Kim TallBear

Twelve years. According to a new report from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that's how long we have to act both decisively and radically concerning the climate if we are to keep life viable for much if not most of humanity. Here's another number: 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to the same IPCC report, that’s the maximum increase in average world temperatures, relative to pre-industrial levels, that our planet can sustain before it will simply be unable to sustain us. That’s the bad news. But believe it or not, there is good news here too: many say keeping our planet below 1.5 is not only achievable, but realistic, though it will require a scale and scope of change that is simply unprecedented.

This week, our special live-audience episode in Edmonton, where we discussed... Protocol Schmotocol: What one professor’s slide into another’s DMs on Twitter in search of help on a highly-sensitive subject can teach us about ethical research... 'Indigenous Renaissance': Just one of many pointed phrases in the victory speech of Maliseet musician Jeremy Dutcher at this year’s Polaris Music Prize ceremony. But as Indigenous artists continue to rack up recognition in the broader arts world, should we see their success as made-in-Canada, or made despite it? Education 'Indigenization': Confused by what different institutions mean by the term? Special guest Adam Gaudry (Associate Dean and Associate Professor, Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta) walks us through what true reconciliation might look like in the academy.

Is a controversial pipeline now a pipe-dream? Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal has just ruled that plans to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline are to be put on hold until the government gets its act together on the potential impacts of greater oil tanker traffic on marine ecosystems and on its failure to meaningfully consult Indigenous peoples. But is this ruling a slam dunk? What’s to be made of the heated, even hysterical, reaction from some quarters? And where could or should things go from here?

Our ninth and final episode of our Summer Series collects and connects conversations about pipelines, in particular, the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion project. Featured voices in this episode include (in order of appearance): Indigenous Resource lawyer Merle Alexander; Kim TallBear, associate professor of Native Studies at the University of Alberta, and Candis Callison, associate professor at UBC's Graduate School of Journalism; Brock Pitawanakwat, assistant professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Sudbury, and Ken Williams, assistant professor with the University of Alberta’s department of drama.