other things, from other
communities of color. And on that land, we have some of the windiest places
in the country. Go figure how that happened ¬ but the northern plains ¬ you
know, even in my reservation we have very high wind potential. I just
finished last week putting up the foundation for a wind turbine at my office
in Callaway, Minnesota. It's a 75 kilowatt wind turbine. My tribe is looking
at ¬ and other tribes in our area are looking at about four more megawatts
of power coming online probably within the next two to three years.
A wind turbine at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota powers a Lakota
radio station. (Courtesy of Honor the Earth, Photo: Keri Pickett)
CURWOOD: Certainly the need for economic development on Native lands is
really as impressive as the renewable energy potential that you have with
your very high unemployment rates. And I think, in fact, a lot of
reservation households don't even have electricity. So to what extent do you
think that green jobs, green infrastructure, green energy is gonna get those
figures turned around, to make change that has yet to come to Indian Country
some two hundred plus years into the life of this country?
LADUKE: I am very hopeful. That is to say, I look at my own reservation the
White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota ¬ on my reservation, one
quarter of our money is spent on energy. All of that money basically goes to
off reservation vendors whether it is for electricity or whether it is for
fuel. You know a quarter of our income is a substantial economy for our
reservation and for any reservation. And so our strategy is to replicate
what we are doing in White Earth, you know, nationally, and say instead of
outsourcing, we can re-localize a good portion of our energy economy. But we
need the jobs in our communities. We need joint ownership or ownership of
the wind power production and the solar power productions so that the
revenues return to our tribal communities. We need to be employed in those,
because we have 60% unemployment on my reservation, and, you know, the
average age of a Native person is, you know, like 20, 21 years of age and
you could either send my young man off to jail or you could employ him or
send him to the military.
In 2003, the 750-kW turbine on the Rosebud Sioux reservation became the
first commercial wind turbine to be installed, owned and operated by an
American Indian tribe. (Courtesy of Intertribal Council on Utility Policy)
CURWOOD: Winona LaDuke, you once very famously said, and I quote "I would
like to see as many people patriotic to a land as I have seen patriotic to a
flag." How do you feel about this being the time for that sort of
patriotism?
LADUKE: I think that the present time is good. My youngest son, his name is
Gwaconamont Gasko (sp). And Gwaconamont in our language means when the wind
shifts. And that is what is happening now; the wind is shifting. And we have
a chance to do something great for the generations that have not yet arrived
here. You know, we've battled for years to create a society which is not
based on conquest, but is based on survival. And the Obama administration,
with the intersection between the realities of a shrinking, unsustainable
economy, climate change, fuel, poverty and peak oil, we have the chance to
make an economy that will reaffirm a relationship to the land. And so, I'm
very optimistic. The next economy will not affect our sacred sites, our
rivers, our lakes, our mountains, because the next economy will not require
their consumption.
CURWOOD: Winona LaDuke is the executive director of Honor the Earth, one of
the Native American groups who drew up a green policy statement for the
Obama administration and a former candidate for vice president of the United
States under the banner of the Green Party. Winona, thanks so much for your
time.
LADUKE: Thank you, Migwich (sp)
CURWOOD: Migwich (sp)