Editor’s note: This commentary is by Dede Cummings, of Brattleboro, who is a poet and publisher, an environmental activist, a member of 350-Vermont, and the founder and publisher of Green Writers Press.
[Y]es, the climate is in peril, and most of us are too busy to stop and look through the forest.
You see, in Vermont, we are protected, somewhat. Our proximity to Canada, always good, gives us a northern edge. Our Northeast Kingdom, in fact, is a world unto itself, teeming with trout, bears, wild and untamed mountains and bogs, and people who inhabit a world of slow living.
Down south, in Brattleboro where I live, we are linked to the urban cities of Boston and New York by proximity.
Given the impressive swath of our great state, how does one unify to face the impending climate catastrophe and shout out clear and loud to the rest of the world that we are a free, independent little state with a fierce and growing electorate who cares about our climate’s fragility and social justice?
Our migrant farm workers are a good example of the longstanding tradition of what makes Vermont so great: its people, farms, politicians like Bernie Sanders not afraid to speak up for the working people, artists like Ines Zeller and Eric Bass of Sandglass Theater in Putney who use theater to profligate a message of hope, and countless other writers and artists throughout the state.
Politics and art aside, what else is there to wake people up to taking a vocal and activist stand against the climate deniers who inhabit the White House?
How can we organize, especially since the election of the arch nemesis of President Obama thundered into the White House with his cellphone bleeping out annoying and inaccurate tweets that not only jeopardize our safety in the world, but the fragile environment we inhabit: our plants, trees, national parks, air and water.
Do the corporations care who plunder and pave roads and lay down pipelines filled with gas and oil, erect windmills on ridges that no one wants, deliver books by drones (someday) from warehouses that don’t even benefit the local economy? Easy answer: greed is a problem for global sustainability.
Enter Bill Mares and Jeff Danziger, two Vermont friends who collaborated on a new book entitled “The Full Vermonty: Vermont in the Age of Trump” (Green Writers 2017), and Bill McKibben, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and an author, environmentalist, and co-founder of the international climate campaign 350.org that works in 188 countries around the world, with a new book called “Radio Free Vermont: A Tale of Resistance” (Blue Rider Press 2017). Let’s not overlook Brattleboro-area writer Peter Gould, one of the original back-to-the-landers in Guilford whose memoir of stories entitled “Horse-Drawn Yogurt: Stories from Total Loss Farm,” is filled with laugh-out-loud humor and poignancy.
Why am I hopeful about these activist writers making a difference in saving our environment? They are funny, that’s why!
God knows, it has been three decades since Bill McKibben wrote “The End of Nature”; and over three decades since I was a college student at Middlebury College determined to live in Vermont, start a family, a co-op, and dwell amongst a community of communards. Decades. What has happened to global warming? We all know the answer to that: just look at the weather news from the past year alone — tropical storms with the fiercest winds in history, fires burning out of control — and whether you believe in science or not, you will notice the bizarre weather conditions like winter cyclones with the words “bomb” in the title. Where did that come from, you wonder, as you huddle down in front of your wood stove with a good book.
The books I mention are all comedy, but there is one new book that is more of a tragedy and packs a wallop in its quiet and sustained story of a Vermont family and a daughter’s search for a heroin-addicted mother in the hills around Brattleboro during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. That is Marlboro writer Robin MacArthur’s debut novel “Heart Spring Mountain,” newly published (Ecco Press). Brava to MacArthur, who uses her considerable talent as a writer to create a novel centered around climate change at its core, with a storm that remains fresh in our minds with the devastation it wrought.
Whether it be comedy, or tragedy, we all need to tell the story of the global climate crisis. These Vermont writers are doing just that.
Addendum to my op-ed piece:
After writing a piece about using humor in literature to raise awareness of the devastating effects of climate change in the world around us (storms, floods, pollution, etc.), I want to apologize to my readers for blithely asserting that there are windmills that “no one wants on their ridgelines.” I, and many climate activists, would love to have more wind power. In my haste to make a point, I didn’t elaborate on the benefits of wind power, instead, I focused on corporate greed in building windmills without regard for the community surrounding them. To me, as a longtime Vermont resident, the land is sacred. We need to listen to our Abenaki brothers and sisters and continue to respect the land that we inhabit. I care deeply about global warming and have dedicated most of my adult life to helping the environment. Wind power is the cheapest and least impactful alternative right now to burning fossil fuels and solar energy. Needless to say, renewable energy is being challenged at every level by Trump, Scott Pruitt, and the Koch brothers on the federal level. The United States has continued to subsidize fossil fuels at a higher rate than any other nation in the world. Renewable resources like solar and wind are frankly our only hope, but without government subsidies and statewide support like net meter credits, its hard to compete with the current administration’s love for the big oil and coal corporations that feed them. While literature and art play a big role in our lives, let’s also do our part to make Vermont a model for the world, politically and with a focus on becoming fossil fuel free.
It’s March 1 and I am tuning up my bicycle so I can ride instead of drive, dusting the last bit of snow off our family’s solar panels (bought and installed by local company Solar Applications with a loan for about as much as a new car which we pay down every month), and volunteering at our local environmental activist “node” 350-Brattleboro, a group of people who meet regularly, organize together, and take action to grow a stronger climate justice movement in the greater Brattleboro area.
Please join me and the team from Green Writers Press on April 20 at Next Stage Arts for an Earth Day celebration and reading, along with a short video from climate activist and glaciologist M Jackson. The evening (a benefit for Next Stage and 350-Brattleboro) kicks off at 7 p.m. and we hope to see you there to rally for science, renewable energy, and the environment on Earth Day.
