The Copenhagen climate summit saw fierce jockeying for advantage among the great powers but few tangible results. Smaller nations and indigenous peoples were left out in the cold. Yet for them it’s not a matter of power politics. They face the power of nature thrown out of balance by heedless human activity. Seas and temperatures continue to rise, disrupting their ancestral livelihoods. In this program, native peoples from the Arctic and the Amazon to Pacific islands under siege by rising waters testify to what’s happening to them and will likely happen to many others in the decades ahead. Their responses to these changes offer much-needed guidance about how to develop the resilience and inventiveness that are essential to our long-term survival. We also hear from climate activists, including well-known representatives of indigenous peoples, about what can be done to build momentum for essential transformation outside the UN process in the wake of stalled international negotiations.

The Copenhagen climate summit saw fierce jockeying for advantage among the great powers but few tangible results. Smaller nations and indigenous peoples were left out in the cold. Yet for them it’s not a matter of power politics. They face the power of nature thrown out of balance by heedless human activity. Seas and temperatures continue to rise, disrupting their ancestral livelihoods. In this program, native peoples from the Arctic and the Amazon to Pacific islands under siege by rising waters testify to what’s happening to them and will likely happen to many others in the decades ahead. Their responses to these changes offer much-needed guidance about how to develop the resilience and inventiveness that are essential to our long-term survival. We also hear from climate activists, including well-known representatives of indigenous peoples, about what can be done to build momentum for essential transformation outside the UN process in the wake of stalled international negotiations.