Editor’s note: This commentary is by Stephen Leslie, a dairy farmer from Hartland who has become active in the climate justice movement.
Farmers everywhere are on the frontline of abrupt climate change. I began farming in the Upper Valley in 1996. My family and I have a small dairy farm in Hartland. We make cheese, grow vegetables for market, and do some of our field work with draft horses. It’s a lot of work and it is every day of the year (the cows do not take vacation). We don’t have much money but making your livelihood from a relationship to land is a deeply satisfying way to live. It is its own reward. I probably spend about 95% of my time on one square mile of earth and I like it that way.
So what would compel an aging and mostly contented farmer to join a nonviolent direct-action protest group?
Climate change — and not just any old climate change — we’re talking about abrupt, unprecedented, accelerated and terrifying change. This is the climate change of the Anthropocene — the human-caused kind. It brings with it wholesale habitat and biodiversity loss, melting ice, rising sea levels, monster storms, killer heat waves, drought, crop failures, mass displacement, disease, famine and war.
All of these dire consequences and more are what climate scientists tell us we are now facing with utmost certainty unless we immediately halt the increase of greenhouse gas emissions and begin drawdown by transitioning the sectors of energy and transportation to renewable sources and convert our land management to regenerative practices.
That is why I have joined Extinction Rebellion (XR).
Here in the Upper Valley, neighbors, friends, and new acquaintances came together to hear a talk given by representatives of Extinction Rebellion Southern Vermont. On May 24 Extinction Rebellion Upper Valley (XRUV) was born. We decided on a name descriptive of our region to reflect how the Connecticut River watershed binds us geographically, historically, socially and politically into a single bioregion. We believe rebuilding our local social fabric and economy are essential if we are to have the resilience to face the great challenges that lie ahead.
We have heard the voices of youth leadership pleading with us and demanding that we, who have the full legal agency of adults, act to safeguard their futures. The time is now for us to pull together and begin immediately to work on designing a Just Transition to an ecologically viable form of human civic organization. Farmers have a huge role to play by transitioning to regenerative agriculture.
XRUV aims to form a broad coalition of climate, environmental, and peace and justice advocates in order to inform the general public and to press our political leaders to put the climate emergency foremost on the legislative agenda. This is an issue that cuts across divides of politics, race, class, gender, and species. Abrupt climate change is already affecting every living being on our beautiful planet. And while many of us have been involved in protest and advocacy groups for years and have already taken steps to reduce our own carbon footprint, the cascading effects of a warming atmosphere are outpacing the predictions of climate scientists. We need decisive action now. In order to save the planet this action must happen on a planetary scale. We need to mobilize all sectors of society the way we did in response to the crisis of the Great Depression and World War II. We need an Apollo moon shot mentality. We need to remember how we pulled together as one people in the past. Because we need to pull together as one planet now. The world has never been this warm in the entire 500,000 years of human evolution. We are entering uncharted territory.
Although XR began in the United Kingdom, this climate justice movement has quickly gone global and is being led by the youth and by indigenous people — but it is open to all people of good will who want to see our world restored to abundance and peace. Extinction Rebellion uses 100% nonviolent direct action to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Our aim is to create a mass mobilization of citizens united to demand that lawmakers and industry leaders take immediate action to address the climate and ecological catastrophe.
Extinction Rebellion calls for political leaders and the media to tell the truth about climate change. We are in a climate crisis. We make these four requests:
- Local, state, and federal governments declare climate and ecological emergency!
- Halt biodiversity loss and go carbon neutral by 2025.
- Create people’s assemblies to oversee a just transition in every sector.
- Prioritize peoples who have endured generations of environmental injustice.
This coming Thursday, Oct. 17, Vermont youth will be setting up a three-day Climate Encampment on the Statehouse lawn. They have reached out to the Regenerative Ag community to join them in solidarity by coming and giving teach-ins about how we can create an ecological civilization through radical reform of our land management practices. I will be there on Friday afternoon with one of my workhorses to demonstrate and speak about the role that draft animals can play in our transition to 100% renewable power.
My mentor, Donella Meadows, was an environmental scientist, teacher, writer and avid homesteader. Along with her team at MIT, in 1972 she published “The Limits to Growth.” Using what was then cutting edge computer technology coupled to a Systems Thinking approach, they predicted that we would reach “planetary overshoot” right about now. We are in fact currently using 1.7 planets to sustain our civilization. Donella knew better than most how dire our predicament was but she never lost faith that at any moment we could turn on a dime and start heading in a new direction. If she were still with us, I think she would tell us that all we have to do is overcome our paralysis — find the courage to speak our truths to one another — roll away the stone of fear and dread from our hearts and let the grand contagion of hope take hold of our souls.
