 Welcome everyone to this evening taking it to the next level decolonizing climate action. So glad to have you all here. And I would like to invite you to join me in first a land acknowledgement you may notice that people are already beginning to put their own introductions and land acknowledgments into the chat you could just say hi your name and where you're where you're coming from. And we also invite you to take a moment to pause and really think about where we are and what has come before us. I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the traditional territories of indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and beyond. We recognize their presence on and relationship with the land for time immemorial. I acknowledge the original caretakers of this land where I am the Huron Wendat the tune Seneca and Mississaugas of the credit indigenous peoples. And across this land I acknowledge the Cree, the Metis, the Dene, the Soto and Anishinaabe, the Dakota and Lakota nations, the Inuit, the Blackfoot, the Inu and so many more. All the nations that came before us and those yet to become honoring strength and struggle, wisdom and grief. We acknowledge and pay respects to the indigenous nations and ancestors of this land. We affirm our relationship to each other and to the land. And I would invite you to join me in a moments pause again with prayer. And I want to share with you a blessing for presence that is attributed to John O'Donohue. May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence. May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses. May you receive great encouragement when new frontiers beckon. May you respond to the call of your gift and find the courage to follow its path. May the flame of anger free you from falsity. May warmth of heart keep your presence of flame and anxiety never linger about you. May your outer dignity mirror and inner dignity of soul. May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention. May you be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul. May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder. So we thank John O'Donohue for those thoughts that bring us into the presence of this moment. We ask the spirit, the creator to bless our time together and to open our hearts and minds, our will to action to the words we will hear tonight. Amen. And with that, I would like to turn this evening over to our host and moderator, Randy Halooza-Delay, who is the Ecological Justice Coordinator at Kairos. Randy. Greetings, everybody. I'm very excited that you're here to wrap up Climate Action Month. Our theme has been Decolonizing Climate Action, and you heard that in the title. How do we take it to the next step? How do we go beyond just thinking about it or reading words about it and trying to do something to make it practical to implement some sort of new movement in climate action? I'm very excited for the people that we have here. We have four, I'll call them panelists, who will be participating. And we're going to do it in an interview sort of format, a question and response. I'll give each of them a moment to introduce themselves and respond quickly to the theme and then I'll ask questions of them for each of them to respond and we'll see how that goes. It will be full. Like I said, I'm very excited because each of them come from very different perspectives with an amazing amount of experience and an amazing amount of different things that they're doing that all very much relate to, to this theme of how we can be more effective in terms of creating a more just and sustainable world, especially around climate actions. So our three panelists and one post-panelist, I'll say. Our three panelists are Giza Tatamuk, Amara Rawson, and Apama Ranwana Kali, and then our post-panelist is one of Kairas and not for the love of creations. She's a cop 27 and that's Yusra Shafi, and she's going to be kind of responding at the very end, given what she's heard, how will she be moving forward to, you know, think about this while she's at cop 27 and then in communication afterwards, or during. So Giza Tatamuk is well known to people at Kairas because he's been part of the Indigenous Rights Circle for a very long time. Amara Rawson is in Toronto where he runs the Community Climate Resilience Centre as a research project on racial reconciliation and justice and climate change. And Anu is a post-colonial feminist theologian who has worked in Canada, who has roots in Sri Lanka and is currently located in the UK, where it's dug on awfully late in the evening. I'm just going to turn it over to each of you. And the first question that I wanted to ask is, if in one sentence, you could say your response to the theme when you heard about it, decolonizing climate action, what do you think about that theme, that phrase? Probably should unmute each of you. So Giza Tatamuk, do you want to go first? And then Amara and then Anu. I'm not accustomed to using one sentence, so I'm going to do my really best. My first impression is that's a good idea. I would probably qualify that by saying that decolonization in my lens is about reconciling our presence in the earth. And decolonization is a very good step in the right direction. I guess I'll go. Thank you. Thank you, Randy. I think my response to that is decolonization is deep waters that draws us into conversations about profoundly transformative change. And the decolonization is absolutely necessary because the climate crisis that is upon us now and that will worsen over time started the colonization. So we must return to the beginning to towards a different future. Thanks, Randy. I think everyone good to be here. Well, difficult to do in one sentence, but I think it's exactly that's it. It's difficult to talk about someone's sentence because it asks us to do something complex, something heavy and to engage in very deep discussions. So that's that's my thinking on that. Well, thank you. Now we've got the pithy things that we can all be tweeting out. So I'd like to do another round and have you each introduce yourself a little bit and then talk a little bit more about what does decolonization mean so you can explain a little bit from your work, or how you've tried to operationalize that in your work. But do go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit more than the very short introduction that I gave you. So we can go in the same order. How about gets a time. Okay, okay. Yeah, I sort of unmuted myself. I couldn't get back into. Thank you for the heads up ready. Could you just remind me that because I was busy doing something else. Go ahead and introduce yourself a little bit more than the very short introduction that I gave, and then explain a little bit more about decolonization and what you mean by it and what, how you understand it, and maybe how you tried to operationalize that and the things that you've, you've been doing. Thank you for the heads up ready. My name is Casey time. I come from the wampana community, mashpee, which is now located on traditionally how we understood with nuts it. But Samuel Champlain decided to call it Cape Cod. One of my main focuses is how do we bring people back together in the sense of what relations mean with two indigenous peoples here in the Americas. And when I think about decolonization I'm coming from a particular lens, because in Indian country was still kind of work through in through, we're working through these relationships with both United States and Canada which haven't quite decolonize their policies and their mindsets. When I think about decolonization. I think we're all have suffered from a colonial mindset about our presence on the earth and our presence with each other. There's, there's many reasons for a lot of it's historic, but we managed to maintain a historic presence in our minds the way that we live in society or economy, our political social normal normalness, as I can put it like that. Each of those kind of society of societal values really inhibit the kind of relationship that we're really seeking with each other. So, I believe that we can all do ourselves a great favor. We're revisiting those social norms in those socio political economic values that we carry, because I believe that those are very much linked to how the, how earth and how the climate is responding to our oblivious lifestyles and are in the neglect that that we are sharing and showing in our human footprints. With that said, I'm a great admirer for that divine love that is in the hope in the very presence of the earth and creation. And, and I'm really glad to be here and sharing this time with my new friends and colleagues. And I really believe we'll get there. I don't think it's as complicated but you know our human quality seem to complicate the simplicity. So, that's my opening salvo. Thank you, Amara. Feel free to introduce yourself and then explain a little bit more in depth with decolonization means and how you have operationalized it or made it into practice. Yeah, happy to do that. So, my name is Amara, Jenny Ralston, born and raised here, but my family's originally from Barbados. I'm from a rural country in the Caribbean. Some folks engage in climate. I might be familiar with the Prime Minister, he's been speaking quite strongly. And the colonization and climate change are very personal to me, partly because I come from a line of people whose bodies were used to establish the foundation for the industrial revolution. And if you go to my island. In my country, you'll see huge parts of agricultural lands that were once rainforest and forest protected steward in care for by air rocks and caribs that were clear for monopop and for sugarcane so sort of in my blood body and bone. And I believe this historical reality of the bonding of enslavement, the bonding of colonial violence, and the bonding with with extractive industries, and the plunder of the planet. And this is a very personal thing for me and it's very personal also because I come from a community here and I come from a country that will be most affected and it's contributed the least to the climate crisis. And so my work with the climate resilience lab has been to advance a racial justice oriented approach to climate resilience and resilience is a is a dirty word for any folks who have had a long history of oppression and structural balance. It's not about the fact that we speak about resilience in terms of the weather, not in terms of the structures that put us in this position. And so we speak of those structures we speak to persistence and the way we bring the colonization into our work is by looking at our work through three lenses. One legacy, we need to have really difficult as I said, complicated conversations around the way legacies of racial injustice and colonialism have created a world that cannot sustain itself, and it will continue to harm itself. The other is that we need to think about this work through emergence, which is not about top down colonial approaches to system change. It's not about sort of teacher article, big systems mechanistic let's build a machine and change the world. And then finally, the work of the lab is to imagine responses resistance and solutions that are framed through liberation, and we take nothing less than that. And so our ideas to imagine through a black futures and alpha futures standpoint, what liberation could look like in a climate just world, what liberation could look like in a decolonized world, and then create practical steps towards that with people beside people behind people when necessary. And decolonization from our standpoint so last thing I'll say is sort of the sort of the deep underbed for racial justice racial justice from our standpoint is systemic change is transforming policy institutions, but that has that doesn't. Like our friend just said, roughly transformative values upon which our society is built and that's what we need to get to. So, yeah, that's me and that's. Thank you thank you both I feel intimidated to follow both those brilliant opening salvos my position. And a little bit about myself. I'm primarily trying to think of myself as a teacher a pedagogue. A lot of the work that I did when I was in Canada was as a public pedagogue for caritas Canada development piece is what you might know them as. And I think from the perspective of of teaching of engaging and also international development which is a field that I'm very, very involved in decolonization is about the transformation of power and power relationships. And it's very much about not just redistributing power, and in that sense but I think about completely changing the way in which power is structured. And one of the things that a lot of people find hard is that it's hard to get your head around it, but I often tell people, this is not easy. There's no toolkit. I even actually have hesitancy when you use the word operationalize Randy, because I think that suggests that there's going to be a way we can deploy this. Or there's a guideline or something like that but decolonization is an invitation to an uncomfortable process is intended to to discomfort. And this is not a new conversation. These conversations have been the not just conversation sorry the, the demand for this has been around for a very, very long time, and yet has not been listened to. I like the voices that have asked for these for this transformation are continually silenced and marginalized. And now everyone's talking about decolonization and into the danger of becoming a buzzword, which is why I bring this caution of saying, it's not easy. It must be uncomfortable. And it's not only about making room for the historically oppressed and excluded, or the recognition of the violence that has been done. It's about radically altering the terms of the conversation. In order to change the colonial mentality that has the previous two speakers have said, organize our moral codes. In fact, this is an ask for a spiritual and moral awakening reawakening, if you will. And, and I think it will be the conversations will take different shapes in different spaces. But that that is I think necessary because justice will be different in different communities in different spaces, especially, I think, when we kind of think outside of Western rationality, where history and present is all melded together, where knowledge is a pluriverse. And these are these things that need to come into the conversation. And we also need to be aware that this will take time. So those, that's, that's sort of off the top of my head with that. Thank you. I want to follow up with you a little bit. No. Because you are a theologian. I try. So where is colonialism or decolonization in in theology or in the religious life or in the churches or things like that. Again, this this sort of depends on where you where you're looking at things from right. And we have some fascinating work from indigenous theology that I think is is in the sense only now really being listened to but has been vibrant and thriving, but simply not kind of entering to the canon, or being seen as contextual theology because I hate that work contextual. But I think from indigenous theology, the Pacifica theologian john have air. He talks about how, when the colonizers first came to the Pacific, and the people could not understand the God they preached because this was a God who was not connected to the ocean or air. So they've, they said this is not a God of life. And so he talks about this idea of finding Ruth in the Pacific, where it is about the connection back to a diaconia of the sea. So we have this really beautiful images that are coming that that are there that need to be, I think, engaged with and centered and to be learned from. And I think, and I think, and I think again also of, for example, in the post bandung era in the 60s in the 70s, the Ecumenical Association of third world theologians, who would, who were from Asia from Africa, from First Nation communities, from black communities in the US, who said, let's imagine a third something a third other. So not the third world in a negative sense as it is now they've appropriate they've taken that and turned into negative. But the initial idea was a radical idea of a third something that was different from the first and the second world. It was an idea or a different idea. Imagine as a radical break and the theologians, the of the it what they wanted this and they asked for a radical break they wanted theological epistemologies that were based on, for example, the broken body and on suffering. Somehow some of these things have got lost along the way but I think they are coming back. I think that I hope that my generation of theologians were trying to argue that case again. My worry is that sometimes we hit the Academy is very good at sitting around and shouting at each other but it doesn't get into the parishes. It doesn't go into the communities and that's really where I think the importance of public pedagogy comes in. It has to be like a little bit annoying and what I do is walk behind my parish priest. I hope my Edmonton parish priest isn't on here because I just follow him around saying father have you read this. So, back to you ready. I'm sorry if I'm blubbering it is quite late. It would be a great opportunity and Mara and gets 10 about both you working communities. Feel free to respond to anything that and you said or anybody has said, how do you try to bring it bring bring these kind of heady concepts into, you know, the parishes or the streets. You know, you know where regular people are the citizens of Toronto or wherever you live. I agree completely with what I know was just talking about. And when I think about, you know, something like prayer, for instance, it's to me it's not something that we say it's something that we do, we live it out. Those concepts that have momentarily inspired people. I think of Jesus, Mohammed and so many avatars that had come to and to have lived among our people and we're inspired for a little while and then we kind of come back to the melodramas that sort of run our life. But, but the reality what what makes it different for me is I come from a culture that that is verb based in the way that we think the way that we do, you know, you have to really live it out. The relationship is about how we live is guided by our hearts, how we feel how we live. How we treat one another, how we treat the earth, they're all closely linked, you know, and so it becomes a kind of a map mindset. If we don't, you know, in a way that Amar was saying if we don't liberate these so called realities around us. Then we reduce the very prime motivation to something rhetoric. You know, and I completely agree with Anu, you know, we, it has to be I think at this moment, it will be painful because we're not accustomed to thinking this way of living this way. You know, and it's going to challenge the very foundations which need to be challenged. So, you know, our experience was some, you know, time out enabled us to think about what's really important in society and each other and in so forth. So what inspires me as an Indigenous theologian, if I can put it that way, you know, is how we live. And we practice this every day. The treaties are really scary prospects to to most Canadians to most North American governments, but it's really the formality of our relationship here. No matter how we cut it, you know, as we were at land acknowledgement, we're on Indian country, you know, we're on Indian territories. It's more than just territories, it's homelife, it's homelife, it's life that we share with other, the others around us who are not human. That's the kind of relationship that we all have to cultivate because that's where you find God. Mara? Yeah, I love and completely appreciate what everybody, what everybody's saying. You know, my work has been really focused either problematically so or rightfully so I'm not sure yet on transforming institutions. And that's a really difficult prospect considering that most institutions are profoundly colonial and profoundly committed to that project. But because they are what surround us now and what we have. A lot of my work has been around, whether it's been with the lab or with the city is figuring out how these the relationship between these institutions, and you know folks who are living in neighborhoods will be most affected. How that power dynamic can shift. How institutions can become followers of community and followers of people from the standpoint of strong accountability. And the reason why I think that's particularly important is because I think we both said it here folks have been speaking about learning for and meeting the colonization forever. And when institutions enter into the accountable relationships with people they naturally get drawn into that and things have to fall away. They have to radically change people that were in power have to shift. And so, for me, that, and I think when we talk about it from the spiritual paradigm, it's about acts of service, and about how a shift in power ensures that institutions serve as they are supposed to. And particularly from the standpoint of reparative justice and racial justice, be very intentional about how they serve from the standpoint of healing histories that brought us to this, this place in the first place, and how that healing process that is sort of created through new forms of accountability to the folks that we're talking about to the neighborhoods that we're talking about, then create the foundation for a completely different world. Because I think what happens is that when institutions come into relationship with folks who have been just eating for resisting and acting to decolonize. They go haywire and panic, because they start to lose their moral authority. And they lose footing. But I think that's what we need to be. Some things need to be shaken up so much they start to fall apart so we can rebuild that again. We have to accept that, because anything less is absolutely not sustainable. I think that's sort of where I've been thinking about my work but as you know I think, as we're all saying, it's a process it's it's not a mechanistic, this is what you do and this is how it works. It's a way. It's a journey. It's a relationship that it's unfolding. Are you willing to say a little bit more about what you mean when you say most institutions are profoundly colonial. Yeah, absolutely. You know I think most institutions operate on found problematic hierarchies. You can see the racial hierarchies in our world reflected in institutions. You can see the way institutions think about change or advancing their agendas as intensity mechanistic. Most institutions operate outside of a profound sense of accountability to the people around them, or at least paying accountability. You can interpret institutions, based on what my background is, I won't speak directly to you if you can get a sense. I think most institutions are colonial because they do a very good job of protecting their power structures from being infiltrated by folks who weren't supposed to be there in the first place. And what ends up happening is they end up glossing over that with conversations yes about equity diversity inclusion, but in fact they are institutions that are not ready and don't want to be changed. And so, I think you can tell an institution and its colonial underpinnings in this relationship with people in a particular indigenous black and racialized folks equity discerning folks I think you can tell an institution. And I think it's really important to understand how it opens up its decision making to folks and how it actually not opens up how it releases its decision making to community. So those are, those are, those are some ways, but I don't, I don't know at all. So those are just that's just like my sliver of experience I see the humbly, but that's my sliver of experience. I was out there and get some time and you. What would you add about how institutions are profoundly colonial. Mr Randy where do I start. I think I agree with everything that Imara has said, and I think, well, the other thing is this I think that if we look at the idea of an institution in itself that that use of that word, shall we say, has it conjures up for your fortress, it is in itself meant to be exclusive. I think that's the first thing so maybe we need to think also about our languages and how we're naming things, or we understand things. But if we look at an institution like the university or or church, and not all churches but I'm a Roman Catholic so for look at my particular church and, you know, the structures, not only the structures of hierarchy, but also even within a church that is technically in its in its teaching, says it's not just not such thing as a right to private property is still wedded to ideas of growth, still wedded to ideas of the ownership of its land still wedded to a particular sense of wealth and prosperity. I think that is how an institution is colonial. And if we look, and I think the Academy will look at governments now. You know, one of the biggest, I don't know if you've been following politics in the United Kingdom. The government that we have in place right now is talking about creating growth. The idea of growth is based upon a colonial idea of continual expansion exponential expansion, which can only happen through continuous extraction and exploitation, not only of labor, the labor of people, but it is also then the extraction and exploitation of land of air of water of all of our natural resources. And this idea that everything is must be bent to the will of exponential progress that is essentially tied to what the European Imperial project did in in quite literally changing the geographies of the world if you look at what the Dutch did to the land islands and the pursuit of nutmeg country I'm from, for example, where indigenous communities are still having because crown crown laws are still in place in Sri Lanka. The indigenous communities of the forest dwellers are still having their land taken away from them legally it's taken away from them to plant them for sugarcane production. And there's no kind of legal standpoint in which they can argue, argue back from it, but they are trying. And then they have to find, they have to find ways of entering into the system, becoming part of that system, taking on a colonized self in order to get their land back. So these are the ways, so I think through the codification of law through the, through the continuation of certain systems. I often say to my students that if we really follow the colonization of the Academy to his endpoint, it means the disillusion of the university as we know it, because the structures were set up for wealthy European men to study. The institutions set up for at all for someone like me. You know, so these are these things that we need to consider to understand that the institutions themselves are set up for a particular ideal type of the human to flourish. And for everything else to be in service to that. That was a bit strong, sorry. Strong, strong is what we need right on strong is what we need. I just wanted to say in brief that it seems to me is some observing all that. And in my observation is, it's like the institutional models, kind of reflect where society is, or what society believes it needs. For protection, maybe, you know, if someone guarantee that we'll have a life that we can continue. And it's like, there's no alternative, this is all they have, they don't, they're not able to think outside of the box of the containers that were created. And that the only possible future if we remain in the box is the end. You know, it's just a matter of time where people are not going to be able to even be. Maybe it's not even. How do we democratize the institution I think that I think what we have to do I think and what the modern newer saying that, you know, you have to take the walls down you've got it. We have a far better source of enlightenment. If we take the walls down rather than let it fall down. If we're taking the walls down then we have a, we have an understanding of the priorities it's all about life. Not just life among human beings but life for everything. You take humanity out of the creation paradigm and creation will continue. We're not, we're not necessarily, we're not necessarily a necessity, you know, to creation, but we need creation in order for us to come. And as miraculous as it is to me, to my vision, creation is embracing humanity. We are, we are, we are the children of creation. You know, and the whole structure of creation is, is an intentional maintenance of life where we seem to be the only species or not thinking about the maintenance of life. We're talking about the maintenance of power, and of wealth, so called wealth. You know, these are all, these are all delusions that we create for ourselves has nothing to do with reality. So if we're talking about making an institution work, then it's got to be from ground level that we put our minds together, we build together. And we have also that key element that the rest of creation needs the space that we're inhabiting as well to survive so we have a responsibility to all life, as well as to each other. I believe it can be done. But it's a scary picture for most people because they're living in the box. I guess maybe the messages that can be done. We don't need the box. We just need each other to feel and to love each other. Thank you all. Let's, let's get specific about decolonizing climate action. What does that look like or what do what what should happen in practice there. How do we decolonize climate action. And maybe we can start with Amar and then go to an year and then get to Tenamuk. I can try. I'm sure it's the Tenamuk and and and who have better thoughts. You know, I think I think in the climate action space, there is a lean towards an alliance on technocratic responses to the climate crisis, particularly in my space. The climate resilience space. There is, and you know, this isn't a deny that finding ways to retrofit buildings and ensuring greater flood protection are not important, particularly when we're living in urban spaces, but they're not the full answer. And I think decolonization in climate action to me often brings us back to human connection human relation and the power dynamics that shape the way we conceptualize our future world. So, you know, it changes the locust or the place of focus. So for instance, if I'm thinking about decolonizing climate action within the lens of climate resilience. I'm thinking equally about the accountability mechanisms, the mutual decision making mechanisms that exists in our communities between our communities and the spaces that make decisions, whether it's for government rich or government or federal government, whether it be institutions that are still core meal but still have a role to play. I think decolonizing climate change is about re envisioning the place that countries like Canada that makes such a massive contribution to the climate crisis play in the world, you know, I talked about a number of countries that are motley of Barbados. Many people across the Caribbean many countries are having conversations about reparations and climate reparations in particular. And having conversations about climate reparations not just I think because climate reparations creates an opportunity for a new fiscal arrangement and global compact that would allow countries like Barbados like my own to respond to the crisis. And that's because reparative justice transforms the collective consciousness of the globe. In the same way that reconciliation transforms the consciousness of Canada, and makes us better prepared to create something different together. I think to me decolonizing climate action is about shifting our focus away from a strict dependence on technocratic solutions. And it's opening us up to more difficult conversations around shifts in power, and what it looks like to actually create that through accountability through institutional relationships or institutions as and said that dissolve into something different. So that's something new to be created. So I'll stop there. And I'm sure folks will have a lot of fun. Is it me next. Okay. I think it's important to use the R word, because not everyone is always, you know, not everyone's happy when that's raised. But I think that's extremely important there are so many things we need to do with decolonizing climate action but I think the important thing to be listening to those who are at the front lines of climate events who have been for mean it's not just in the past 10 years in 1988. Fina Pina bishops wrote this tract called what has happened to our beautiful land, where they talk about how the environment was being was already being degraded. And they link it, link it exactly to multinational corporations and what they were doing in the 80s. And further back than that, Gregory of Nazanius in the fourth century. He sees climate weather events around him and he says, Whence, when from whence comes the thunderstorm and he says that it is because we have so where we should not be we should not reach where we should not reap. So that is that it means that this consciousness of we have done something wrong has been has has been in somewhere, and no one has listened to it. Right. Indigenous communities around the world have been screaming about this, but those voices haven't been sent it. So the first thing we need to do in decolonizing climate action. Right. Right. Right. Right. Everyone's now talking about green tech and electric cars and goodness knows what, absolute nonsense they're not listening to those who are saying this is what needs to happen. I'm just going to post in the chat, the 10 point plan from carry come, which I think is an ideal plan that we as faith community should be looking at and saying how can respond to that. And I think that on. I think a lot of the reparative reparatory justice that the carry come 10 point plan talks about is is embedded into how faith communities understand reconciliation and repentance and healing. Right. This is about understanding, essentially what are ecological sense and I'm thinking of the ecology not in terms of, you know, just nature but in the sense that the link between racial injustice. colonial injustices and climate injustice. This is all part of one big ecological problem. So we have to say, these are ecological sense, we must repent for what has happened, and we must work to reconcile them so I think that's, those are the things that faith communities can do find out who's who has been talking about this and what they say needs to happen. That's really important. The point on that is that it's really key and not all faith communities are good at this. Some are some are. We need to get better at being willing to build broad alliances, what we can call rainbow alliances, some of the most successful movements that I have seen are where you can see communities of the indigenous communities, fishing communities, trade unions, feminist communities coming together to agitate on something together so we need to be thinking of that kind of very repurposive solidarity that's looking to address the intersection of injustice because when we're talking about taking those walls down. It is about saying how do we not just survive together how do we thrive together. How do we come to a fullness of life together. Right and these injustices are not separate and we need to as faith communities thinking about that. And this is a very particular thing I'm looking at is, you may have all heard of extension rebellions, very, very big over here in the UK. And one of the things that troubles me about the exclusion rebellion, and even Christians for Christians for extension rebellion is there's a lot of discourse in there. That's apocalypse and it, and it talks about the fact that we have to address the climate crisis, because we're going to face a problem of scarcity. And then it talks about you know the fact that climate refugees will be coming into the UK and then we'll all be in this kind of you know race against each other. That's a very race racial thing to say it's pitting communities against each other, and it's leaving the global south to fend for itself it actually isn't built on solidarity so I would, I would say that the other thing we need to do for the constant climate action is to look at our climate movements and say what are we saying. Are we talking about, are we constantly pushing for technical solutions. Are we, are we creating these discourses about population and immigrants and so on that are actually antithetical to what this movement should be. And so, and third, are we really trying to work towards repatriate justice I think there's a, there's a need for some very serious conversations to happen within climate movements themselves, but secular and faith based. So that's my sort of three little things there. Thank you. Very good. I think about kind of providing a critique where we are at the moment, kind of thing so there's this like several tears happening at this point, the are thinking about what do we do immediately. You to lessen the catastrophic models that we're working with, you know, but the long, the long range is to dismantle the whole colonial structure all together. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm taking back from the idea that we have the reality that, that Westerners tend to lessen the intellectual capacity of people of color. You know, what whatever, whatever strata that we find ourselves in, even, even the person on the street has such an intellectual capacity that that we're all very deep thinkers. I find a lot of inspiration just coming and sitting with the earth, having ceremony, you know, in our little sphere of, of, of how we live, you know, it's a very practical way of living you know we're talking about action. You know, it's, it's what direction do we choose to move in. And I think that, you know, my colleagues at for the love of creation, think about action, not so much related to how we live. But how we can influence our parliamentarians, you know, without thinking about that that this whole system really needs to be democratized in the sense that it's really the will of the people. The will of the people seldom even is, is, is, is even thought of, you know, and I agree so much with, with what my colleagues were saying here, you know, where are the politicians when when First Nations people are trying to defend their those politicians who agree that we have to start to dismantle them become more transparent should be right there. You know, politicians should be there church leaders should be on the frontline with us because it's not, it's not a us and them. It involves all of us we got to really be thinking differently about, you know, First Nations have been talking, you know, to colonial mindsets from the, from the, from the beginning of Columbus. This is not how you do things. You do things as, as a, as a respect that the other next to me has the same needs as I do. And that those deer and those snakes and those fish have the same needs, you know, what are we doing thinking just about ourselves. You know, if we, if we try to form some kind of action. Part of that action has to be to dismantle the very parameters that we find ourselves in the boxes that we build, you know, the exclusions that we have. We will even that notion of human race, you know, and that this is racist and that is racist, you know, we're all in this together. And that's about time we start to dismantle those social boundaries, you know, we're all human beings we all have the same needs as human beings. We take care of our collective needs. Then maybe there might be time for once. But first let's work on the needs, you know, I was sharing my students and I'll just wind up. I was sharing my students one time. I think this was 2013. At the time, the US GMP was $24 trillion. And so I was surmising, well, we're a population of maybe 300 million, we can maybe round that off to a million households. If we gave a million dollars to a million households, that would equal $1 trillion, one 24th of the GMP of the United States in 2013. And what is that the well being of people. One 24th of the trillion, you know, would have, I mean, we could eradicate, if it's our mindset, we could eradicate poverty in our midst. How can we have poverty and enormous wealth in the same space. You know, that means we have to be thinking differently about what is this we're doing. You know, why are we not doing, what do we mean, you know, to be really to be real about this. You know, and we have every, every source of inspiration around us, but just not paying attention with that oblivious, I think, even when we're trying to do something, you know, it's more than just a piece of paper is, you know, about, or getting on the phone and calling up our MPs. So for us, it's about how we live. And it's about how we begin to see ourselves in all peoples in an all life. It's meant to be serious. It's meant to be clear, it's meant to be simple and not complicated, just requires courage to think differently and then to reach out to each other and let's put our minds together. You know, I'll say this about the treaties that was the whole idea about those initial treaties is how we're going to share the same space with two different mindsets. The only way that we come to that conclusion this we're all working at it together. Of course, I can spend a whole semester on this one topic. We speak very eloquently I could probably listen for a whole semester. So let's go on to our third major question. And second, but I want to mention to the audience that after this round, we'll open up for questions and answers. So you can, you know, put any questions that you want either in the chat or raise your hand I'll try to call on you if I see it, or Shannon can point it out to me. And I wish everybody I don't know what you're seeing on your screen I'm seeing the four of us. And the way it's structured is, and you is looking to her left. And tomorrow is looking to her right. And it's like they're looking at each other. And it gets a ton of look is is above with me, and he's kind of looking downward at his computer as if he's looking at the two of them. And it's really in my mind a delightful image of the kind of conversation I think that we're having here tonight so I'm absolutely delighted at that image and, and this is being recorded. So, we will figure out what we're going to do with the recording but I'm very happy that that's the way it looks to me because I'm very grateful for all that the three of you are saying. The last question that I had for us before we go into the question and answer is, what would you like the people in this audience to do to help the processes of decolonization. So, maybe it gets a ton of you can go first and then you and then tomorrow. What would you like the people in this audience. Excuse me. Well, that's the question right. Indeed. We do. You know, I think about the work of reconciliation. And that's what I was saying about decolonization. You know it has a grave danger of become a buzzword. You know it's just something that we say. But you know it's all about finding the courage to do what maybe we're afraid of doing. You know, I think there's kind of a deeply embedded fear of Indian country. You know, maybe we're maybe there's a fear that that our anger is enough to inhibit people from reaching out. But you know, in all my travels and all the people that I that I meet that I will meet. Nobody in Indian country is talking about building the great arc and shipping everybody out. What we are talking about is how do we live here in peace in mutual respect, a genuine experience of kind of love that that that we hold for our children in our in our communities, you know, I would, I think that our future, at least in this side of the world, if not globally is based on the indigenous lens about how we interrelate with each other. How we love our homelands to the deepest, you know, root systems of our being, you know, because most people don't know that, you know, and most people don't know about how it is to be on the earth. You know, and the stratus that I work with is to encourage people to do exactly that, spend time with the land. You know, I use in my pronouns thing in it. You know, because a lot of my most of my teachers are not human. You know, and I there's great value and being with the earth and having ceremonies where, where we reach out to all the life around us because all that life contributes to the life of my family and me. We, when we identify ourselves, you know, our names are clans, our nations are Confederacy. You know, these are, these are human manifestations of our relationship to creation. It's not possible for us at any one time to live without the presence of the sacred. We are embedded in the sacred. And we are all embraced by a divine love that that permeates everything around us. You know, I think that for the church, all the churches, I think at one time came from something like that came from that kind of understanding. When we lose ourselves in this melodrama of power and global politics, you know, I don't think that that was, that was the original idea, the original plan for humanity. You know, I think the original plan for humanity is taken right out of the book of creation about about life that flows in us as human beings is, you know, we're kind of like fractals of the universe with those of creation. You know, and I think that that's, that's the future people want to live here in Indian country, then you're going to need to embrace that, that kind of love and that kind of spirituality, you know, and, and you're welcome. You're more than welcome to be here. That's it for me. Thank you. I think something important for those of us, particularly those of us who believe in the history of salvation is to realize that creation is not separate from that history of salvation. Christ is deeply incarnated into creation into creation a cosmological Christ, isn't it. And I think the, the simple thing is to separate Christ from creation incarnation from creation. And that's something that we can take on, I think, as Christian faith communities is to be deeply reflective of that. It's not always good at doing that, but let us reflect upon. Thanks for having me from on on the deep incarnation and, and how it calls us to, to radical love. As I guess it just said it, it's the call to radical love and then radical love that pushes us into action and action is different in different ways. There are practical ways, of course, I think, for example, if anyone on here is is is a Catholic person. I saw recently that the Canadian bishops are are working with the Vatican to on a statement that would reject the doctrine of discovery. And I think if you are moved by radical love, and to his justice, you have a responsibility to keep the pressure on the Canadian bishops to make sure that that does happen. This is not going to happen without a movement of the people of God asking for justice that has to happen that responsibility has to be, I think, taken on, and it comes out of love. It comes out of the love that we have that we have experienced in our relationship with Christ. We should be experiencing sometimes it's hard. And I think the other thing is that the two other things very quickly is refusal. What is it that we know that we or that we taught what morality is do we live within that we need to refuse because these moralities are unjust. So this is this is a moment of reflection for us, but also a moment of uncomfortable conversation be willing to have this uncomfortable conversations be willing to engage in the spaces where these conversations are happening. Where these refusals are happening. And I encourage you all to read the end bit of some is like is the Simpsons work on refusal and also how, how to build radical community. I think that's a really important text for faith communities to be engaging with. And the third thing is be prophetic. Be moved by righteous anger. There's nothing wrong with rage. I think I think rage that is moved by love, love for creation, love for one another. We shouldn't simply be, I think, you know, saying, okay, let's have, let's find these solutions or let's do this or let's do that. We need to be, we need to be angry at how slowly things are moving. We need to be angry. I mean I'm personally I was I was livid at the last cop when the paper on when when loss and damage was completely ignored when faith communities and indigenous communities were physically shut out. And the language was sensitized to the point where it said nothing. The conversation reparations. Exactly. You're sure the conversation reparations was effectively shut down. We as faith communities, because we understand the importance of repentance and reconciliation. From that point of reconciliation should be saying the first point of call is reparations it means land to back it means material reparation and that needs to happen. And that needs to happen now. There's no point in that if you go to cop in Egypt. This is something that we need to be pushing for and placing that pressure on and that can come. I think from building broad alliances and standing together and speaking from a position of love that leads us to this kind of righteous rage. And I'm sorry for the coffee of drunk that makes me sound a bit preachy, but that that is where I thank you. Um, you know, I, so what does this do I, what comes to me is the words of Bob Marley. I think we all need to be ready to face up to yourself for mental slavery. The process of organization itself is such an important process, first and foremost. And I think we all need to be radically expanding our personal spiritual and psychological and emotional for entity for decolonization. to be those radical actors that we must be in order to move this world forward in a very different place or to a different place. I think the other thing that I would say this group can do is that I think after as part of committing to that process. And I love what what what colleagues have said here friends have said here is we are in a place where we have to embrace being profoundly radical. I grew up Anglican and was really transformed by James Cone's liberation theology. And I think being liberation oriented and profoundly liberation oriented, being open to radical transformer change that calls us to be insurgent from the standpoint of love, but an openness to being angry and frustrated and pushing really hard leads and we need to become essential. But that's deeply connected to our carrying capacity for decolonization. Because it's so deep even for me, someone who works in racial justice, my personal decolonization process is ongoing. Because that was the point. And I won't speak for too much longer. But I think the other thing is once we start with soft and we do that, and we open ourselves to radically challenging and changing the spaces around this, what we can hope for what we can bet on. And I believe this truly is that on the other side of repair and justice, on the other side of reconciliation and land on the other side of all the things that we have been fighting for and all the things that have been resisted by different powers that we is the closest we can get to utopia. I truly believe it. And so when we think about the sort of nihilistic projections of the future, there is another story. There's a story that is utopian. There's a story about a world that is just. There's a story about a world that is healed. There's a story that has been remade and it won't fall again, because the old orders have been completely deconstructed. And the values that we live upon are sound. That's possible. And you have to be that. Another world is possible. That's the message of the gospel. It's the message of hope. And thank you to all three of you for pointing that out and saying it so strongly and well. Audience, I want to turn it over to you right now. I'm gonna put you on gallery so hopefully I can see if you raise a hand. Do you have any questions that you want to direct to any of the three speakers or to all of them? Feel free to raise your hand. If you're shy, you can put it in the chat and unmute yourself if you're okay with that and ask the questions. Are you absolutely overwhelmed or have they said everything that you wanted them to say? Or is it just really late at night? So, Randy, there is one in the chat. Okay. I'm asked, how do we decolonize climate action plans for institutions? Kim, do you want to say a little bit more about exactly what you mean by that? And then we'll turn it over to the panelists. I don't actually see Kim. So, oh, there she is. Our university is, I don't know if you can see me, is working on a climate action plan right now. And we're looking at climate action plans of other universities. And one of the components is including an Indigenous lens in this. And this is the reason that I'm attending this right now. So I was just wondering if there are any things that we should consider that we haven't considered yet. So any of the three of you who has an idea, feel free to jump in. I'm willing to see to see where that goes. If there's always if there's already an invite of Indigenous voices in it, and you know, let's see what happens from that. But that's really have to be our immediate future, that people really need to be working with us on this, you know, we've been, and you know, I don't speak for Indian country, but no matter how strong the militarization of the development and exploitation goes on in our communities, we're going to maintain our strength and resilience and resist it regardless of what the consequences are. That's about enacting that love we have for the land and for the life on that land as well as ourselves, you know. But I'm hoping that people have a much stronger capacity to see what's going on and to respond to that. You know, and as Amira said that, you know, it starts with our individual integrity. You know, that's really, that's crucial. What we do with that from that time, you know, we have almost a whole encyclopedia of possibilities, what we do with that, and action, but it's important that we do something. And, you know, even if it is to, to write about it, to talk about it in editorials and so forth. But that's, that's just a step. I believe we have to live that way. So I'm really interested and see where, where this, this university is going to go with this and how indigenous voices are going to, maybe it needs to be indigenous led. Put it that. And you and Amira, you both work in universities and what kind of suggestions would you have Amira? You're muted. Great. Sorry folks. Sorry. If it's okay, I could just really speak from side. I work, my day life is working with the city. And I spent the last few years working with the confronting anti black racism as a policymaker. And the lessons I've learned, particularly to that question is that creating accountability structures that are tied to particular plan are hugely impactful, particularly when they're public accountability structures that report out to the public. Most institutions like to hold to the moral authority and so the way they hold to the moral authorities might be keeping conversations indoors. But if you expose internal processes to the public, and you create accountability mechanisms that have, for instance, in our case for the anti black racism, you know, black folks in accountability structures report to council publicly. And it's in public documents to whether or not the progress of the plan is going well or not. Then that means that the institution, if it's historically colonial or inherently colonial can't fold the process to itself, can't keep the process quiet, and can't control the narrative around whether or not the process is is resonance with indigenous folks black folks would have. So my experience has been stripping the moral authority through public accountability, creating accountability mechanisms in which the policy, it's very clear that the folks that are on this accountability mechanism are playing a leadership role in shaping the plan, and making sure that they have the key points at which they can revise and or change the direction of the plan as a point of policy improvement. Are some ways that that can happen. Also, they're very such much, but that's that's one small step that I've seen. Thank you. I mean, I don't have a lot to add to what the previous, my previous colleagues have said, I absolutely agree, especially I think in Canada, it should be indigenous led. And I agree with you, Mara, that there must be accountability, transparency in this conversations. And a third thing to add here, one of the very, very difficult conversations that's happening, especially in the Scottish universities at the moment, is that a lot of the the bigger Scottish universities, the long term ones that have been around for five or 600 years, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and a lot of the university itself was built on on the profits of slavery, lots of the endowments, the chairs. And that was very much linked to a project that was extractive of land and labor. And so one of the really big questions has been, is our climate action plans at university is going to reckon with that. It's part of a bigger conversations happening in the United Kingdom right now with the National Trust and so on are having to talk about these things. But it's a big, big question for universities. It's not only about divesting from fossil fuels, but it's also about confronting the university's legacy and how the university has been complicit in the crisis that is here now in creating that in that sense. So I think it's two folds. There's very, universities are very good, I think in rolling out technical things they're going to do. Oh, we're going to have reusable cups and we're going to divest from this and divest from that. But it's also about having, I think, and it comes down to, thank you, that's a great quote from Mimi. It really, really comes down to who's leading the process. And I think ensuring that the process is, I think, led in a plural kind of way, that we're open about how that process is led, and that we are inviting in to those conversations, communities that are the most affected, I think is really, really key. So these are the, I think, things that are very key for universities in terms of not only, I think, in climate action plans, but also in addressing issues of racism, issues of diversity, universities are greater corporate diversity, but we know that representative politics continues to be something that does not create life, but actually represses life. So I think these are questions I would want to raise. I would look at the climate plans, climate action plans and say, is this just a technical response? Or is this a moral response? This is the question I would probably, well, I have asked, which is probably why the rective doesn't respond to my emails anymore. Thank you very much. There's a couple more questions in the chat, and I'm going to combine them together. Jessica said that she's feeling very overwhelmed. I know a lot of people often say that sort of thing. So how do you find the balance? How do you not be drained by all of this? And then somebody else had asked, what are some elements of spirituality that will sustain those who are courageously prophetic in the face of resistance? I'll just open up to you. How do you keep going in the face of, you know, the swamp? Yeah. Well, sometimes when I get a little in despair or a little confused, I go have a smoke, go out into, go sit on the land, have a ceremony. Yes, a simple thing like that, you know, breathing in the air, you know, it's more dynamic than we believe, you know, it's not that the air is, you know, that there's nothing between us and the trees and all, it's actually full. When you think about, you know, water has memory, land has memory, certainly, we're breathing in the air that our ancestors breathe. When you breathe in and breathe out, you're also sharing your thoughts, sharing your dreams, sharing your confusion, you know, sharing your success. It's all out in the air. And then we're taking an air from the trees and from the other life around us. You know, there's a unifying quality to all that, you know, and then I think about a statement from Henry Thoreau once said that each of us constitutes the majority of one. When you when you think about our relationship to creation, you know, there's there's more life out there that is on the on the higher consciousness level. And when we strive to, to intentionally raise our conscious level, you know, then we're the majority. You know what I mean? Because the rest of creation is already at that level, you know, we can, we can go to great, great lengths in our despair. But you know, there's something miraculous, if we stay with those feelings, something wonderful happens. You know, when we analyze why are we feeling this way? What are what are the parameters around us that are making us feel this way? And when we stay with that, you know, it's like a message comes through with us, you know, we don't even have to know where it's coming from. But the fact that we're open, you know, to, to, to learning or to open to that kind of guidance, you know, it's wondrous. You know, I like the idea that I'm a majority of one, you know, I'm in the majority, you know, because the rest of creation is there. It's easy to feel despair about this, but I'll tell you, that's where our power is. You know, and all we need to do is take that next step, breathe in deeply, breathe in the love and the dreams of our ancestors, still embedded in the air, you know, there's so much about the power of the esoteric, what we don't see. And what we don't see is what makes this life real. And it'll stop there. I can, I can come in. If that's, if that's okay. I think, I think that becoming the ability to feel, have a moment of grief and to feel despair, I think is almost a privilege, because there are so many who are drowning, look at the floods and backs on, baking, look at most of sub-Saharan Africa at the moment. So perhaps there isn't a moment to feel despair, or grief or feel exhausted, because it's a constant, it's part of the everyday reality. And Christina Sharp has this wonderful line in her work, where she says that for some people that has never been any other choice, but to keep, keep going at it, to keep fighting, to keep resisting. And I think every time I do feel, or I have a moment to feel that, I think no, what that's, that's, that is my privilege to feel exhausted. And then that pushes me to kind of push me out of my box. I'm not always very good at it, to be fair. But I think that's something I try to keep, keep, keep in mind. And I think it's also about what creation teaches us. One of the things I noticed, you know, I take public transport, I take the train a lot. And there's always plants growing big and thick and wild on railway tracks. And for me, I think that's such a sign from the creator to say, look at this plant, every day trains go over it, high speed trains, there's dirt, there's dust. And yet it thrives, it resists this terrible civilization that runs out every day. And I think that is, that is literally the creator speaking to me, the to us to say this is what we have to do. And I think that's really important. And the third thing is, build community. If you build community, and you're working within a movement. This is this is the support you get in order to, to, to, to, to maybe when you feel tired, when it's overwhelms you, community is really important, building these alliances and being within them. And those communities also reveal a constantly revelatory. And are important for spirituality as well. So that's probably what I would say. Yeah. And I guess for me, it's, you know, I'm very curvy in the way that I hold up to the system almost broken and in church, but I've always been very rooted in the relationship with my ancestors. And in order for me to be here, my ancestors had to go passage, the worst forms of violence you can possibly imagine. And that sometimes when we think about that, we think about that, about that as people surviving intense pain, but that required a massive amount of love to live your life through that love, love for self, to survive all of that, which is what we see as Black folks so miraculous. And I think in many ways, knowing that I am the sum total of all my ancestors' love and efforts gives me the energy, but also knowing that I too will be an ancestor and will have to sort of think about what my contribution is to those that come after me, gives me energy. Because I was a recipient, I have to give. And then I guess the last thing is I have a big placard on my wall that says joy is an act of resistance. And I think for many of us, joy was not meant to be and not supposed to be. So prioritizing joy is part of the movement. Whatever we can. Absolutely. Very much. One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite poems is, be joyful, though you know the facts. All right, well, I thank everybody here for being part of this. I want to turn this over to Yusra Safry, Chaffee, to kind of wrap things up for us. Yusra is a Brock University student and is one of the delegates to COP 27 that will be sent in the delegation that Kairas and for the love of creation is organizing. She's one of the two delegates and she's here with us today. And what I had asked her to think about as she listened, so we're really putting her on the spot here, like talk extemporaneously. From all this wisdom, all these thoughts, all these things that she's heard, what will she take with her as she heads off on the delegation to COP 27 but also and especially as she tries to communicate back to Canada and to Canadians, both during that time in November but then afterwards as well. So go ahead and unmute yourself and take it away. Hello. So first of all, I just like to thank the panelists so much for their time and their conversation. I wish I could touch upon and just talk about everything you all talked about today. But unfortunately, I don't have the time to do that. So for a new promise sake, I'm going to run through this as best as I can. As an international student, I had relatively no knowledge of Canadian, Canada's colonial history. What was worse than in my classes and courses, I was still not exposed to any of that information. Decolonization is something that is not a part of my syllabus and is often not brought up. One of our panelists said it best. Decolonization is not about engaging in a service is about engaging in a certain level of discomfort and is not a buzz word. However, institutions and educational institutions specifically choose not to engage in that discomfort. The IPCC has also finally named colonialism as a driving force of the climate crisis. Yes, finally, it's about time. That is more that I'm inspired to help break a COP 27 and in my correspondence. I'm committed to using my own privilege to ensure that I am transparent about discomfort and uncomfortable topics, which includes topics of loss, damage and reparations. Because strange as it sounds, I think discomfort is part of what mutually respectful communication entails. One of our panelists brought up that a large part of colonization is engaging in deep discussions. That's exactly what I'm hoping to do as part of my correspondence. After all, all action starts with conversation just like the ones we're having now. I think a big part of my COP 27 communication approach is going to involve two sided conversation. It is going to involve audiences, allow them to ask questions and get them a chance to provide their own answers and to respond. That's the best way to get more and more people involved and passionate. After all, as one of our panelists has said, mindsets are as important to be decolonized as policies are. Another one of our panelists also briefly touched upon the concept of environmental racism, the idea of the global South being disproportionately affected by the activities of the global North. What I've noticed in my day to day life is that people know that this happens, but they're completely unaware of what and how much this actually entails. This brings up listening to those who are most affected by the climate crisis. For one of my classes, I was recently assigned an article about environmental racism. It was chock full of statistics and examples, but not a single quote, not a single interview. Safe to say I absolutely obliterated that article and the choice to include it in the syllabus in my reflection paper, emphasizing how important it is to include voices, to include the humanity. However, it is worth noting that this has to be done extremely carefully and respectfully. Our panelists talks about purposeful solidarity and how sub movements are harmful and all about pitting communities against one another, partly what movements such as extension rebellion due to an extent. It reminds me about how a lot of climate crisis discourse comes down to what about us? We're the ones who are suffering, which is a narrative that needs to be changed and flipped on its head. Equity is about making sure all voices are heard, not just the ones they want us to hear. This is something I hope to advocate for and engage with in all my COP 27 communications. The topics of resilience were also bought up. I'm reminded of the quote, we should not call people resilient without calling out the systems that have forced them to be resilient. I'd like to tie this into the discussion of unsettling foundations, as one of our panelists very perfectly put it, which are achieved by both personal relational change, as well as institutional change. Our panelists touch upon how scary it is for lack of better word to change institutions because they are inherently colonialist. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk about it. That doesn't mean reparative justice is a discourse that should be ignored or stowed away, and that we shouldn't call out racist power structures and hierarchies. All of these contribute heavily to the climate crisis and something I aim to highlight in my communications. Furthermore, one of our panelists talked about growth and exponential growth and the idea of it being harmful. I'm reminded of a discussion I had with one of my professors. We discussed the use of GDP as a primary measure of this group. But how does this one measure encompass all that masters to us? Spoiler alert, it doesn't. We need to have newer greener metrics, all of which have to involve this sort of institutional decolonization and breaking down of structures. Jacinda Ardern has famously said, New Zealand will no longer be a growth economy, further reinforcing the idea that a growing economy but a suffering climate is a failure, not a success, as she refers to it. Our panelists also bought up the idea of power and how it's not just about redistributing power, but by changing systems and redefining power. I have to say this is a perspective that I will not only carry to COP 27, but throughout my life. For some context, the COP 27 agenda is arranged in a thematic format this year. Each day will be dedicated to addressing a different topic and it is now more evident to me than ever that these themes themselves are dictated by power structures. This is why I love this. This is why I love doing the work I do. I learn a lot and have a lot to learn. I aim to immerse myself more in the literature surrounding power structures so that in attending COP 27 and in my communications about COP 27, I'm well aware of the uneven dynamics at play and how they should be redefined. Finally, I'd like to draw inspiration from the roots of one of our panelists because Mia Mothley puts it best. Our world knows not what is gambling it with and if we don't control this fire, it will burn us all down. So yes, to conclude, decolonizing climate action is definitely a good idea. Thank you, Isra. I think that I hope you have it on gallery view so that you are seeing all the applause and the hearts around. That was that was a really packed five minutes there or whatever it was. And you touched on so many important points. I'm very glad we have this recorded so that I can go back and listen to it. Folks, we are coming to a close here. And so I want you to check out the chat and particularly roll back a little bit and look at the links that Randy had dropped in the chat for Carlos's advocacy on some federal bills to address environmental racism and improve Canadian corporate accountability. Follow that link and you will find the background that you would need to understand a Bill C 226, an act on environmental racism as it's short cutted, as well as two corporate accountability bills, C 262 and 263. And there is a letter writing campaign in the works. So you have the option there from that link to just do a simple click and input your information. But you also have the opportunity and the encouragement to take the information and write your own letter to your MP or give them a call or try to set up a meeting so that you can add your voice to the growing voices that are demanding justice through our federal legislation. And as I mentioned, the chat, a reminder that you are able to save the chat, you may want to do it. There was a lot of great information, some quotes, some links, some others that you might want to read. And we thank both panelists and participants for all of that great information. As you continue to think about climate action, I want to also put in a little plug for the For the Love of Creation webinar series that will be in October. So really starting just a week from today, a three week series on the road to COP 27. And so you will trust that one of my colleagues will quickly find that link to drop in the chat as well. And invite you to sign up for that as another option. Kairos is a part of this climate justice initiative called For the Love of Creation. Faith communities coming together to work for climate justice. And so hope that you can join us there as well. With that one final thanks to our panelists. It's a Tanamook Anu Imara Yusra. We thank you so much for your presence here today. Randy for shaping the questions and offering the framework for this evening. I thank you as well. And thank you all for participating. Have a good evening.