The sun set over rolling plateaus of piñon-juniper forest as Louise Benally, a Diné elder from Black Mesa, Navajo Nation, guided over 100 Millennials in ceremony. As the participants took turns gifting cedar and water to the fire they encircled, Benally asked other elders to share wisdom. Daniel Tso from the Greater Chaco region announced, "We are uplifting our spirits so we can take on the challenges we face."
This land acknowledgement opened the fourth annual Uplift Climate Conference, which ran from September 14th to 16th at the Cedro Peak Campground outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The word "conference" evokes images of adults in business-casual attire awkwardly networking in sterile buildings. At the Uplift Conference, however, youth of the Southwest have reimagined what a conference can mean.
Near the entrance, a giant "People's To-Do List" set the tone with items such as "Abolish Capitalism" and "End Sacrifice Zones." Participants camped under star-filled skies. Seeds of Peace, a radical catering collective that supports non-violent direct actions and mass mobilizations, prepared meals. Speakers—the majority youth themselves—discussed migrant justice, food sovereignty, and an end to extractive economies. Organizers centered creativity and vulnerability through an open-mic night, healing space, art build with banner and patch-making, and workshops on dance and music for social change.
[For more on this story by BROOKE LARSEN, go to https://psmag.com/environment/...-climate-conferences]
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