Short Abstract:

The paper deals with the increase in knowledge inequality due to climate crisis. The loss of certain ecological knowledge and increasing emphasis on "scientific" knowledge is being questioned.

Long Abstract:

The crisis that our world is facing today is varied and multi-layered. But one problem that all humans and non-humans on Earth face is the climate change crisis and global warming. Power structures play a significant role in determining who is impacted by this crisis – as new and innovative ways to deal with the climate crisis are proposed daily. This paper will trace the history of some of the ecological knowledge that holds significance in the present. I argue that the TEKs hold more relevance now than ever before – not only because of climate change but also because of the tendency to filter knowledge that the present powerholders portray. Selective knowledge has been a danger to the world. Knowledge is filtered in alignment with the power relation to maintain the status quo. I argue that this also holds true for knowledge regarding the climate crisis. The paper is based on secondary literature and aims at developing a position of decentralized knowledge – and democratization of knowledge. It draws from theories of the sociology of knowledge. The paper concludes that to overcome the crisis that the entire world is faced with, we must take local knowledge systems like traditional ecological knowledge into account.