Pay attention, scientists say. The deadly winter storm that pummeled Texas last month is the latest warning on the impact of climate change.  

In an online discussion of his book Red Alert!, Haskell Indian Nations University’s Daniel Wildcat offers an avenue of response: Apply Native American wisdom and nature-centered beliefs to the strategy for rescuing our ecologically distressed planet. “(M)any of us have filled our heads with the ‘new stuff,’ ” he says. “We have acquired elaborate theories, concepts, and ideas about our species, nature, cultures, and civilizations, and in the process forgotten important insights our ancestors possessed. … We need both experimental logic and analysis and experience in the world.” 

Wildcat, a Yuchi member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, is a professor in the Indigenous & American Indian Studies program at Haskell in Lawrence, Kansas. He has served there as a teacher and administrator for 34 years.  

He is also co-founder and co-director of the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center and co-author of two other books, including Power and Place: Indian Education in America. 

Introducing Wildcat and moderating the program’s live-chat Q&A is the Library’s director of branch operations, Cindy Hohl, a member of the Santee Sioux Nation of Santee, Nebraska. She is the current president of the American Indian Library Association.