Since time immemorial Native Americans, the First Americans, have responsibly cared for Mother Earth. Chairman Cladoosby affirmed, “As sovereign nations, we stand with the countries around the world to support the Paris Climate Change Agreement and we join with them to protect this precious place we all call home.”

The failure of the US to confront the urgent and existential threat of climate change makes it a moral and practical necessity for tribal, state, and local governments, in collaboration with average citizens everywhere, to fill the leadership vacuum and redouble their climate change avoidance, mitigation, and resiliency efforts. Every domestic climate change initiative launched must be bold, aggressively funded, comprehensive, and tailored to confront the dire scientific forecasts of the challenges we face, not the political establishment’s consensus of what is reasonable.

“Indigenous communities around the world are among those being most quickly and severely affected by climate change. Regardless of the official position of the United States administration, we will continue to stand together in agreement with the Paris Climate Change Agreement, states Standing Rock Chairman, David Archambault. “Our tribe is actively working to move away from fossil fuels and we continue to battle those who disregard our efforts to protect our water and lands.”

“For hundreds of years the pollution based economy has degraded our home,” states Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby. “We can no longer allow a failed system to continue to destroy the planet. The Paris Climate Change Agreement reflects the global consensus that we must act together and we must act now.”