On Wednesday evening Bill McKibben spoke at the Centre Congregational Church in Brattleboro. He reminded the room of 320 people (with both glimmers of optimism and bone-chilling clarity) that this year is the year for humans to make the radical changes necessary to keep civilization from collapsing within our children's lifetimes.
McKibben said that here in the U.S. - a country with a still-functioning democracy and resources - we have the great privilege and honor of truly fighting for our planet from a place where we have leverage.
On the question of how to do this, he was very clear: The most important thing we can do is to stop thinking and acting as individuals and start thinking and acting collectively.
McKibben said that in order to keep additional nightmare scenarios (for humans, ecosystems, and cultures) from unfolding, we collectively need to immediately:...
As you may know, there is a Global Strike for Climate happening on Friday, Sept. 20, inspired by the climate activist Greta Thunberg. In the words of the Global Climate Strike organizers: On Sept. 20, just ahead of the United Nations Global Climate Action Summit in New York City,
Mud season never ceases to amaze. Or inspire. I live on a dirt road with two ways out, and this year the ruts leading both north on MacArthur and south on Fox are two feet deep, leaving my car landlocked for five days straight. We do have a second...
Half the people on your road park their cars near the highway and walk; the other half fasten their seat belts, take a deep breath, and gun it, bucking ruts and jerking wheels as their bodies get slammed this way and that. The kids on the school bus hold on to the seats in front of them and scream as the bus driver (your mother) presses the pedal to the floor, tightens her jaw, and keeps the bus pointed forward...
Mud season never ceases to amaze. Or inspire. I live on a dirt road with two ways out, and this year the ruts leading both north on MacArthur and south on Fox are two feet deep, leaving my car landlocked for five days straight. We do have a second car for just this reason, a rusty, low-slung four-wheel-drive Subaru, but this week, my husband Ty has needed that car to get to and from work. Which leaves Avah and me,
Thirty-three years ago, I was born in the southeast corner of my parents' half-finished house. The year my mother was pregnant, my parents cleared (with chainsaws and an ax) a driveway and an acre of forest, dug a foundation, turned trees into logs (by hand with an adze), milled their pine into boards, laid a field-stone foundation, collected old many-paned windows, and built themselves a house. A few weeks before my birth, my parents and 3-year-old brother moved up the...