Transcript

Inspiring action in pursuit of a livable future: Anna McDevitt at TEDxGustavusAdolphusCollege

um every single person here today can make the choice to have a better future and it's possible you know right now the future's not looking so good we have climate science that shows us that we have to at all costs avoid a two degrees rise in global average temperatures if we are to have a liberal future if we are going to avoid this snowball effect of catastrophic climate change right now climate change is the biggest threat to that future so let's look at what we know about climate change we know the history we know that that history shows us that carbon missions have been rising at unprecedented rates since the industrial revolution we can see that up here we know the physics the physics that show us that this is going to continue happening unless we make meaningful change in regards to those carbon emissions and we know that this climate change is human induced mainly from our use of fossil fuels like coal oil and natural gas the last thing that we know is that climate change is causing human suffering and it's going to continue causing human suffering and i've seen it last year my junior year of college i decided to study abroad in india in a program called social justice peace and development and while i was there i took a course on environment and ecology and one thing that i learned while we were traveling around india was that a lot of farmers lately within the last 10 15 years have been unable to grow their crops because of rising temperatures they've had lower yields of millet and they've had a rise in insects because these hotter temperatures that have made it so that they can't make ends meet and they can't grow food and one particular experience comes to mind when i think about this i remember walking through the villages of kopal karnataka and i was walking through these millet fields and we approached this home and and it was kind of a hut it was kind of like the thing you would think of if you heard someone was going on a mission trip to africa right you know it's kind of mud walls and and thatched looking roof um probably the size of my 11 by 15 dorm room at the time and there was an older couple standing outside and thank goodness made a translator because we got we got to engage in a conversation with them and during this conversation we learned that they were having trouble making ends meet at the time they weren't able to grow enough millet and they weren't able to make enough money to send their kids to near my school and things like that and this couple graciously asked us to come into their house and we did and upon stepping into the house i remember there was no lights you know even though it was really hot outside it was really cool inside still and i looked to the left and there was a bicycle maybe they used it to go to the market i don't know something like that and about six more steps forward and i was at the end of the home and there was it was obviously the kitchen and you know there was kind of pans and there was a fireplace and comparing this with other experiences and thinking about my experience back here in the u.s i felt really guilty you know i i i drive my car when i need to go places sometimes i bike and i use an oven when i need to cook and i use lights all the time i'm using them right now and my fossil fuel consumption to have that energy is causing this family that was right in front of me suffering they weren't able to make ends meet because of my lifestyle and the lifestyle of people like me and we're not only seeing this in other places you know halfway around the world like india we see this we're gonna and we're gonna continue seeing this you know more so in the future here in the u.s uh by 2100 sea level rise on u.s coasts is supposed to rise by 23 feet that means that the house i grew up in in norfolk virginia which is seven feet above sea level will be underwater by that time not only is my house going to underwater but the us's largest naval base and actually the world's largest naval base will be underwater that's enough of virginia so not only is this a human suffering issue it's becoming a national security issue um and we don't see problems just with climate change too we see it with just the very burning of fossil fuels itself last spring i went to rock creek west virginia which is one of hundreds of communities in the appalachian mountains that is experiencing mountaintop coal removal and for those of you who don't know what mountaintop coal removal is this is what it looks like the picture used to have two mountains on the right and left side and the middle used to be a valley and there used to be communities in that valley when they use explosives to blow the top of the mountain off to get to the coal they just put the filling into the valley and destroying the communities so we see lots of chemical problems with this but also just just history um you know i met i met a man who has to drink bottled water and it's very expensive but he has to drink bottled water because his digestive tract is so screwed up from drinking well water that was contaminated by the nearby coal processing plant and i learned of families who watched as the coal company's machinery bulldozed their ancestors grace and i learned of a nearby neighborhood that was a cancer cluster that recently had six people die from the same kind of brain tumor so we're seeing these problems right we're seeing them now and we're going to continue seeing them in the future whether it's localized pollution from fossil fuels or the climate change that um that that happens after that um so we have a time issue here at stake right we've got to do something uh the un estimates that we need to stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure being built by 2017 that means we've got three years folks we've got three years to stop the way we're doing things and transition to something better and so i've decided along with many others that are in this movement for a better future that we're going to do everything we can to make sure that that happens and you know i came back from india and i came back from west virginia and i was on fire like i was ready to do things about this like i've got a voice i'm going to use it i'm going to participate in this democracy and i expected you know everyone was going to jump on board the planet is on fire people are gonna be riding in the streets right it's a big deal um but that wasn't happening that wasn't the case um and i i questioned that you know why why was that and i realized we are all super busy right we're so busy all the time you know as a student i've got school i've got extracurriculars many of you in here are students too you know what that's like half the time it feels like we don't have time for anything else to be honest how are we supposed to go to a rally or testify at a hearing in the middle of the day when we need to be at class and things like that with so much going on how are we supposed to care about the future but wait isn't that what we're already doing isn't the point of an education and landing these internships and stacking up our resumes to have a better future so we can be prepared for that future it's kind of counter-intuitive right and it's not just students that see this you know for those of you out there who are you know grown-ups in the real world with jobs um you're busy too right you're working your butt off every day to make sure that you can pay the bills and maybe if you have kids you're gonna put them through college and save up for retirement all that stuff but we still have this problem of climate change and our future and it's frustrating because it means that the actions we're taking right now like education and jobs and things like that that we think are securing our future might actually be making our future less livable now this is not to say that education and having a job are not important so please don't leave here today and say that some anna girl got up in front of you and told you to quit your job and to drop out of school to save the planet because that's not what's happening right now um but we need to value other things on top of those things you know our roles as students and athletes and parents and businessmen and professors those roles are all super important but there are two roles that i think we forget in the midst of those and that's one being a participant in this democracy and two being a steward of the future and you know when it comes to thinking about solutions to the climate crisis i think science and technology is what comes up the most right we have these crazy awesome wind turbine technology um that can now detect birds when they're coming to stop so it doesn't hurt the birds um and we can do that offshore now and we've got solar panels that are doing great things but we can't just depend on that science and that technology because in the democracy we have it's not the scientists and the engineers that decide on the fossil fuel subsidies we decide that you know they don't decide on whether we have more fuel-efficient cars or more solar panels that is up to us you know one of my favorite quotes ever is by parker palmer and it reads democracy is not something that we have it's something that we must do so if we want society to look the way we want it to look we've got to be involved in it right this better future that we need that we want it's not just going to happen out of nowhere for fun we've got to make it happen you and me and we can do that it's very possible so i think i'll use myself as an example um so as a student right now i'm about to graduate from gustavus adolphus college and i am on the track team and i've got an internship and i'm in clubs here and there that sort of thing but i'm still playing these roles as a student of the future and participating in democracy uh you know we've rocked it last month we had 25 students who joined a thousand students from all over the country in washington dc for the excel descent which was a protest against the keystone xl pipeline a pipeline that if approved would carry 830 thousand gallons of tar sands oil from alberta canada to the gulf of mexico each day basically locking us into a climate disaster you know no big deal um so we had a thousand students that came out and said you know what this is not all right and if you look at the sign here it says obama stop this pipeline or the people will that's what's happening that's the people the people are going to stop that pipeline us in this picture me you all of us we can make that happen um and you know we had about 400 people get arrested at this and this isn't to say that every one of you should go out and get arrested because that's also not what i'm saying um but it's an option if you're interested but there's lots of other things we can do you know for those of you who have heard about divestment from fossil fuels we have a kick-ass divestment campaign here on campus it's awesome um one of the one of the leading ones in minnesota and we are working each week to make our or to ask our college to divest its endowment from fossil fuels um and this is on the reasoning that you know we're basically funding climate change we're basically funding a disastrous future and the human suffering that comes along with that and we don't think that's right so one thing that we did last last fall is we fasted we fasted for climate action and with very little outreach we got 54 people to not eat for a day in support of climate action and we conversations blossomed out of that that's the biggest thing just having these conversations about climate change and what we can do that was probably our biggest thing with that but here's a picture of some of us we kind of rallied on the front steps of the school there um asking for divestment and telling people what we were doing about how we were fasting for climate action um and this is something that anyone can do i think and you know at this point you might be thinking okay so anna what do i do exactly that's what you're doing what do i do and honestly the answer is anything something it just do it just do anything um it's like nike um but uh i can't be the one to tell you what your place in this movement is and i think something important to remember when we're thinking about climate change and what we're going to do about it and how we're going to pursue this better future is that half the time people like me we have no idea what we are doing like at all um and we're just trying things here and there um just to try to set off sparks see if they'll catch and we don't know what's going to catch because in this movement for a better future if we knew it was going to work we would have done it already by now right we would have already solved this climate crisis we would already have a secure future and we would know that the future was going to be okay um so i think a good example of this um this last summer i biked 1300 miles through vermont new hampshire to try to build resistance to a tar sands pipeline um fun side note that's how i learned that vermont and new hampshire have mountains when i biked through them so that was fun i was like future let's go all right i got this um if only my track practices were like that where the future was at stake i'd run so much faster but they're not that's okay um but yeah basically the point of that of us biking through vermont new hampshire was to go from community community on our bikes and just engage in conversations with folks about climate change and try to get their support for opposition of this pipeline and you know some things work some things didn't um and i really had no idea what was going on half the time and the half that i did i was either biking or i was awkwardly sitting at a farmer's market like this you know we had no materials we had nothing we were just setting things up in signs and saying hey talk to us about the future and it works it really does there's so many things that we can do so like i said the point is not the point of this is to say that there's nothing that you're supposed to do to have a better future that's something that i can't decide for you and it's something that's going to come from within and that you're going to decide for yourself because you have a place in this movement every single one of you and so does everyone else and you know last week last week i was at a sands rally up in saint paul and we went to a hearing to testify in front of the public utilities commission and we were asking them to stop the expansion of the alberta clipper tar sands pipeline for those of you who might know it uh and a little girl she she i couldn't tell old she was but she approached the bench um and she said you know hi my name's laura and oh she was 11. she said i'm 11 years old and i don't want the pipeline because i want to save the ducks and everyone just kind of like laughed and they loved it you know of course and the judge was like okay so tell me more laura and she she proceeded to say you know how the ducks would be harmed if there was an oil pipeline underneath the lake and their their feathers would disperse and it would be itchy and it might get into there she said it might hurt their insides it was really cute um and she continued to say you know i don't want my kids in the future to not have ducks because of this and she then told that she had a feather with her and she said i would like to demonstrate how the oil affects the duck feather and he was like okay you can do it from there and suddenly her voice wasn't this timid little girl it was like no i prefer if you would do it and i was like whoa okay so here's this little girl who cares about these ducks who was you know challenging this judge to look at how this oil was going to affect this bird's feather and she walked up to that bent and she gave him whatever solution they had and then the duck feather and he did it he did it and it was awesome and you know like laura everyone here has a place in this movement and you have a reason to care and so you just need to find your ducks right so you know every generation has its own challenges and so far every generation has overcome them well this is our challenge and now is the time to face it and to take action we can do democracy now and create this better future that we want so knowing what we know you're left with a choice a continue business as usual or b take meaningful action towards a better future thank you