Why are WE Here NOW? "[T]o literally save our mother, the earth." --Every1 of Us (as embodied by Casey Camp-Horinek dn2008-0424 @24:00-30)

Now there's a goddess who knows how to dress for success! Look at the mandalas she wears in her hair!

AMY GOODMAN: Casey Camp-Horinek is a member of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma. A lifelong political and environmental activist, she founded the Coyote Creek Center for Environmental Justice. She is a delegate to the UN on behalf of the indigenous environmental network. She joins us now here in our firehouse studio in New York.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! Why are you at the UN? What do you hope to accomplish?

@24:00 CASEY CAMP-HORINEK: In the long-term effect, I hope to accomplish zero emissions by 2050. I’m hoping that the fossil fuel regime will pay attention to the indigenous knowledge of the peoples globally, so that we’ll be able to make less impact as fossil fuel-burning people and more impact as people who were born this generation to literally save our mother, the earth.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the focus especially on climate change and its impact on indigenous people, as you’re mentioning, why that particular focus this year?

CASEY CAMP-HORINEK: There is no choice. It’s now is the time and the only time that we have in order to allow the human being to continue to live on Mother Earth. Mother Earth will continue to exist, but with a shrug of her shoulders, she will simply shake us off if we don’t align ourselves with the natural laws.

Right at this time, the disproportional impact of fossil fuels on our lands—and I’m speaking here of the North American natives from Alaska down into the Mexicos—has been such that we are noticing and have been noticing for a full generation the change in the weather patterns, the change in the animals. The ability for our people to sustain themselves in their own traditional areas is becoming less and less. And we simply have had no choice about these giant corporations that come to exist on our lands, with or without our consent.

Our people in the Northern Hemisphere, those up in Alaska and on the Arctic Circle, the permafrost is melting. We hear about the polar bear all the time. And, of course, they’re our relatives, and we do care about them, and their continued existence is coexisting with us. We see our people are dying. We see that their way of life is gone. The caribou trails are gone. And, of course, each of us has our own story.