Continuing to see what “the indigenous” think about solar power:

Today, a number of Native tribes, from the Lakota in the Dakotas to
the Iroquois Confederacy in New York to the Anishinaabeg in Wisconsin,
battle to preserve the environment for those who are yet to come. The
next seven generations, the Lakota say, depend upon it.

“Traditionally, we’re told that as we live in this world, we have
to be careful for the next seven generations,” says Loretta Cook. “I
don’t want my grandkids to be glowing and say, ‘We have all these
bad things happening to us because you didn’t say something about it.’

Part of this family and spiritual obligation to preserve

the environment
for future generations has taken the shape of renewable energy efforts
and re-localized Native economies.

“If nuclear power is the answer, I don’t know what the question
was,” LaDuke said recently at a lecture at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. “If you want peace, you need some kind of economy
based on justice—not just with the people, but with the natural world.”

LaDuke and other “environmental activists” hope to create that justice,
that re-localized economy, through wind and solar energy on Native
reservations. Locally produced, neither wind nor solar power “need to
be purchased by Halliburton,” LaDuke says. “If you’re waiting for the
guys in Washington to come up with a plan, you’re going to be waiting
a long time.”

Solar for local self-sufficiency, environmental justice, and you can just do it now.

LaDuke also sees the connection between renewable energy and local food:

Meanwhile, the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, under the leadership
of Anishinaabeg leaders like LaDuke, is currently a hotbed for Native
sustainability efforts. Through the White Earth Land Recovery Project, the
reservation hosts not only a 20-kilowatt wind turbine, but also works to
support weatherization and alternative heating, especially solar panels,
for local homes and housing units. Major efforts also have been taken
by the recovery project to make traditional food sources available on
the reservation.

“Our people spend a quarter of our money on food at Wal-Mart,” LaDuke
said. “When you buy from local producers, that money circulates in
your community…Food prices will keep going up, so we need to keep it
local. And it helps with diabetes and other health-related issues.”

Local energy, local food, local health.

-jsq