Finding My Footing: A CW Climate Activist’s Story (Part 2)
by Anthony Lanzillo After being in Duluth for just over a year, I was invited to speak to a room…
by Anthony Lanzillo
After being in Duluth for just over a year, I was invited to speak to a room full of students at the University of Minnesota at Duluth. On a Tuesday afternoon, I shared the story of my decision to move to Duluth with about 60 students. At the age of 62, I was giving intentional community a shot for the first time in my life.
As I was getting ready to wrap it up, I looked out at all the young faces around the room and thought about how much the world had changed since I was in college. In particular, I reflected on all the changes to our environment and the animal kingdom which included the significant losses to the frog and turtle populations. I was not the only American seeing fewer bees, butterflies and birds in the sky. I stopped talking for about ten seconds to collect my thoughts.
The next thing that came out of my mouth was – “The world that I grew up in is much different than yours.” Then I talked about all the different species that have begun to disappear around the planet, the need to pay more attention to our environment, and the challenges that we are facing from climate change. Before I walked away from the podium, I proposed that the students sponsor an environmental summit for the city of Duluth in the spring of 2019.
I was getting ready to head out the door to catch a bus back to the Dorothy Day House on Jefferson Street. But, before I had finished saying my goodbyes, a group of students approached me and asked if I would help them organize that summit. I was surprised–and gratified—that my comments had connected with these young people.
That evening, I pondered what had compelled me to speak up about climate change. Everything I was reading and hearing about different climate catastrophes in the U.S. and around the world had begun to cause me concern. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I was so worried about the future of my sons, these college students, and the world.
The next day, the local paper, the Duluth News Tribune published my first column: “Combat climate change by making the problem personal.”
In my article, I talked about a recent report by 13 federal agencies that proclaimed that climate change would have a dramatic and destructive impact on the environment and everyone’s health. I highlighted numerous government and scientific studies and reports from the past six months that discussed how carbon dioxide and carbon emissions were critical elements in climate change and a direct contributor to the rise in global temperatures. I drew on the readings that had shaped my own ideas: Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Other Essays by Paul Kingsnorth and The Myth of Human Supremacy by Derrick Jensen. And, finally, I shared how I had decided to make this global issue personal. I committed to reducing my personal carbon footprint through small actions in my daily life. My first commitment was to no longer own or drive a car. I started walking and using public transportation. I was exploring how to lead a more sustainable life and decided to live smaller, slower, and simpler.
As soon as the college students returned to campus for their spring semester of 2018, we began working on the environmental summit. Serving as their adviser, we collectively put together a list of guest speakers along with a series of workshops and educational displays. And in late March, we hosted the “Our Planet, Our Future” summit in downtown Duluth for over 350 participants.
While working on the event, I started thinking about undertaking a long walk in April. And then one day, while speaking to a group of high school students at the Harbor International School, one of the students raised his hand, called me “Forrest Gump” and asked if I planned to go on a long walk. At that moment, I took the bait and decided to take that walk. After looking at a map of the U.S., I decided to take the bus to Philadelphia and walk to Washington DC.
It was the first week in April when I stepped on the Jefferson and Greyhound buses and headed to Philadelphia—the City of Brotherly Love. While I had contemplated using this walk to draw in the media or use it as a fundraiser, I decided to just walk. Without fanfare.
This walk would give me some time to think about what I wanted to do to address climate change, and if anyone asked why I was traveling on my own two feet for 140 miles, I would ask them if they had any concerns about the environment or climate change. And whether it was talking to a hairdresser, waitress, construction workers, a motorcycle gang or hotel clerk, everyone had a story to share.
The biggest observation that I took away from that walk was that we were becoming more disconnected than ever from each other and the natural world. During that seven-day walk through the back roads and small towns of Pennsylvania and Maryland, I would watch people drive by in their cars but only saw a few people outside taking walks or riding bikes. And everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere.
Upon returning home to Duluth, it became very clear to me that besides living in the Loaves and Fishes community, and working with the poor and homeless, I would dedicate as much time as possible to writing about climate change and finding opportunities to support various global climate initiatives.
