Free lecture: Climate-Justice Activist & Author, Wen Stephenson

This weekend we will see acts of civil disobedience enacted on a large scale around the globe, as a message to the fossil fuel industry to #keep it in the ground. The climate movement is morphing from a version of old-school environmentalism to become the great social justice struggle of our times. From Paris to Exeter, NH, laws, regulations, ordinances, or mandates are being suggested and enacted to lower carbon-footprint, and create resilience in the face of destabilzed weather. Slowly, oh so slowly, Big Oil is beginning to invest in and add alternative-energies to their mix.

This change is coming about, in part, as a result of a handful of courageous people who stood up for nature, and went to jail; a mid-Western student who falsely bid on millions of dollars in oil leases, two New England men who put their lobster boat in front a coal ship, Seattle kayak-tivists who blockaded an Artic oil tanker, intellects who peacefully sat on the steps of the White House and other places. We have all heard of the Keystone pipeline battle, but as you can see there is so much more.

This weekend will see average folks from all around New England gather in Albany, NY to stop a railroad who vents methane gas into a poverty-stricken neighborhood. Some of these folks are trained to commit civil disobedience, and are ready to go to jail on behalf of the dignity of those people, the earth, and future generations of boys and girls. Many, many people are going to events all around the globe this weekend. You are invited too, but if you can't make, we have something here in Exeter for you: a free lecture which gives an overview of the Climate-Justice topic.

One of the most important voices in the climate justice movement today, Wen Stephenson, will come to Exeter's WE THE PEOPLE LECTURE SERIES and speak about his new book, What We’re fighting for Now is Each Other: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Climate Justice. It tells the stories of what Stephenson calls the “new American radicals,” the courageous people who are spearheading the climate justice movement. He argues that the effort is less like environmentalism as we know it and more like the great human-rights and social-justice struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from abolitionism to civil rights. Mr. Stephenson has himself walked away from his career in mainstream media to join this transformative movement.

Mr. Stephenson writes for The Nation and is a former editor at The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, and PBS’s Frontline. He has written about climate, culture and politics for The Boston Phoenix, Grist, Slate, The New York Times and the Globe. In 2012 he helped launch the grassroots climate-action network “350 Massachusetts.” Books will be available for purchase and signing following the lecture.

The We the People Lectures series, in it's 11th year, is partnering with Exeter NH Transition Town to bring this event to you. A poster is attached for you to share with your friends. This is the final event for this season. The lecture series will begin again next Sept with a two-part series on Cuba. Please sign up for our mailing list at GreenXNH @yahoo.com