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Navajo Michelle Cook: Divestment During a Time of Monsters
Dr. Michelle Cook, Dine', founder of Divest Invest Protect, spoke on divestment and transitioning away from fossil fuels, during the Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice, featuring 125 women during six days. "Now is a time of Monsters -- but it is also a time of Monster Slayers."
Dine' Michelle Cook Speaks on the Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, June 26, 2025
Dr. Michelle Cook, Dine', founder of Divest Invest Protect, spoke on divestment and transitioning away from fossil fuels, during the Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice, featuring 125 women from 50 countries during six days.
Indigenous women are finally being brought to the center of these places of power, Cook said.
"We're still in this moment of crisis -- right now."
Speaking on the importance of divestment, she said, "We are on the brink of collapse."
Cook said there are extinctions, accelerated corporate development, live-streamed genocide, and children are crying out for help, and for accountability to make the harm stop.
In the past two years, there has been epic and historic flooding in southwestern Virginia, swaths of communities were taken down by devastating floods. Despite the promises of centuries that coal mining will bring progress, there are still people who do not have homes, who are still breaking their backs to carry out the mud, with no relief coming.
"They're still living like this in the so-called most advanced nation in the world."
"Yet we cannot send aid to the people who are living and enduring on the frontlines of climate change."
"In Arizona, we see the violence against women in the recent and tragic murder of Emily Pike," Cook said of 14-year-old Emily Pike, Apache, who was murdered.
Indigenous women and girls continue to go missing and are murdered. Indigenous leadership is disappeared and murdered -- and the attacks are personal to discredit them.
With the victories, there is the rise of repression. In the social movements, there is the rise of criminalization. There is the swing back of the pendulum in the fight against racism, with the new DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative that has been federally-mandated.
"The reaction does not need to put fear into us."
"The reaction is proof that what we are doing is striking the heart of capital, what we are doing is striking the heart of that colonialism, striking the heart of that inequality, so much so, that it has to restructure itself. It has to make laws to stop it. That's how powerful we are and they know it."
"We have to believe in our own power."
Cook said it is important to invest in projects that are life-affirming. It will be the grassroots communities own organizing that will bring us through.
"Now is a time of Monsters -- but it is also a time of Monster Slayers."
Dr. Cook, Dine' lawyer, organized the Indigenous women's divestment delegations in Europe, confronting Credit Suisse and funders of the Dakota Access Pipeline during the resistance to the pipeline at Standing Rock in North Dakota.
She organized the Indigenous women's panel on militarization at Standing Rock and on the Tohono O'odham border that testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Jamaica. Currently her efforts include a school in India where fifty young girls are being educated. She is a Fulbright scholar, and has lived and traveled in New Zealand with Maori and traveled to Iran. She participated in the Mother Earth Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Watch on WECAN International's YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFLHwvvlPbE
About the Assembly
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International organized the virtual Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond.
The global convening addresses solutions for the protection and defense of human rights and nature at this critical time. This event is a free, public forum taking place virtually from June 23 -- 28, 2025, daily from 1:00 - 6:00 pm ET.
The Global Women’s Assembly brings together grassroots and frontline women leaders in all of their diversity, global advocates, thought leaders, and policy-makers to showcase a diverse array of visions, projects, policy frameworks, campaigns, and movement strategies with which we can accelerate a bold and transformative path to a healthy and just world.
This collective work is paramount as we face a growing polycrisis. The challenges are ever-increasing, but so are our power, hearts, and leadership when we gather together.
The Assembly features over 125 speakers from 50 countries presenting on 25 panels across 6 days! This is a free, virtual forum—open to all—with interpretation available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
Translations: To access interpretation and full audience engagement, please register for the Assembly on Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/CJ-2025
Schedule of Speakers
https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly-schedule
Copyright Censored News
By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, June 26, 2025
Dr. Michelle Cook, Dine', founder of Divest Invest Protect, spoke on divestment and transitioning away from fossil fuels, during the Global Women's Assembly for Climate Justice, featuring 125 women from 50 countries during six days.
Indigenous women are finally being brought to the center of these places of power, Cook said.
"We're still in this moment of crisis -- right now."
Speaking on the importance of divestment, she said, "We are on the brink of collapse."
Cook said there are extinctions, accelerated corporate development, live-streamed genocide, and children are crying out for help, and for accountability to make the harm stop.
In the past two years, there has been epic and historic flooding in southwestern Virginia, swaths of communities were taken down by devastating floods. Despite the promises of centuries that coal mining will bring progress, there are still people who do not have homes, who are still breaking their backs to carry out the mud, with no relief coming.
"They're still living like this in the so-called most advanced nation in the world."
"Yet we cannot send aid to the people who are living and enduring on the frontlines of climate change."
"In Arizona, we see the violence against women in the recent and tragic murder of Emily Pike," Cook said of 14-year-old Emily Pike, Apache, who was murdered.
Indigenous women and girls continue to go missing and are murdered. Indigenous leadership is disappeared and murdered -- and the attacks are personal to discredit them.
With the victories, there is the rise of repression. In the social movements, there is the rise of criminalization. There is the swing back of the pendulum in the fight against racism, with the new DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiative that has been federally-mandated.
"The reaction does not need to put fear into us."
"The reaction is proof that what we are doing is striking the heart of capital, what we are doing is striking the heart of that colonialism, striking the heart of that inequality, so much so, that it has to restructure itself. It has to make laws to stop it. That's how powerful we are and they know it."
"We have to believe in our own power."
Cook said it is important to invest in projects that are life-affirming. It will be the grassroots communities own organizing that will bring us through.
"Now is a time of Monsters -- but it is also a time of Monster Slayers."
Dr. Cook, Dine' lawyer, organized the Indigenous women's divestment delegations in Europe, confronting Credit Suisse and funders of the Dakota Access Pipeline during the resistance to the pipeline at Standing Rock in North Dakota.
She organized the Indigenous women's panel on militarization at Standing Rock and on the Tohono O'odham border that testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Jamaica. Currently her efforts include a school in India where fifty young girls are being educated. She is a Fulbright scholar, and has lived and traveled in New Zealand with Maori and traveled to Iran. She participated in the Mother Earth Conference in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Watch on WECAN International's YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFLHwvvlPbE
About the Assembly
The Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International organized the virtual Global Women’s Assembly for Climate Justice: Path to COP30 and Beyond.
The global convening addresses solutions for the protection and defense of human rights and nature at this critical time. This event is a free, public forum taking place virtually from June 23 -- 28, 2025, daily from 1:00 - 6:00 pm ET.
The Global Women’s Assembly brings together grassroots and frontline women leaders in all of their diversity, global advocates, thought leaders, and policy-makers to showcase a diverse array of visions, projects, policy frameworks, campaigns, and movement strategies with which we can accelerate a bold and transformative path to a healthy and just world.
This collective work is paramount as we face a growing polycrisis. The challenges are ever-increasing, but so are our power, hearts, and leadership when we gather together.
The Assembly features over 125 speakers from 50 countries presenting on 25 panels across 6 days! This is a free, virtual forum—open to all—with interpretation available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
Translations: To access interpretation and full audience engagement, please register for the Assembly on Zoom: https://tinyurl.com/CJ-2025
Schedule of Speakers
https://www.wecaninternational.org/womens-assembly-schedule
Copyright Censored News
For more information:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/06/liv...
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