Media
The Story Is in Our Bones:
How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis
Osprey Orielle Lake
New Society Publishers
Softcover $29.99 (400pp)
978-0-86571-994-1
Comprehensive and inspiring, The Story Is in Our Bones reviews how women, Indigenous people, and other activists across the globe are working to counter climate change and protect ecosystems.
In this persuasive book, Osprey Orielle Lake asserts that the dominant worldview—described as capitalist, colonialist, patriarchal, and extractive—is the main culprit for environmental destruction. Examples include a global beverage company depleting Indian aquifers and petroleum producers that destroy boreal forests to extract Albertan oil sands. Lake denounces the “commodification and financialization of Mother Earth” and urges “humans, governments, and corporations” to “learn to live within planetary boundaries and reciprocity.” She argues that a more fundamental heritage is “in our bones”—preserved in Indigenous stories and culture.
With an optimistic tone, the book catalogs hundreds of examples of people who have “taken back the right” to environmental decision-making. These include well-known advocates like Greta Thunberg and Robin Wall Kimmerer, but also the voices of Audre Lorde and Paula Gunn Allen. Dozens of local initiatives are described, including Rights of Nature legislation that modified Ecuador’s constitution and helped protect a vital riverway and cloud forest from development, and La Vie Campesina, which brings together small-scale farmers from more than eighty countries to focus on biodiversity and climate justice.
Reflecting her leadership role as an environmental activist and reformer, Lake writes knowledgeably about an astonishing array of ecological initiatives on every continent. She also integrates examples from her own life, such as her grandmother’s stories about her Ukrainian homeland, including “planting” an intricately decorated egg in sown fields to call forth a good harvest.
Filled with countless examples of women and Indigenous people reclaiming their power, The Story Is in Our Bones shares a hopeful, creative vision for Earth’s future.
Reviewed by Kristen Rabe
January / February 2024
—Foreword Reviews
Read the review from Foreward Reviews here >>
The Story Is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis
by Osprey Orielle Lake
New Society. Jan. 2024. 400p. ISBN 9780865719941. pap. $29.99. SCI
Lake (Uprisings for the Earth) is the founder of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), an organization whose mission is to protect and defend the planet, particularly through the work of women who have typically been unheard and undervalued by policymakers. Her book is a manifesto of sorts. It begins with Lake’s argument that the dominant mainstream (largely Western) culture, with its emphasis on economic extraction and patriarchy, has led to the current climate crisis. It then makes a broad, inclusive survey of the worldviews of multiple Indigenous cultures that emphasize working with nature to create a sustainable way of life. Lake promotes the rights of women and Indigenous peoples and makes a case for the creation of a new legal framework for the rights of nature. Her book includes a broad survey of current environmental activist movements.
VERDICT: Lake casts a wide net that embraces global Indigenous perspectives and modern science to discuss topics such as humanity’s origin, society’s relationship to nature, and the imperative need to halt and reverse climate change. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
Reviewed by Marjorie Mann
Dec 01, 2023
—Library Journal
Read the review from Library Journal here >>
The Story is in Our Bones – No Small Task
Published by By Jane K. Brundage -Resilience.org
We may be aware that Earth is in trouble, but how well do we recognize the actions we can take to improve the environment and thus become good ancestors for future generations? In The Story Is in Our Bones, author, activist and changemaker Osprey Orielle Lake draws on decades of experience to provide a remarkable exploration of the way forward, intriguingly captured in the subtitle How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis.
Two concepts are key for fostering understanding: Worldview is the lens through which we see the world – its rules, stories, codes of conduct, and basic assumptions about reality. In turn, our worldview informs all aspects of our lived experiences – scientific discourse, cultural norms, political and social ideologies. Some of the most damaging and pervasive worldviews, says Lake, are human dominion over nature, separation from a living Earth, and structural patriarchy and white supremacy. These harmful worldviews drive the book´s core focus: the transition from an extractive paradigm of exploitation, hyper individualism, and supremacy to a relational, Earth-conscious understanding of respect, reciprocity, and restoration.
Book Launch Event
How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis
Fundraiser for Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and launch of The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Just Can Remake a World in Crisis
About this event
How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis
We are at a choice point for humanity. As social and ecological crises escalate globally, it is clear that the dominant cultural worldview, informed by colonization, patriarchy, capitalism, and racism is displaying a relationship with Nature and each other that is devastatingly unjust and out of balance.
To live in a healthy and equitable world, we must fundamentally change how we respect and interact with the Earth and one another. To change the present and future, it is imperative to change the narrative and amplify worldviews and stories of solutions that transform the dominant worldview from an extractivist, colonial paradigm of exploit and extract to a thriving, globally-conscious one of respect and restore.
Watch a video of the event here.
Dale Walkonen – Facing Future
From Chaos to Regeneration – Our World in Crisis
Life on our planet is under attack. False solutions mask the real questions – How will we grow our food, what kind of economy do we really need, and how can we stop the expansion of fossil fuels? To counter the dominant patriarchal culture, whose exploitation of nature and of other cultures, and particularly of women, climate justice groups are raising their voices and taking action to protect Biodiversity, the health of their ecosystems, and the Rights Of Nature.
Deborah Rohan Schlueter – How We Change the World Podcast
Remaking a World in Crisis: The WECAN story with Osprey Orielle Lake
Osprey Orielle Lake discovered the tangible impact women were making in protecting planetary health, from safeguarding biodiversity to water conservation to tending the land, particularly in earth-respecting Indigenous cultures. Forming Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, WECAN, Osprey began her journey to support and collaborate with women in cultures around the world. Their vision: WECAN envisions a just, equitable world in harmony with Nature.
Wendy Nystrom – Environmental Social Justice with Osprey Orielle Lake
What Is Climate Change?
Osprey Orielle Lake is the Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, International (WECAN) and the author of the books Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature, which won the 2011 Nautilus Book Award and The Story Is In Our Bones, which will be released in January 2024.
Sanne Giesen – The Nature Connection
The Nature Connection Podcast is for the wild people of the earth yearning to come home to nature and themselves. In the podcast we explore ways in which nature and ancient earth skills can enrich modern life, how it can support (mental) health and the regeneration of our planet.
Care More Be Better – For A Regenerative Future
Remaking A World In Crisis With Osprey Orielle Lake
No matter how you look at it, there is no denying that today’s world in crisis is in need of urgent saving. Wars are happening left and right, the environment is in a sorry state, and those in power continue to take advantage of every single opportunity. Corinna Bellizzi chats with activist, thought leader, and author Osprey Orielle Lake about dismantling today’s harmful system of oppression that adversely impacts the world. She explains the importance of reclaiming essential knowledge systems and respecting indigenous territories. Osprey also shares how women are leading the biggest restoration projects these days, breaking the cultural norm of the patriarchy.
Stefan Van Norden – Nature Revisited
Osprey Orielle Lake – The Story is in Our Bones
In this episode of Nature Revisited, Osprey discusses her new book The Story is in Our Bones – How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis. Weaving together ecological, mythical, political and cultural understandings, Lake reminds us that another world is possible, and seeks to summon a new way of being and thinking in the Anthropocene age.
Turning Season – Leilani Navar
Holistic Climate Action and The Story is in Our Bones
Turning Season Podcast is here to hearten you with regular doses of Active Hope in this uncertain, perilous, beautiful adventure we call The Great Turning.
Practice You Podcast with Elena Brower
On the ecological, mythical and cultural understandings that shape our history of extraction and exploitation, and how one conversation can truly make a difference in our future.
Sara Wolcott – ReMembering and ReEnchanting
Conversations with amazing people connecting what is all too often disconnected
Osprey Oreille Lake talks about her vast work at WECAN International alongside many Indigenous leaders and her newly released book The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis.
Michal Crawford-Zimring – Environmental Voices Rising – Women at the Mic
Remaking a Climate Just World: The Story is in our Bones
In conversation with Osprey Orielle Lake; she shares insights from her latest book – The Story is in Our Bones – How Worldviews and Climate Justice can remake a World in Crisis. We learn about the vital role that indigenous women climate leaders play in frontline activism and policy advocacy and the importance of the Right of Nature movement.
Unlocking Climate Solutions: The Role of Women and Nature’s Rights
Climate Confident
Osprey shares her journey from early environmental activism in California’s Redwood forests to leading WECAN, highlighting the crucial role of women in climate solutions.
The Story is in Our Bones
Coyote Network – Caroline Casey
The Story is in Our Bones “reminds readers that another world is possible, and provides an antidote to the pervasive despair of our time.”
In Our Bones: Osprey Orielle Lake
Sounds of Sand
Osprey works nationally and internationally with grassroots, Indigenous and business leaders, policy-makers and scientists to promote climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a clean energy future.
Remaking a World in Crisis with Osprey Orielle Lake
The Conscious Diva
In this hopeful book, Osprey asserts that the dominant worldview—described as capitalist, colonialist, patriarchal, and extractive—is the main culprit for environmental destruction.
The Story is in Our Bones with Osprey Orielle Lake
Home to Her
Osprey’s longtime connection with the land, which was fostered and developed during her early years spent among the redwood trees and beside the Pacific Ocean in Northern California…
The Story Is In Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis
Authors on Climate Words
What are worldviews and why are they important in climate justice? Many of today’s contemporary worldviews of capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy create a sense of ‘power over’ the planet and other people.
Empowering Women in Environmentalism with WECAN Founder Osprey Orielle Lake (Part 1)
Lady Farmer
In this conversation, Osprey talks about the importance of women’s leadership in climate solutions, detailing how gender inequality exacerbates climate vulnerability and how women’s involvement is crucial for sustainable outcomes.
Resistance Radio interview of Osprey Orielle Lake
Resistance Radio
Osprey’s writing about climate justice, relationships with nature, women in leadership, and other topics has been featured in many publications.
The Human Challenge – Vanessa Ferlaino
Worldviews Climate Justice
In this episode, Orielle tells us about patriarchy, colonialism, the shift to matriarchy, the power of women, the ties between gender-based violence and climate justice, and closed this discussion with its relevance to what we are witnessing in Gaza today.
Michelle Hrycauk Nassif – I AM A Feminine Leader
Osprey Orielle Lake – Women ARE A Climate Solution
In this episode, Michelle and Osprey discuss her latest book “The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis” and why women and women’s leadership is policymaking, government, and more.
Carbon Sessions
Stories, Indigenous Wisdom and Women Leadership for a Sustainable Future
In this compelling episode, Leekei and Jenn welcomed Osprey Orielle Lake, an advocate for climate justice and the Founder of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network.
Steph L Dickson – Live Wide Awake
Osprey Orielle Lake: how to remake a world in crises
In this episode, we are speaking to author, activist, and changemaker Osprey Orielle Lake. She is the founder of Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network( WECAN), sits on the executive committee for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature and on the steering committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Alicia Holiday – Nature Evolutionary
The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis with Osprey Orielle Lake
Join us for an illuminating journey with Osprey Orielle Lake, a renowned author, activist, and changemaker, as we delve into the pressing need to rewild ourselves and our dominant worldviews. In a world teetering on the edge of social, environmental, and climate collapse, this webinar offers a beacon of hope and a roadmap to building Earth-centered communities that can thrive.
Annika – Gender & Climate
Osprey Orielle Lake about the worldviews that shape us
In this conversation we discover different worldviews, how they influence the current situtation globally and why is it important to address them as we face mounting social and ecological crises.
Veronica Stanwell – Rooted Healing
How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis with Osprey Orielle Lake
Osprey Orielle Lake works internationally with grassroots, BIPOC and Indigenous leaders, policymakers, and diverse coalitions to build climate justice, resilient communities, and a just transition to a decentralised, democratised clean-energy future.
Morag Gamble – Sense-Making in a Changing World
Speaking Up for Women and Climate with Osprey Orielle Lake and Morag Gamble
Join me in this episode as part of our International Womens’ Series to explore how we can speak up for women and climate with Osprey Orielle Lake. We discuss her new book, ‘The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldview and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis’, diving deep into the importance of worldviews of how they shape our understanding of the world and determine how we act.
Climate Change with Scott Amyx
Interview with Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network
Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), released her new book The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis.
Chara Armon – Humans & Earth
Remaking a World in Crisis: Osprey Orielle Lake
After giving presentations on the dangers of climate change, Leah Rampy became convinced that something was missing from the conversations. With experience as a teacher, professor, corporate and nonprofit executive, and leadership consultant, she began a decades-long journey to understand what lies beneath our unwillingness to change our interactions with the natural world.
Female Frequency
The Knowledge Within Our Bodies with Osprey Orielle Lake
What if the mountains, rivers and plants are, in fact, our living ancestors? What if the land and forests are relatives, and not “resources” to extract and exploit? How would that knowledge inform the way we act moving forward?
Taylor Ganis – Hopeful Enviromentalist
Women Empowerment is a Climate Solution
Osprey Orielle Lake, will dive deeply into the concept of how women play integral roles in the fight for an equitable future. We discuss some incredible statistics that show how women in leadership can positively impact climate outcomes, how being open to other worldviews can change our collective behaviors, incredible rights of nature cases, and much more. In Osprey’s book, she poses the question, “can we undo the doing”.
Dr. Amanda Kemp Aminata Desert Rose Plant Walker Fire Woman – The Mother Tree Network
Story in Our Bones: Climate Acting and Being with Osprey Orielle Lake
Osprey Orielle Lake is dedicated to creating a more sustainable and harmonious world, where people are connected to each other and the land.
Earth & Spirit – Kyle Kramer
The Story is in Our Bones: Osprey Orielle Lake on New (and Ancient) Worldviews for Health in the Human-Earth Relationship
In this episode, we explore how embracing a different story about our belonging in a living, animate world can transform our self-understanding and can help to heal our relationship with ourselves, each other, and the rest of the living Earth.
Reese Brown – Making Meaning
The Connected Story of Feminism, Climate Justice, and Socio-Economic Equity with Osprey Orielle Lake
Join host Reese Brown as she sits down with Author, Speaker, and Founder of WECAN Osprey Orielle Lake to discuss cultural activism, the climate crisis, feminism, and her book, The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis.
Kate Brelje interviews Osprey Orielle Lake
Networking with Plants in the Anthropocene
In this episode, Kate interviews Osprey Orielle Lake about her rich new book, The Story is in Our Bones: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis. They discuss indigenous leadership and knowledge in climate justice, goddesses, and love letters to the trees.
Worldviews Conjured by Words
By Osprey Orielle Lake, Feature in Kosmos – Journal for Global Transformation
Originating from profound antique cosmologies—composed of chirping birds, murmuring springs, thundering skies, and echoing mountain ranges—an assembly of sounds informs human languages with meaning in naming and identifying things in the world around us; describing and defining sensations, relationships, and codes of conduct; understanding and expressing complex realities of time and space; and so much more. All of this is bundled into utterances that strive to verbally convey our very existence and lived experiences.
Osprey Orielle Lake – Ink and Advocacy
Jejune Magazine – Chelsea Chan
While many of us carry on with our daily routines, the urgency of climate change often escapes notice. However, as Osprey Orielle Lake emphasizes, “We are in a climate emergency.” In her newest book, The Story is in Our Bone: How Worldviews and Climate Justice Can Remake a World in Crisis, Osprey Orielle Lake delves into the question of whether we are willing to take action and rise to the challenge. This book serves as a doorway into the realm of justice surrounding this pressing social issue.
