ABSTRACT
In the past decade, it has become increasingly common to talk about climate change as a crisis or emergency both because of dire future predictions and already present catastrophic impacts like massive wildfires. This chapter asks larger questions about history, power, and epistemology that are often subsumed by crisis talk. It draws on Indigenous knowledge, practices, and scholarship both broadly and specifically related to managing wildfires to discuss how Indigenous approaches based on being in good relations with nonhumans might help us understand the past and navigate a climate-changed future. Debates and scholarship related to the emergence and definition of the geological term Anthropocene provide a case study for understanding how climate change should be considered not a first or new global crisis, but a continuation of one that began with colonialism, empire-building, and global trade in the late 15th century.
