You want to know how to survive the climate crisis?

just back from Brazil and I've got stories to share!

A mural in the Teia dos Povos community of Terra Vista, Bahia

A couple weeks before the COP30 United Nations climate conference started in Belém, Brazil, police in Rio de Janeiro deliberately killed almost 130 people in a complex ambush targeting several poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city.

During the conference, Brazil’s progressive president, Lula da Silva, privatized three rivers in the Amazon, while a death squad probably hired by land-stealing cattle ranchers carried out a massacre against a Guarani Kaiowá community in the south of the country. Lula and the conference organizers tried to showcase Indigenous peoples as the forefront of the struggle to save the planet, even as they fail to stop extreme violence targeting Indigenous communities, and all they could offer is a relatively small investment fund, when financial investment is often a driving force of colonial violence. Additionally, very little of the money is going to Indigenous peoples. Instead, what isn’t going to business investment will be allocated to NGOs who will spend it on their behalf, continuing the mistrust and infantilization of colonialism.

And, the final statement of the COP30 didn’t even mention fossil fuels.

Nonetheless, there are so many amazing projects and struggles across Brazil that present real solutions to the ecological crisis and the many social crises enfolded within it.

Terra Vista mural

I’ve been travelling for a month and I’m exhausted, but I wanted to share some initial articles. More stories are coming!

If you have a connection with any medium to large publication that might reach people who care about ongoing colonialism or the failure of the climate movement, tell them they need to start publishing articles that showcase effective, realistic responses to the crisis! Get us in touch!

And thanks to everyone who contributed to the fundraiser that made this project possible!

The longest article published so far is on Truthout: “The Real Models for Sustainability in Brazil Are to Be Found Outside COP30.” It’s based on several interviews Brazilian comrades and I conducted with members of the Guarani, Ka’apor, Krenak, and Kaingang people who are reclaiming and defending their lands, and interviews with community members from the Teia dos Povos network and the housing movement in Belo Horizonte. The latter is made up of 100,000 people housing themselves through direct action!

Here’s an article from In These Times, “COP30 Isn’t a Failure, It’s a Farce!” This one breaks down some of the reasons why the official climate framework, after 30 years, major regulatory changes, and huge financial commitments, still hasn’t reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Then it takes on the hypocrisy of the COP30’s supposed centering of Indigenous peoples at this year’s conference.

From The Final Straw podcast, “Voices in Brazil for Radical Ecological Struggle” features an interview with me and with Gah Te Iracema, a spiritual leader from the Kaingang people who are actively recovering their lands in the Porto Alegre region, and also helping non-Indigenous neighbors to survive climate disasters when state and capitalist infrastructures collapse. Mutual aid!

The interviews we carried out range from urban to rural settings, they deal with land reclamations, with forest gardening and other ecological food systems, with housing for the urban poor, with quilombos and Indigenous peoples recovering and defending their autonomy, and with networks of international solidarity. Taken together, these struggles show another path to confronting the ecological crisis that is far more effective than the official, green capitalist framework.

Give them a read or a listen, and then help us overcome the radio silence and marginalization being imposed by mainstream and even many progressive media, by sharing and recommending!

Interview with Rafaela Krenak in the huge squatted building, Ocupação Maria do Arraial, Belo Horizonte

The Brazilian comrades and I are still translating the last of the interviews we took, and there are actually another two or three interviews that couldn’t happen in November because

a) heavy rains

b) people getting sick

c) the threat of paramilitary violence

With more platforms willing to publish this critical work, we can spread full interviews and more critical analysis!

17 November Indigenous Peoples’ March protesting outside the COP30, Belém