FIVE FOR THE FUTURE
THESE MOVERS AND SHAKERS, ALL UNDER 40, ARE TACKLING THE CHALLENGES OF OUR TIMES.
By SARAH ROSE
A new generation of environmentalists is set to take over the reins of leadership from the movement’s founding babyboomers. PLENTY talked to five young visionaries—a sage, an organizer, a politician, a litigator, and a scientist—none of whom was born when the movement first took hold, in the 1960s. We asked tomorrow’s leaders to take stock of today’s green living. How far have we come? Where are we headed? How do we get where we’re going?
The Sage
Julia "Butterfly" Hill, 30, claimed international attention for the plight of the world’s last remaining ancient forests when, in December 1997, she climbed 180 feet up into the branches of a 1,000-year-old Redwood tree and refused to come down—until two years later. She spent an historic 738 days out on that limb, living in the tree named Luna, harassed by loggers. She came down to earth only after negotiating permanent protection for the redwood and a buffer-zone around it. Now eco-warriors are training armies of "tree sitters" inspired by Butterfly to save the old-growth forests. A best-selling author, poet, and activist, Hill has become a spiritual figurehead for the environmental movement.
The homeschooled daughter of a traveling evangelist, Hill came to activism at the age of 23. "I entered the ancient redwoods and was really touched and deeply moved by the beauty and power and awe of these forests," she says. "I was opposed to the absolute devastation of the clear-cutting—over 98 percent of the original old-growth forests are gone in California. That dichotomy (between beauty and devastation) is what spurred me into activism."
Julia Hill got the nickname Butterfly while hiking when she was seven years old. A butterfly perched on her hand and followed her all day on the trail. Hill and other protesters assumed "forest names" to help conceal their identities from loggers and officials.
Although many in the environmental community are discouraged by the current state of the planet, Hill is hopeful and sees victories everywhere. "Every time someone faces fear and adversity and chooses to act anyway—to me that’s a triumph," she says. "We have millions of triumphs. When we choose love over hatred, courage over silence, sustainability over mass consumption, any of these and more, that is a triumph."
Pressed to name the failures of the environmental movement, she bridles. "Learning opportunity—not failure," she rebukes. "It sounds like semantics, but ‘failures’ is our judgmental voice coming out.
"For me the learning opportunity is in finding ways of bridging generational gaps in the movement, in the challenges we face in passing the torch. Somewhere the intergenerationality of activism fell apart. We will lose all the wisdom of the older leaders if we don’t create a way to pass it on."...continued