**6. Ontological Risk as Context**

Many contemporary risks are unprecedented, and were quite literally unimaginable in earlier settings [51]. The scales at which they are constructed and performed reshapes the lived landscapes of risk in ways that undermine people's (and peoples') capacity to recover from and adapt to disaster events. They need to be understood as ontological risks because they put at risk the foundations of the possibility of existence. Human experience is not simply 'existence' or 'being' (as conceptualized, e.g., by Heidegger [52]), nor even 'being-together' (as discussed by, e.g., Nancy [53]), but 'belonging-together-in-place' e.g., [54]. Those things that threaten our environmental and social relations, and the human and natural systems within which become part of human societies, constitute ontological risks. In the Anthropocene, whole societies face ontological risks—situations which undermine people's understanding of the cosmos and their place within it. These are risks that create uncertainty at an ontological level. The previously unthinkable, unspeakable and unknowable becomes entrenched in the landscapes and relationships of everyday risk. As part of this, many Indigenous societies face the challenge of adapting and responding whilst being surrounded by hostile settler societies and confronted by state programs intended to erase their ways of life and being. This is the continuing unnatural disaster of colonization in everyday lives [13].

The dominant discourses of science, governance and power have assumed the validity of their own claims to universal and singular truth in defiance of the realities of ontological pluralism in contemporary coupled human and natural systems [7,55–57]. Following the insights of Stoffle and his colleagues [58–61], Anthropocene discourses must confront human systems with previously unimaginable risks. Those elements which form the building blocks of human society and provide the ontological certainties of existence have become uncertain and at risk. A previously unimaginable ending of the world (see also, e.g., [62]) must become a topic of common discourse.

In disaster studies, attention is given to the cycle of preparation, risk reduction, emergency response, recovery, reconstruction and further preparation [63–68]. Yet these expert-centered discourses are often deaf and blind to the nuances of local, non-technical knowledges and experiences. Sustainability science [69] and post-developmentalism [70,71] offer some valuable critiques of the dominant conversations. But Indigenous critique, which often foregrounds issues of the profound insight of local knowledges, understanding and values [6,72], offers an important additional element of challenge. There is a scale politics at work in this critique. Indigenous discourses are not simply 'local', but often articulate a connectedness that insists on holding global systems of economic, environmental and political governance accountable. There is an important sense in which they give the local ontological priority in ways that currently-dominant global discourses, including the Anthropocene narratives, seem to have trouble in conceptualizing.

#### **7. Narrating Risk and Power**

In the dominant expert narratives, the acceleration towards tipping points in multiple planetary scale systems [73] (see also e.g., [74,75]) reinforces the idea that only those with global expertise should be empowered to act decisively. As Veland and Lynch put it, the stories we tell ourselves matter. Dominant storylines about climate change and risks "rest on the assumption that there can be a unified grand narrative of human-environment relations ... [but this] unwittingly constrains the solutions we are prepared to admit" [76] (p. 4).

They note that these linear narratives also reinforce the colonial narration of "linear and authoritarian histories" and imply (or perhaps simply assume) that only interventions that conform and respond to the linear narratives of progress will shift the narrative and the outcome. Furthermore, as Liverman puts it, such narratives also "tend to obscure the historical geographies of anthropogenic

climate change and have fostered solutions that are often unequal and somewhat ineffective in reducing the risks" [47] (p. 280).

Even where it is contested by climate change denial, many of the narratives built on the assumption that history follows a linear trajectory focus on market-based solutions and the attractive opportunities for investment in those solutions as avenues for continued growth [77]. Yet such storylines often ignore (or deliberately bury) historic and continuing environmental injustices that are just as central to the narrative and its outcomes as the stories of success, wealth and privilege. They silence the environmental and social implications of market failures. Indeed, the inter-national system's ongoing reluctance to provide a legal framework that would provide justice—or even recognition—for environmental refugees reinforces the colonial thrust of contemporary geopolitics. It has hard to see how conventional geopolitical processes addressing climate change will be able to "stop the proliferation of dangers for indigenous peoples ... Environmental injustices aren't any less likely in actions taken in the spirit of urgency to adapt to climate change and mitigate a 2 ◦C rise" [78] (p. 2).

Whyte suggests there is a paradox underpinning much of the discussion about Indigenous people and climate risks:

*Consent, trust, accountability, and reciprocity are qualities of relationships that are critical for justice-oriented coordination across societal institutions on any urgent matter. Yet they are precisely the kinds of qualities of relationships that take time to nurture and develop. That is, they are necessary for taking urgent action that is just, but they cannot be established urgently*. [78] (p. 2)

#### **8. Scaling Time and Space in Risk Landscapes**

Reconceptualizing the narratives of climate risk as a multiplicity of disconnected or singular local narratives is no panacea for tackling the difficult conversations of extinction, catastrophe and adaptation. A shift in how scale is used as a lens on these issues may, however, help to bring new things into clearer focus. Leaving the scale of catastrophe at the global, seeing it solely in terms of global governance mechanisms and intergovernmental treaties, tribunals and action plans leaves the risks as literally unimaginable for many people and communities. For those whose faith is focused on technological fixes, narratives such as the idea of a "good Anthropocene" [79] promise new ways of delivering energy, new ways of transporting goods and people, and new solutions to the risk of annihilation through large scale projects of global cooperation in geo-engineering [80] or global governance [81,82].

Of course, the scale politics of genocide, ecocide and catastrophe always play out between the local and the global, the past and the future and, as Dalby notes, the good, the bad and the ugly [83]. The global is always local (and vice versa). The interdependence of human and natural systems means that wholly isolated local or solely global systems do not exist in the Anthropocene. Shifting thinking about the scales at which risk is embodied to recognize that the landscapes of risk are always simultaneously biophysical and cultural demands the recognition that the ways in which key relationships (ecological, geopolitical, economic) are scaled demands a shift in thinking that moves the focus from indicators to relationships. That shift also demands a shift in our thinking about temporal scales to encompass inter-generational trauma and responsibility [84].

Confronted with the recognition of unimagined risks, ongoing unnatural disasters and ontological and existential apocalypse, Indigenous peoples' experiences of rapid, catastrophic transformation in coupled human and natural systems at the scale of their known worlds offers a powerful experiential window on how to address the possible ending of the world. For too long, the long and terrible shadow [85] of the linear narratives of settler-colonial conquest that underwrite the superiority and inevitability of imperial power and corporate ascendancy have muted—and even silenced—more modest narratives of connection, belonging and accountability.

In offering some brief windows on Indigenous experience, my intention is not to be exhaustive or encyclopaedic, but to evoke an understanding of both the tragic history and the remarkable resilience of many First Nations around the world. There is no simply positive or naively optimistic story to be told here, but there are some important pointers to what is possible—and what transformation might be possible—if we accept that climate change is a legacy of colonialism and injustice that extends well beyond the focus on climate debates.
