In all countries, whether developed or developing, whether industrialized or industrializing, vast sectors of the economy must be ecologically modernized, especially the production, distribution and consumption of energy and food, the basic transport infrastructure, and the built habitat. As every single human activity is directly or indirectly intertwined with the natural environment, we need to agree new ways of valuing the innumerable services that the natural world provides to nations and peoples.

Knowledge framings shape our actions and ways of being in the world, especially when the challenge is to adapt to rapidly changing conditions. Finding just, adaptive solutions in the era of accelerated climate change thus requires an honest look at ideas and how ideas inform political processes. Historical knowledge framings, we know, have deeply shaped current political and economic systems, including the ways in which the ‘Global South’ is supposed to relate to the ‘Global North,’ as argued in a recent publication by Svampa and co-authors (2023. Green pacts and the geopolitics of ecosocial transitions. Global Dialogue 13(1): 1-7).

Many of the research activities I have developed over the last six years, while intersecting with the lines of research outlined here [link to research page for [1] above), explore more systematically grassroots attempts to move beyond modernist, western visions of progress, liberty, and emancipation. These issues were critically examined at a conference I organised with research students and colleagues in April 2024 (Thinking with and alongside Critical Indigenous Scholarship, see also https://www.ulethbridge.ca/artsci/indigenous-studies). The conference’s intellectual project and organisation was led by Andres Gonzalez-Dinamarca, Theodor Borrmann, and Malvika Gupta. They have also been explored in publications focusing on climate education (Rival 2023) and on Indigenous approaches to cultural revitalization and knowledge transmission (Rival 2024).