Critical response: Way beyond the lifeboat, an allegory of climate justice by Kyle Whyte

Critical response:

Way beyond the lifeboat, an allegory of climate justice by Kyle Whyte

Kyle Whyte organized the whole article around two epigraphs. They tried to explain climate justice from an indigenous perspective. They do this by showing their concerns about the challenge of climate change, and how it impacts their lifestyle. The author uses the testimony of Sheila Watt-Cloutier and the allegory given by James to show how the Inuit; an indigenous community in the Arctic regions of Greenland suffer from a political world driven by economic growth, capitalism, and industrialization.

Climate change is a global challenge, it affects people all over the world. However, the concept of climate justice implies that the effect of the latter would be heavier for certain communities. In this case, we're focusing on indigenous communities. When for example global warming occurs, then their right to culture, their right to educate and share knowledge with the next generation and their right to safety is impacted. Some argue that indigenous communities are too conservative to adapt to the changes and that's why they are facing such issues. The stakeholders blame it on the speed by which the change occurs. From a Potawatomi perspective, this change is due to two major issues, colonization and capitalism. The author is not afraid of speaking about the sensitive topic of colonization. They express that communities that are still being affected by colonization are more susceptible to the negative impacts of climate change as their economy, society and politics are usually weaker due to the oppression that they have faced and they are still facing because of big powers. Fossil fuels industries will keep on displacing those communities from their homeland to profit from the natural ressources of their land. The example of the Dakota pipeline which​ is a $3.7bn project that would transport crude oil from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to a refinery to Patoka, near Chicago, traverse Indigenous territories without genuine consent. The impact of this kind of project on the indigenous communities is really big. The ​threat of ​an oil spill can poison water sources and this could impact the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ( a local tribe ), whose reservation is immediately downstream of the point where the pipeline will cross the Missouri River, one of their major source of drinkable water.​ Here we can see that the environmental impact assessment which is '' the process of identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the biophysical, social, and other relevant effects of development projects prior to implementation'' is not respected when it comes to minorities. Even though it is part of the laws and rules of many countries including in this case study, both Canada and the US.

What is also problematic, is that even in the adaptation part; when we try to find solutions to the problems, like lowering carbon footprints pose risks to Indigenous peoples and may violate their human rights. Major actors, who try to respond to problems such as the World Bank or the UN, they propose alternatives that still involve the displacement

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