Climate Crisis: The Roots of the Problem

As part of the February 16, 2013, Climate Crisis Conference, a panel of three speakers will examine underlying economic, political and philosophical roots of the climate crisis. The science is clear: what are the obstacles preventing action commensurate with the crisis? Speakers will address the capitalist economic and political system, the traditional Christian understanding of humanity's relation to the earth, and the inheritance of colonial domination and the settler mindset.

Barney Bush

Barney Bush is a Native American poet, author, musician and activist. He is a member of the Shawnee and Cayuga tribes and the current Chairman of the Vinyard Indian Settlement in southeast Illinois. Considered a “critical author” in the 'Native American Renaissance,' Barney Bush holds a B.A. in Humanities, and a dual MA in English and Fine Arts from the University of Idaho. He has taught Native American history and literature at numerous colleges in the US and has been a guest speaker abroad on Native American literature and human rights issues. He is currently involved in the fight to stop fracking, coal mining, drilling, and hilltop removal throughout his tribe’s Ohio River homelands.

More information is available on Barney Bush's web page.

Bob Goldstein

The Rev. Dr. Robert Goldstein is an ordained Lutheran minister who has served congregations in San Francisco, New Jersey, and Chicago. He received his M.Div and S.T.M. degrees from Yale and his PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary and has long been a proponent of equal rights for women and LGBT people in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is now working on a book on God's non-existence.





Orpheus Reed

Orpheus Reed is a writer for Revolution newspaper. He has covered the anti-globalization movement and the environment, reporting on the Seattle WTO protests, the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the global climate crisis. In May 2010 he traveled to the Gulf region to report on the BP oil disaster and in 2011 participated in the mass civil disobedience against the Keystone XL pipeline at the White House. Reed was a contributor to the special issue of Revolution newspaper on the environment, "State of Emergency: The Plunder of Our Planet, the Environmental Catastrophe and the Real Revolutionary Solution".