Last weekend I had a chance to speak at Hartland's Unitarian Universalist church as part of a climate change themed service. I also played a few of my original songs. For anyone who is interested, below is what I spoke about.

 

It is my dream to have a small farm of my own someday, a farm that can provide food for me and my family while we enjoy the luxury of doing what makes us happy. Every one of us has a dream. I’m sure all of you do. I’d like you to take a few second what you dream of doing in the next 10, 20, or 30 years.

Now with that dream in mind, ask yourself if it can come true on a planet that has been knocked out of balance and left in ruins, on a planet with unpredictable and increased droughts and storms, a planet with new diseases and a growing number of  climate refugees, a planet with more and more wars over food and water.  Could you dream come true in that world? Mine certainly can’t.

Climate change has been a reality I’ve known about for my entire life.

When I was born in 1997 CO2 levels were at about 360 ppm. That’s already higher than the 350 ppm which is considered to be the safe level in the atmosphere. Today they are over 400 ppm.

When I was 4 years old I went to an exhibit at the Montshire museum about coral and climate change. I don’t remember any of this, but my mom has a letter that I wrote to the world when I got home. She was actually able to dig it up so I thought I would share with you what my four year old self had to say about climate change 14 years ago.

“From Jenna to the world:

Please stop making all of this pollution, it is making the animals sick and die. The fish can’t live if the coral can’t live and the polar bears can’t live if the fish can’t live.

            You have to do something right now, world. Because the oceans could rise eight inches. So you have to do something right now because you have to save the city. And I have an idea how we could save the city. Hire some helpers with an excavator and dig the ocean eight inches deeper so that the eight inches of water can rise into the eight inches deeper.

            Only use snowmobiles where the only choice is snowmobiles. Get rid of jets all the way. Only use a car when you really need a car otherwise use the bus or train. Only use cars to drive places buses and trains won’t go."

 I remember going to rallies that were a some of the first serious climate change protests ever, organized by Bill McKibben and a group of Middlebury college students, who eventually went on to found 350.org. It is really encouraging how much progress we have made on building a climate movement over the past ten years. And it feels really good to be from Hartland, a town that has been involved with the movement for so long.

In February 2012 a few of us from Hartland went to Washington DC to the Forward on Climate rally, urging President Obama to act on the Keystone XL pipeline. At that point that was the largest climate change protest ever, with an estimated 40,000.

Two and a half years later I stood as one of 400,000 people on the streets of New York City at the People’s Climate March. This replaced the Forward on Climate Rally as the new largest climate change protest. And it was 10 times bigger than the first. The movement to protect our world is growing exponentially.

 Just a few weeks ago, President Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline, which only a few years ago was considered a done deal. Everyone assumed it would be approved.  Today, everywhere a pipeline is proposed, there are people ready to shut it down.

So in just half of my lifetime, the movement to protect the climate has gone from a few hundred people in Vermont, to 400,00 from all over this country, and many more in other countries.

That’s a lot of progress, but with CO2 levels still rising, the movement needs to grow even bigger.

Teaching people about climate change and how they can get involved in responding to it is a big passion of mine. We can’t dig the ocean 8 inches deeper, but we can build a movement bigger and stronger.

The amazing thing is that there is something that every one of us can do to help. No matter what you are good at, what you enjoy, where you come from, how much time and money you have to spend, there is something that you can do to help.

It can feel like the only way to get involved is to either buy solar panels, start buying local food, or go to a protest. Those are all things that can make a difference, but they are also not things that work for everybody.

You don’t have to have extra money around to help fight climate change.

Eating less meat, for example, unlike buying solar panels, is not expensive, but over time really makes a difference. Or cutting back on the amount that you idle your car. If you turn your engine off when you are just sitting at a parking lot, you can save yourself a lot of emissions and money. Drying your laundry on a clothesline instead of in the dryer saves money on your electricity bill and reduces your carbon footprint.

Beyond that, different there are ways to get involved that play to different people’s strengths. If you are a people person, you can get involved by doing outreach. If you like research, you can find information and explain it in a way that is easy for people to understand. If you are an artist or a writer you can help people imagine a different future.

I have wasted a lot of time working with groups who are not allowing me to play to my strengths. I don’t like to chat, I find working with large groups of people exhausting, and making decisions in a team is very frustrating for me. But, I am really creative; I am an artist and a farmer.

And so I play my part in two ways. The first is through art. I can paint banners for events, which makes me happy and gives me energy, the opposite of how I feel when I am doing something that is frustrating and doesn’t play to my strengths.

I am also a good photographer, so I can create beautiful records of actions and rallies. I really enjoy design and so I can help translate information into pamphlets, websites and videos.

My other big strength is farming. I love being outdoors, either taking care of animals or gardening. This year, I harvested more than 600 pounds of food from my garden.

This is all food that I’ve put away for my family to eat this year. Since I garden organically and don’t use any machines, this is all food that was produced with no fossil fuels at all.

My point is not that everyone should grow their own food, but rather that there is a way for everyone to be involved that brings them just as much joy and satisfaction as art and farming brings me. It is really important that as we work to take care of our world, we also are taking care of ourselves, because we need to be at our best to do this work.

All of us together, as human beings have caused this problem of climate change, and for that reason I firmly believe that it is within our reach to solve it. 14 years after my letter to the world, I now realize that we can’t dig the ocean 8 inches deeper, but we can change the way we live, we can change the work we do, we can change how we define happiness, we can change how we grow our food, and together we CAN change our planet’s future.