Category Archives: Posts from Anne Petermann

by | 2011-10-13 · 13:54

Earth Minute: In Commemoration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

This week’s Earth Minute discusses the legacy of Christopher Columbus: ongoing wars against Indigenous Peoples to control their resources.  To Listen to the Earth Minute, click here

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

This week marks the 519th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ invasion of the Americas and the brutal genocide he launched, starting with the Arawak People who he quickly wiped out.

With the founding of the United States, the Indian wars continued. Reservations, created to clear the path for the country’s conquest, were later discovered to be rich with coal, uranium, and oil, and a new war was launched to take those resources. Native Americans who resisted were jailed or killed.  Communities were left with contaminated air, water and soil.

Today, Indigenous peoples around the globe are still losing their ancestral lands to corporations and investors–modern day versions of Christopher Columbus that want their lands for profit-making schemes like bioenergy plantations, industrial tree farms or tar sands oil.

Yet there are still Indigenous peoples who, against all odds, have protected their lands and maintained their traditional ways of life.  We must stand in solidarity with their ongoing struggles for land, rights and dignity.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.


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by | 2011-10-04 · 14:48

This Week’s Earth Minute: Occupy Wall Street and The Links Between Politics, Economics, Ecology, Race and Class

Global Justice Ecology Project partners with Margaret Prescod’s Sojourner Truth show on KPFK–Pacifica Los Angeles radio show for a weekly Earth Minute on Tuesdays and a weekly 12 minute Environment Segment every Thursday.

This week’s Earth Minute discusses the links between the ever-worsening ecological crisis and the financial crisis being targeted by the Occupation Wall Street protests.  To Listen to the Earth Minute, click here

Text from this week’s Earth Minute:

For more than 2 weeks, demonstrators on Wall Street have been standing up against corporate power and these protests are now spreading to other cities.  It is the unjust economic and social system that sparked these growing protests that is at the root of many of the crises we face.

It is a system driven by fossil fuels–fuels heavily subsidized by the US government, which gives away billions to oil companies while slashing benefits for the poorest among us.

Fossil fuels are driving climate chaos, causing catastrophic floods, droughts, wildfires and crop failures that further impact vulnerable populations and cause social turmoil.

The US military is deployed to ensure these crises do not impede our steady supply of oil.  This military also happens to be the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.

Politics, economics, ecology, race and class are intertwined.  If we are to find solutions to the many crises we face, we must understand these connections and take action–just action that respects Mother Earth.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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by | 2011-10-03 · 13:51

USDA Grants $136 million for research into use of GE trees and other wood for bioenergy

By Anne Petermann, for the GJEP Team

GE poplars coming to a forest near you?  There is a disturbing new push to transform forests in the Pacific Northwest into GE tree plantations to feed new bioenergy refineries.

Fast-growing poplar trees grown by Portland, OR-based GreenWood Resources, which has formed a partnership with GE tree company ArborGen.

Last week US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced it was making a grant of $136 million–its largest grant ever– to several universities and private companies in the Pacific Northwest to promote development of a Northwest “biofuels” industry.

According to an article titled, “UW, WSU to get $80M to Develop Biofuels” in the Seattle Times, this grant is designed to build a new industry that “would be churning out fuel from trees” in the next five years.  They quoted Vilsack, stating, “I’d bet my life on it.”

The grant has several components, including the development of “fast growing poplars” that could mature in just a few years.  The University of Washington plans to develop 400,000 acres of these poplars across the Northwest.

Another article titled, “Pacific Northwest Forests Offer Biomass Bounty” in the Western Farm Press, states that the same grant provides over a half million dollars for Oregon State University to investigate use of genetically engineered trees for dedicated energy plantations.  Most of the research into GE trees at OSU focuses on poplars.

This suggests that the ultimate goal of the grant is the development of industrial-scale genetically engineered poplar plantations as bioenergy feedstocks.  This is highly troubling since this grant was provided by the USDA–which is the same agency that would review any applications requesting permission to grow GE trees commercially.  GE trees are not yet legal to grow on a commercial scale in the US.

Also troubling is the fact that in June, David Nothmann, the Vice President of Business and Product Development for GE tree company ArborGen, was named to serve on the Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee which is jointly administered by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the USDA.  Prior to ArborGen, Nothmann spent thirteen years at Monsanto.

Because of this obvious conflict of interest of the USDA with regard to genetically engineered trees, any requests for commercial release of GE trees will likely result in years of lawsuits to stop them.

This threat of lawsuits, according to an article in Biomass Power & Thermal Magazine, is “representing a tremendous deterrent to investment in [biotechnology], especially on the biomass side, where a lot of them are start-up companies.  It’s making it very hard to get investments [when] you’re going to have to deal with [5-10 years of] litigation. It is creating a huge barrier.”

Other OSU research will study forest health and hazard reduction.  This could indicate that researchers are also looking into use of trees killed or damaged by the western pine beetle as sources of woody biomass.  This is backed up by another article published on September 29th in the Denver Post, titled “Beetle-Kill Pine, Other Wood Pushed as Power Source and way to Aid Ailing Colorado Forests,” which announced a new consortium that is looking at using beetle-killed trees as wood for fuel.

Global Justice Ecology Project’s position is that there is no sustainable way to replace fossil fuels with plants at the scale at which they are used in the US.  An article in Science Magazine “Implications of Limiting CO2 Concentration for Land Use and Energy” from 2009 demonstrates this.  The article points out that the predicted rise in global demand for wood-based electricity alone would require the total conversion of native forests and grasslands to biomass plantations by 2065.

For more on the dangers of GE poplars and other trees, click here

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by | 2011-09-23 · 15:31

Blog Post from the Belly of the Beast: In the Bowels of the World Bank

 –by Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project; North American Focal Point, Global Forest Coalition

… the Indonesian military is getting money through climate financing for REDD-type projects. The communities that live in the forests–some of them Indigenous to the area, some of them relocated there in the 80s–are being invaded by heavily armed forest rangers, paramilitaries and police; and are forced to leave at gunpoint while their homes are burned to the ground.

Benoit Bosquet, Coordinator of the World Bank's Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, defends the bank's role in "forest conservation" in Indonesia, where forest-based communities have been forcibly evicted at gunpoint. Behind him is a photo of one such eviction. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Today commenced the fall meetings of the World Bank in Washington, DC.  The Bank has long been known for its strong-arm tactics to force countries in the Global South to turn over their resources–whether natural resources or poor peoples’ labor– to corporations based in the Industrialized North.

While the Bank is notorious as a major funder of fossil fuel projects, devastating large-scale hydroelectric projects and deforestation projects, they have now become one of the leaders in the effort to use “market-based” schemes for climate mitigation.  They are the world’s carbon brokers.

Indeed, one of the items on their meeting agenda is climate finance–pumping money into various developing countries to supposedly undertake climate mitigation programs that will predominately benefit countries in the north, by enabling them to maintain business as usual and avoid cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Appropriately, there was a civil society session this morning on the impacts of climate finance for REDD projects in Indonesia.  Indonesia is a global focal point for climate action because of the massive climate emissions that have occurred there largely as a result of the burning of primeval peat forests for conversion to oil palm plantations.  But even the climate mitigation programs come with a high price, and Indonesia provides a stark case study of the devastating social and ecological impacts of REDD (the scheme to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

But in order to participate in the workshop, it was first necessary to navigate the World Bank’s ridiculous security process.

It became obvious quickly that the Bank is quite paranoid about security.  Now why, I wondered sarcastically, would an institution whose mission is ostensibly about poverty eradication need blocks and blocks of metal barricades and legions of police surrounding it?

Perhaps it has something to do with all of the people around the globe who have suffered under their severely unjust policies.  Maybe they never quite got over A-16, (April 16, 2000) when thousands of activists descended on DC to blockade all of the streets surrounding the World Bank in a massive condemnation of the Bank’s dirty dealings.

But on this day, there were no protests, yet I still got the run-around by numerous unfriendly security officers and police, directed this way and that until I finally managed to find the registration building.

Once there, I explained for the fourth time that I was only there for one workshop and just needed a day pass.  “We’re not giving out day passes today,” the desk jockey muttered. I had not encountered such surly, robot-like people since the Manchester, New Hampshire jail after a group of us were arrested in January 2000 for occupying Al Gore’s NH campaign headquarters in support of the U’Wa people of Colombia, whose lands were threatened by oil drilling by Occidental Petroleum.  (Al had a lot of stock in Occidental).

Frustrated, irritated and thoroughly disgusted, I was ready to give up and make the trek back uptown when I saw a separate registration area for CSOs (civil society organizations).  Okay, I thought, one more try.

I won’t go into the details, but suffice it to say, I talked my way into an official access badge. Then after navigating yet more metal barricades, police officers and a metal detector, I finally arrived at my destination: the workshop on the impacts of REDD and forest “conservation” in Indonesia.  It was horrifying.

Global Justice Ecology Project has been exposing the impacts of REDD on communities in Chiapas, Mexico and California as the result of a sub-national REDD carbon offset deal between the two states.  Indigenous communities in the jungle of Chiapas are threatened with displacement for “forest protection” projects, and being subjected to intimidation tactics such as the withholding of medical services to try to force them to leave.

But what is happening on the ground in Indonesia is even more extreme. As one panelist pointed out, the violence happening to the people in the forests is even worse than the violence that occurred under the Suharto dictatorship.

While the dictatorship no longer exists, the military still maintains most of the power in the country–and now that the forests have suddenly increased in value because of REDD (because the carbon stored by the trees now has value), people who live in the forests but do not have official title to their lands (which is about 80% of the people in the rural areas) are being violently evicted for “conservation” projects.

In the 1980s, a program was initiated in Indonesia called the Transmigration Program.  It moved 2.5 million people off of the heavily populated islands of Bali and Java and onto other islands, leading to tremendous land conflicts.  In some areas, the ratio of migrants to locals was 2:1.  This, the speaker explained, is exactly what is now happening under REDD.  Massive population displacement.

In a nutshell, the Indonesian military is getting money through climate financing for REDD-type projects. The communities that live in the forests–some of them Indigenous to the area, some of them relocated there in the 80s–are being invaded by heavily armed forest rangers, paramilitaries and police; and are forced to leave at gunpoint while their homes are burned to the ground.

All in the name of conservation.

I spoke briefly with the panel moderator, a woman native to Indonesia, about our work in Chiapas and what we had found there.

“Yes,” she replied.  “What we see in Indonesia is not unique.  It is happening all over with these REDD projects.”

And what is the point of all of this suffering and misery and violence?  To provide corporations in the industrialized north with the opportunity to avoid reducing their pollution by “buying” carbon stored in some distant forest thereby “offsetting” their emissions.

So, in other words, impoverished rural and Indigenous peoples are being confronted with unspeakable violence to allow companies in the North to continue to poison and pollute poor communities near their facilities in the North.

Benoit Bosque, of the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (the Bank’s program to help design and fund REDD projects in tropical and subtropical countries) spoke and tried to deflect this intense critique by explaining that REDD was extremely complex, but we shouldn’t give up. “These conflicts are about an accumulation of past mistakes. We cannot let fear of mistakes prevent us from taking bold steps forward.”

Yeah, tell that to the Indigenous Peoples being thrown off of their ancestral lands…

His callous reply received a lot of indignant responses from both the audience and the panel, who pointed out that the World Bank’s track record of enforcing even its own safeguards is terrible. “Consultations have been window dressing.  Demands must be made for accountability with World Bank partners or don‘t make them partners.  Don’t give them funding!”

At that Benoit bid his adieu before there were any more confrontations about the Bank’s role in funding violence against forest dependent communities.

For these reasons and many, many more, organizations and Indigenous Peoples’ groups around the world are condemning REDD.  For more information on this, go to: http://noredd.makenoise.org/.  To learn more about GJEP’s work in Chiapas and California on REDD, go to http://climate-connections.org/category/chiapas-2/.  To view our photo essay from the community of Amador Hernandez in the Lacandon Jungle, click here

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by | 2011-09-15 · 13:53

Sustainable Forestry Initiative Conference Protested in Burlington, VT (Op-Ed and Photos)

by Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project Executive Director

What follows is a series of photos along with an Op-Ed that I wrote for the Burlington Free Press–the Gannett-owned statewide newspaper of Vermont.  The Op-Ed (which has not yet been published) addresses the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) conference that came to Burlington this week, to much rancor from students at the University of Vermont.  The UVM students were mobilized to protest SFI’s bogus forest certification program by Adam Gaya, an organizer with ForestEthics.  They were joined by numerous residents of Vermont, as well as participants from Massachusetts and Maine.  All of the photos below are taken by Anne Petermann, with the exception of two photos which were taken by GJEP Co-Director/Strategist Orin Langelle.

Op-ED: Vermont is the Green Mountain State, not the Brown Mountain State–let’s keep it that way.

Regrown forest in Vermont near Camel's Hump. The SFI wants to certify as sustainable the large-scale logging of native forests to produce electricity. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Vermont is a success story of forest regeneration.  In the mid-1800s, the state had lost about 80% of its forest.  Moose, songbirds and many other wild creatures vanished.  Today, much of that forest has regrown.  The state is now 80% forested and the moose have returned to Vermont once more.

I find it quite ironic, therefore, that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) chose to bring its phony, timber industry-controlled forest-destroying “certification” conference to Burlington.

Why is it phony?  The SFI was founded by and is funded by the very timber industry it is supposed to watchdog.  It is the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse.  It’s purpose: make the large-scale deforestation activities of the biggest timber companies on the planet appear “green” by certifying them as “sustainable.”

Since 2004, SFI has conducted 543 audits of its “certified” companies to measure their compliance with SFI standards. Not one audit found any problems with the large-scale timber operations and clearcuts.

In one recent instance, two SFI-accredited auditors spent a mere five days assessing more than 46,875 square miles of public forest — an area larger than the entire state of Pennsylvania. Naturally, they reported no violations of SFI standards and found nothing wrong.

If you aren’t looking for problems, you won’t find them, and SFI are masters at not finding problems.  It is for this reason that the SFI certification seal cannot be trusted— whether office paper, envelopes or catalogs—their ‘green’ label is meaningless.

If we want to protect forests, and promote truly sustainable management of forests, then we must view SFI as greenwash, and a threat to forests and the people who depend on them.

SFI certifies hundreds of thousands of acres of forest across our region, and while they would like us to believe that these forests are well cared for, the fact is that they are as vulnerable as ever.  Plum Creek, one of the biggest participants in SFI’s certification scheme, owns nearly one million acres of timberland across Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire – and uses large-scale clearcutting and other destructive industrial logging practices.  Yet this rampant devastation is certified as ‘green’ by the SFI.  And guess what?  Plum Creek’s CEO sits on SFI’s board.

SFI protest in front of the Hilton where the SFI conference was occurring. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

SFI’s weak standards also allow other industrial logging practices that have resulted in landslides, widespread toxic chemical use and dangerous impacts to sensitive species.  In the future, SFI would even like to certify trees that have been genetically engineered–despite the fact that the public is overwhelming opposed to these dangerous Franken-trees.  If genetically engineered tree plantations are developed, the escape of pollen and/or seeds from them into native forests would be inevitable, irreversible and cause tremendous damage to forests.  To SFI and their corporate sponsors, however, GE trees mean enhanced profits and should therefore be certified.  Fortunately, we do not yet have GE tree plantations, so there is still time to stop this disaster.

For these and many other reasons, twenty environmental groups recently sent a letter to SFI demanding that the organization stop certifying destruction of forests as “sustainable.”  There are also several major U.S. companies – including Sprint, Allstate and Office Depot – that are disassociating themselves from the SFI.

Protester agrees to be "greenwashed" at the SFI protest. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Meanwhile, the SFI continues to greenwash the products of forest destruction in order to intentionally confuse people who are truly concerned about the environment and want to make the right choices.

We Vermonters love our Green Mountains and want them to stay green–not blotched with clearcuts certified by SFI–which also is important as forests play a key role in stabilizing the climate.  And as we have seen with so much severe weather in Vermont this year, stabilizing the climate is more important than ever.

So, say no to SFI-certified greenwash products.  Say yes to truly sustainable, local, small-scale forestry.  Our forests are a treasure.

Let’s keep them that way.

Following are some additional photos from the protest:

Adam Gaya of ForestEthics speaks in front of the Hilton. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Kate Kroll of the University of Vermont recites the crimes of the SFI. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Brian Tokar, who teaches at the University of Vermont,riles up the crowd. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project denounces the forest criminals meeting in the Hilton. Photo: Langelle/GJEP

SFI conference participant heckles the protest but is drowned out by loud chants. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Protesters raise the volume. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

The SFI is seeking ways to make genetically engineered trees certifiable as "sustainable." Photo: Petermann/GJEP

Another victim of "greenwashing." Photo: Petermann/GJEP

As delegates begin to emerge from the conference, protesters get rowdy. Photo: Petermann/GJEP

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by | 2011-09-01 · 13:40

Earth Minute 8/30/11: Climate Change, the Tar Sands and Hurricane Irene

Global Justice Ecology Project teams up with the Sojourner Truth show on KPFK Los Angeles every Tuesday for an Earth Minute written and recorded by GJEP Executive Director Anne Petermann.

To listen to this week’s Earth Minute, click here and scroll to minute 38:41

Earth Minute 8/30/11

As I sat home yesterday listening to the remnants of Hurricane Irene whipping the trees outside, I thought about the intensifying effect the warming globe is having on the world’s weather; and about the corporations that ignore or deny it, continuing business as usual to the detriment of us all.

The tar sands gigaproject in Northern Alberta is one glaring example. The Indigenous Environmental Network has campaigned to stop the tar sands project for years.  Tar sands oil production poisons Indigenous communities, levels boreal forests, and releases three times the greenhouse gases of conventional oil. But rather than banning this devastating project, a new pipeline is planned, to carry this toxic oil through the US to the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Irene caused billions in damages. Burning tar sands oil will further worsen climate change, causing more extreme weather in the future.

The Indigenous Environmental Network will be holding an Indigenous Day of Action against the tar sands this Friday at the gates of the White House.  To learn more, go to: www.ienearth.org/

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Anne Petermann from Global Justice Ecology Project.

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by | · 12:40

Climate Challenge Media With GJEP’s Anne Petermann on GE Trees

A half hour interview on the dangers of genetically engineered trees and their relation to climate mitigation schemes.  With Climate Challenge host, Karen Strickler:

http://www.vimeo.com/28334491

(click on the link above–we were not able to embed the video in this blog post)

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by | 2011-08-31 · 16:36

Photo Essay from Vermont: The Recovery from Hurricane Irene Begins

As of Tuesday, 30 August 2011, there were still thirteen towns in the U.S. state of Vermont that were completely cut off from the outside world due to the torrential rains of Hurricane Irene.  This was because roads like Route 100, which runs north and south through the state, sustained catastrophic damage to its culverts and bridges for many miles.    In all, over 200 roads across the state were closed due to wash outs from the heavy rains that pelted the state for nearly twenty-four hours on Sunday, August 28.

Route 100--this and other washed out bridges and culverts cut off the town of Granville, VT from the outside world

Text: Anne Petermann, Executive Director, Global Justice Ecology Project

Photos: Orin Langelle, Co-Director/Strategist, Global Justice Ecology Project

Orin Langelle and I toured a portion of our home state of Vermont on Tuesday, 30 August to witness and document some of the destruction that Hurricane Irene had left in its wake.  Though it was downgraded to a “tropical storm” by the time it reached Vermont, its torrential rains wreaked havoc around the state.  Where we live, we had been quite fortunate and only lost electricity for twenty-three hours or so.  Other parts of the state were far less lucky.  During our travels, however, we witnessed the resiliency of Vermonters, who tackled their own loss or the loss of their neighbors, not only with fortitude, but also with humor and a very New England-like matter of fact-ness.

The post-flood clean up effort begins in Waterbury, VT

Our journey began at Camp Johnson in Colchester, where the Vermont National Guard is stationed, to see what an official governmental response looked like.  Vermont’s National Guard sustained the heaviest losses per capita of any U.S. state during the occupation of Iraq.  Like many Vermont National Guardsmen, the young soldier we spoke with, Nathan Rivard of Enosburg Falls, explained that responding to the needs of his neighbors during disasters like Irene that was the reason he had joined the Guard.  The response to the storm was, he felt, the real story in Vermont. “It’s people helping people,” he explained.  “Not just the disaster, but how people respond after.”

VT National Guard personnel prepare relief packages

The Vermont National Guard responded while the storm was still raging to help Vermonters caught off guard by the inundation of water.  Before the sun was up on Tuesday morning, thirty FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) tractor-trailers had arrived at the National Guard’s Camp Johnson with water, ready to eat meals, blankets, cots and other supplies.

FEMA personnel prepare temporary shelters

Because of the widespread road damage, however, getting the supplies to the people who need them has been extremely challenging.  With thirteen towns completely cut off from the outside world, National Guard helicopters have been almost the only way to get help in from the outside—either in the form of medical assistance or basic necessities like food and water.

National Guard medical helicopter

The ability of the government to help over the long term, however, is highly uncertain as the number of natural disasters in the U.S. over the past year has severely depleted FEMA’s budget.

[Note:  We asked the VT National Guard what communities in VT were receiving supplies from the Guard  so we could document distribution.  We were never given that information.]

The People Pull Together

From Camp Johnson, we headed to Waterbury, where Vermont’s state offices are located–and sustained heavy flood damage.  Waterbury was submerged under 10 feet or more of water when the Winooski River rose to record flood levels in minutes.  Even the state’s emergency management office succumbed to the flooding waters and had to relocate to Burlington—the state’s largest city.  When Irene hit Sunday, WDEV (Radio Vermont) stayed on the air all day and night with a generator, despite losing power from the grid and their internet connection.  While a commercial station, they remain dedicated to their community.  WDEV provided valuable information to residents about flooding damage and impassable roads during the disaster.  See Democracy Now! for an interview with the WDEV station owner.

This photo shows the high water mark from the flood in Waterbury

By Tuesday, volunteers and neighbors were pouring support into the community.

At the first house we came to on Elm Street, one of the streets where the flooding had been the worst, a group was sharing stories about the scene on Sunday.  Their front yard was heaped with ruined debris.  The home’s owner explained to us that the water in the apartment he rented downstairs had been up to his shoulders.  He explained that he wouldn’t even be able to start dealing with the damage to the house until the insurance agent arrived—which wouldn’t be until Friday.

But, he emphasized, the outpouring of support had been amazing.  Restaurants were donating food to the relief effort, and a bus full of “Youth Build” participants had arrived earlier that day to pitch in.  “If you didn’t know there was a flood, you’d think it was a block party,” he explained with a smile.

Inside the house, it was easy to see just how destructive the flood had been.  Kitchen appliances were covered in mud, while at one end of what had presumably been the living room, a happy birthday sign still hung.  In another room, mud covered baby toys littered the floor.

A Happy Birthday sign still hangs on the wall

Cars did not fare well either during the flood.

Around the corner on Randall Street, the activity of clearing homes of debris and salvaging what could be salvaged was still under way.

Huge dumpsters lined the street and debris was being piled according to type with electronics in one pile, hazardous materials (mostly paint, stain and household chemicals) in another, and everything else going in the dumpsters.

We came across one woman who picked up a white jug and sighed, “this was an antique,” as she poured muddy water out of a gaping hole in its side.  “Oh well,” she said.  “It’s just stuff, right?” then chucked it into the dumpster.  “Bye.”

For some people the loss was clearly overwhelming.  Others got to work cleaning what could be cleaned.

Coming up the road we encountered three intrepid children, helping out the best they could by giving out bottles of water.  They were very serious about their job, asking everyone they met if they wanted something to drink.

Among the ruins were tarps laid out with items that had been salvaged and washed, drying in the sun.  Many people managed to tackle the mess with a positive attitude.

From Waterbury, we headed down Route 100—one of the hardest hit roads in the state.  Not far down the road, we came to Moretown, were the Mad River had lived up to its name.

Bridge over the Mad River, severely damaged by the flood

The Mad River, now back to its calm, pristine self, had become a raging torrent on Sunday, shutting down Route 100B and flooding the Village Cemetery.

Workers repair the bridge over Route 100B in Moretown

The cemetery fence was buckling under the weight of the flood debris that was caught in its chain links and many headstones had been flattened—including those of the entire Philemon Family (dating back to 1865) and Bulkley Family (dating back to 1822).

Across the street, another home was half-hidden by debris with a lonely pair of mud-covered rubber boots testifying to the people that had lived there.

Further down Route 100, on the border of Waitsfield and Warren, the Mad River had taken out half of the road.

Nearby, American Flatbread, a unique and very popular Mad River Valley institution featuring an outdoor bonfire, indoor clay flatbread oven and walls covered with Bread and Puppet art, had also succumbed to the raging mud.  As we passed, teams of people were pitching in to help clean out the mess.

Our final stop on Route 100, where we could go no further, was at the border of Warren and Granville.  The road was washed out.  Route 100 further to the south was closed due to water, and Route 125, the only link to the west, was also impassable.  This left the towns of Granville, Hancock and Rochester, all located along Rte 100, cut off from the outside world.

At the roadblock we spoke with some electrical workers who were trying to get to the town of Rochester.  They had been talking with the road worker at the wash out to see how they might travel south.  “We’re based in South Royalton,” one electrical worker explained.  “We’ve been trying to get to Rochester all day. They’re without power and we’re trying to get in to fix it.  We tried to get to Rochester from the South but couldn’t get in. Now we’re trying to get in from the North, but that’s not working either.  We’re going to try some small dirt roads now to see if we can get around these wash outs.”

The Mad River near Granville--not so mad anymore

While the record devastation around Vermont has been catastrophic to many communities, the spirit of collective teamwork that we experienced on our journey gave us a hopeful glimpse of what is possible and the mountains that can be moved when people pull together.  As we head into the uncertain future of escalating climate chaos and extreme weather, this spirit may be the one thing that enables communities to come together to find local, small scale, ecologically sustainable solutions to the climate crisis.

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