Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

Sometimes a Little Disruption is Necessary

How do you make a farmer laugh?

Ask if they’ve seen the impact of climate change.

It’s not a joke, and every farmer knows the impact. On our place, a freak wind shear in June took the plastic off our greenhouse, and because the ground was super-saturated with rain, some of the supports went wonky, and we ended up re-building the entire structure. We spent money on plastic, wood and “wiggle wires” to put it back together. But, guess what, every time we get a crew together to finish the job, the skies open and dump more rain.

So, this year, the greenhouse has been unusable.

On the good side, around here, pastures have been plentiful and our neighbors with big hay equipment had good yields. If they can hold on to some big bales, they’ll be able to sell in a year when drought hammers the rest of the midwest … as long as the cattle industry, hay’s main purchasers, can hang on.

So, yes, we’ve noticed the climate and it’s not funny. But as adults, we’re too concerned with economics to do what needs to be done. This is a case where the kids, unencumbered by financial concerns but obsessed with preparing for their futures, are leading the way. Enter Greta Thunberg, a small Swedish teenager putting moral principles first.

“Don’t listen to me. Listen to the scientists,” says Greta. She had sailed halfway around the world, from her homeland to New York, after determining that air travel used too much fossil fuels. There, she addressed the UN Climate Action Summit, shaming unresponsive leaders with three words: “How dare you?”

Since late in the 2018-2019 school year, elementary and high school students in at least 189 countries have marched out of their classrooms on Fridays at noon to demonstrate their solidarity on climate change. Greta herself led the march in New York on Sept. 20.

Besides marching away from their schools, the kids realize that it takes personal change to put power into their statements. While their signs read things like, “I’m with Greta” or “There is No Planet B,” they make food choices that stress vegetarianism or veganism and they ask schools to put climate study into the curriculum. In Berkeley, Calif., kids made posters and joined in their own march at noon on Sept. 20.

The day fell on day two of the Farm Aid conference, held this year in Lake Geneva, Wis. Farm Aid is known for its concert, of course, and less well-known is the conference of farmers and activists, this year focusing on the dairy crisis that’s taking three farmers per day out of business. While most of the conference goers were touring farms where owners are doing their best to bring back depleted land through regenerative agriculture, a small but mighty band of grownups marched off to support Greta (and, of course, our children and grandchildren).

Searching the web, we had looked for marches in nearby Wisconsin cities, but those that were listed were a couple of hours away. It seemed travesty to drive 100 miles to join a march when the main culprit in the climate crisis is our unbridled use of fossil fuels. So we made our posters and marched off to Lake Geneva’s Badger High School, expecting to meet up with a bunch of courageous kids and faculty. It seemed unthinkable, with all the publicity, that there wouldn’t be a demonstration. Many school systems, including New York City’s, had issued statements excusing absences.

Well, long story short, we opted to walk from our lakeside conference center to the school and I, the inveterate gawker, examining what we passed, restaurants, homes, yards, gardens and weeds in the gutter, fell behind. By the time I caught up, it was obvious. Even though our sources (including the Lake Geneva mayor) categorized the school as progressive, none of the kids were outside. Maybe, in Lake Geneva, climate isn’t a problem, even though the town has seen more than its share of rain this year, and the spillways at the storied lake were running rampantly in a mad desperate dash to keeping the lake at a manageable level. The principal, who saw our mighty band, came out to investigate and explained that Badger students need to learn to “engage without being disruptive.”

She was a perfectly lovely woman. If I were a Badger parent, I’d trust her to engage with all the problems of high school life, from bullying to binge drinking to pregnancy. Looking back, thinking of the climate of fear around schools today and the ordinary caution that every school official must have, I see she might have called the police rather than coming out herself.

Still, that statement, “engage without being disruptive,” misses the point, but it agrees with America’s cluelessness about the climate issue. How dare we?

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2019

Populist.com