The climate crisis is one of humanity's most pressing concerns. As I write this essay on occupied Piscataway land, known as Washington D.C., we are in the middle of a heat emergency. I'm fortunate to have stable housing with air conditioning, but many others are not and their lives are in jeopardy. Indigenous and Deaf, disabled, and ill people (DDIP) are on the frontlines of the climate crisis yet we are often forgotten by those in positions of power from the top down, ultimately leaving us to become more ill, to experience increased or additional disabilities, and even to die.

There are 360 million Indigenous people in the world today, comprised of 5,000 distinct groups in over 90 countries. We represent 5% of the global population. 1 The United Nations estimates that 15% of the world's current population has a disability. 2 There are conspicuously scarce statistical data on disabled Indigenous populations globally, however. Some data suggests that the rates of disability range as high as 50% of the population. 3 In fact, these higher numbers of disability are common anywhere the colonizer has invaded. This isn't due to genetics, but rather from a legacy of systematic oppression and genocide that has never ended. This legacy has had significant consequences on the health and well-being of Indigenous people through the devastating impacts of the climate crisis and environmental destruction. These have especially placed Indigenous DDIP in jeopardy.

In this reflective essay, I draw on my work as a journalist and community organizer, as well as my identities as a multiply-disabled, Two Spirit womxn, to address environmental degradation and its specific harms to Indigenous DDIP. 4 Colonization has led us to a warp speed pursuit of environmental death and destruction. It impacts our communities in a multitude of ways, including the creation and worsening of disabilities and illnesses and oppression within movement and community spaces. Internalized colonization extends the damage, fraying ties between nondisabled and disabled Indigenous people in everyday and activist contexts, and creates barriers to coalitions seeking social justice.

Colonial Environmental Harm

Traditionally, land, water, air, and beings weren't viewed as separate entities from many Indigenous people; we understand that our lives are interconnected with all life. We and our Indigenous nations historically and today are our Earth's protector. The "environment" as a concept is truly one of the colonizer. It disconnects people from the land, air, water, and animal relatives in order for primarily Western and white supremacist nations to plunder and profit, leaving a wake of devastation.

Environmental degradation generated by settler conquest and greed has led to a litany of crises that disproportionately harm DDIP. As just one example: the Isle de Jean Charles tribal nation in Southern Louisiana are the first climate refugees in the "U.S." 5 Over the past century they've lost 98% of the island they call home due to rising waters and coastal erosion. 6 The situation is so dire in Louisiana that the state is losing approximately a football field of land every hour due to rising sea levels. 7 The local petrochemical and agricultural industries, in a region that is colloquially known as "Cancer Alley," are wreaking havoc as are the actions of those upstream. The tribal nations, such as the United Houma Nation (UHN), at the end of the Mississippi River are bombarded with all of the pollution from upstream. Despite the growth of superstorms, the UHN has no resources to help disabled tribal members evacuate during these emergencies. 8

This fits other harmful patterns. Inaccessible and nonexistent evacuation options during human made disasters extends the damage settler colonialism and ableism generate. As DDIP disproportionally live in poverty, we often lack the financial resources to evacuate. 9 We're also often denied the right to evacuation through a lack of accessible news, information, resources, transportation, and shelters. This situation becomes more dire for those who are also Indigenous, particularly when our tribal nations lack the disability resources and awareness to help us evacuate. For Jean-Luc Pierite of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 devastated his family home. 10 Pierite said that during the evacuation what would normally be a six-hour drive from New Orleans to Houston took his family eighteen hours. 11 Thankfully, his family eventually made it out. For other DDIP an eighteen-hour car ride simply may not be possible. For example, it could mean going without breathing machines, medications that require refrigeration, or increased stress responses to existing health issues.

Regardless of where we are in the world, Indigenous people are subjected to the horrors of resource extraction. I was raised on the oil derrick littered lands of Oklahoma and Texas where oil and gas are the colonial king. Oklahoma is now experiencing human created earthquakes due to the approximately 3,200 active wastewater disposal wells. Between 2014 and 2017, the rate of magnitude 3 or greater earthquakes in Oklahoma exceeded that of California, making it the most seismically active state in the continental "U.S." 12 Due to numerous incidents of land removals and theft, Oklahoma has a high populace of Indigenous people. 13 In 2016, the Osage Nation of Oklahoma declared a state of emergency after they were hit by a 5.8 earthquake—the largest in Oklahoma's history. 14 The detriments ripple beyond immediate earthquakes. Physicians for Social Responsibility found that "Of the studies looking specifically at health impacts of unconventional gas development, more than 80 percent document risk or factual harms." 15 Despite this documented harm, under the "Halliburton loophole" many of the chemicals used in the fracking process are unknown as they're considered proprietary and are therefore not monitored under existing environmental regulation. 16 As Ida Aronson (The United Houma Nation) has noted, the water isn't safe to drink in fracked areas and has resulted in higher consumption of sugary drinks in some tribal communities. 17

Resource extractive industries' activities build upon the devastation of intergenerational and historical trauma that many Indigenous people are burdened with. This can clearly be seen through the violence of man camps. 18 The rates of murdered and missing Indigenous womxn, children, and Two-Spirits are particularly high near man camps. In the "U.S." some Indigenous womxn on reservations go missing at ten times the national average. 19 Shelters in northern Minnesota—as just one location—have reported more cases of sexual assault directly linked to contractors building the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline and an increase in reports of sexual harassment at local businesses since construction began. 20 The damaging impact contributes to other troubling realities: rape survivors have significantly higher likelihood of contemplating, attempting, or dying by suicide. 21 Suicide is the second leading cause of death for Native youth. 22 When forty-two percent of our community is 24 or younger it's clear that pipelines are part of on-going genocide. 23

Anti-Colonial Dreamscape & the Future

Writing this article brought to light that there is a glaring lack of data, community partnerships, and supports from academia, grassroots movements, NGOs, and governments, including tribal governments. Given my own experiences as a disabled Indigenous person this wasn't surprising to me. Despite the many reasons our voices should be front and center in all matters related to the climate and health we are often erased from conversations and actions by those even in grassroots movements.

I've had to carry the pain of hearing Indigenous Water Protectors claim that DDIP aren't welcome in various Water Protector projects and protests even though we've always played critical roles in our movements. DDIP are often viewed by abled Indigenous organizers as a burden and liability rather than warriors fighting for our communities, or we're simply not thought of at all. I've borne witness to white, abled environmentalists blame the climate crisis on DDIP for needing single source plastic items such as straws, while ignoring that the U.S. military is one of the world's largest polluters and users of dirty energy. 24 I've suffered through conversations with white DDIP climate activists who are all too happy to violate treaties and poison Indigenous lands and lives for the materials required to produce "green technology." I spend much of my energy pleading with my communities to meaningfully include Indigenous DDIP as this is our fight too. More often than not my words, and right to life, are ignored.

During the COVID-19 pandemic it's become glaringly obvious that when disasters strike, people like me are the first to die and quite often my own communities and the movements I work within simply don't care. My life has been deemed worthless by colonial society and I'm currently drowning in a sense of despair and the sheer terror of how I'll survive as the climate crisis worsens. I see glimmers of hope though. Indigenous Climate Action is now in the early stages of including a disability framework in their organization. 25 Health Justice Commons is connecting the dots between the need for disability and environmental justice and the end of colonization. 26 Just the fact that this piece will be read by those in academia will hopefully lead to more thorough research on this topic that could be used for swift policy and grassroots action.

I wish that I had more hope to share or that I had all of the answers to save ourselves and the seven generations to come, but I don't. No one person will ever solve the hundreds of years of ableism, genocide, and environmental degradation on Turtle Island. 27 I know with certainty, however, that solving the climate crisis must include the lived experience, wisdom, and creativity of Indigenous DDIP.