There's a list of people who are supporting this. I'm going to hand over the book. What do I want to say? I guess I do want to say something. Another different kind of program that I have been involved in a lot is we're showing this film in a call that they all made. It's called Dancing with the Cannibal Giant, New Stories for the Great Transition. And it's really when we think of the title of this series, which is the Soyna series, Grass Roots for the Climate Emergency, the work I'm doing in another set of programs that actually just showed last night in Chelsea, brought it to the, in Chelsea they just opened up a new community arts center and presented there. And the film really gets, the goal of the film and the program that follows is to really get at the connection or to explore the connection both as individual and collectively, whoever's in the room at that time, about the crisis that you really think of. People can hear too well, Chris. It's not you. No, no, I know, but the problem is that I'm terrible at the mic. What's the problem? I'm like, I can go on the mic. Ah, okay. This is the second time you've thrown me a curve on my mic. You know, I always think that the last time I was here and I was in the middle of saying something, that's it, get the mic. And I got the mic, but of course the little, you know, when the computer does the little spinning circle. It's sort of like, okay, where was, it's going to come up some point. Anyway, all I really want to say is, if anybody is really interested, I am promoting this in kitchens, round kitchen tables in community spaces and libraries. Eight people, eight to twenty is what I say is ideal because then we can sit in a circle and we can share for 45 minutes. And we talk about both our pain for the world and what we see and feel happening, but also we talk about how do we get over that for some people, you know, we call it a hump, our, you know, our challenge individually and collectively to actually vastly shift the way we live and relate to the world.  So it's, that's a long introduction, isn't it? You got the mic. Now I have the mic. So anyway, I want to thank you all for coming. I'm grateful we've gotten to program number six. It's supposedly the end of the series, but I'm going to hand it over to Kat for everything from here on. Thanks, Chris. So, yes, this was going to be the end of the series, but we've decided we can't stop. So we're going to May 8th. Mark the calendars on May 8th. We're going to do this again. No speakers. We'll be here for three hours and the goal is to plug people in and have more time for the discussion and small and large groups for everything that we've been learning about over the past six, five events and then this one being the six. So, I'm Kat Fuchs. Potluck. Oh, yes, May 8th is going to be a potluck. Black Creme will not be looking for us. No lovely spread. And having said that, Black Creme has prepared all of the food for us this evening. And please help yourself. Black Creme Cabern is located right up the street here in Randolph. So check them out. It's a really sweet little place. They do really good work all the time, not just for us. So, a few things before we get to our program. We do send out very detailed notes for every single event. Lauren here is taking notes and she's been taking them. If you would like to see those notes also include links to the slides. They also include notes that I take on the wall, links to organizations and events that have been mentioned. We really keep track of everything. If you want those, please make sure that I get your email address on the yellow piece of paper and please have mercy on me and write neatly so that I don't have to try and figure out what you wrote. So tonight we are going to draw the raffle. So if you haven't got a raffle ticket you should have gotten one when you came in the door just for being here. You get one if you want to buy any more of them. They're $5 a piece. Tonight after the program and before the discussion we are going to call the raffle for the winner of seven books by four authors. All women. Three from Vermont. One from New Hampshire. Two are here this evening. Jan Lambert. And Judith Schwartz. And Grace. Three are here this evening. So the only author who's not here this evening is Dee Dee Purse House. The rest of our authors are here in the house and have books for sale. Judith also just caught off the presses today is the paper-backed copy of Water in Plain Sight. So this is a big deal. She brought lots of books, so please buy them. And Jan has lots of books to buy those. And even if Grace didn't bring her books with you you could still buy those and I encourage you to do that. So we also are accepting further donations for our work. It costs a lot of money to put these events on. I've put in, I don't know, 10 million hours. And I love it. It's really fun. But if you want to give us some money we really appreciate that because it helps us to continue this work and eat. And we have a survey. So please, please, please take the survey. It's a paper copy on the table. Those surveys help us to get more money from the funders that you saw on the screen behind me. These are some of the organizations that have also written a whole bunch of grants. And so those grantors want to see that you're enjoying yourselves or not. They just want to know what you think. So please fill that out. So tonight we have a packed program We have four speakers that have about seven minutes each to give you a whole lot of information. So again, I encourage you to sign up for the notes if you want to get links to all of the things they're talking about. And then we're going to get into a circle and talk. And that's how we run these events and they've been running really well. So I hope you enjoy that too. Our speakers tonight are Judith Schwartz, Henry Soazy, Jan Lambert, and Carl Tiedemann. Carl is from Soil for Climate and they're each going to talk a little bit. I hope you're going to talk a little bit about... Okay, good. So who am I? Good. They're going to talk a little bit. And so I'm going to pass it right over to Judith to get us started. And yeah. Thank you. So up to now, this series has a lot of angles on soil. Including, apparently, soil as a metaphor for community, a really good metaphor actually. And here we're going to focus on water as soil and water are intrinsically connected. Another thing is that, whether overtly or indirectly, this whole series is also about climate and the topic of water is really relevant here because water and climate are also connected. And what inspired me to focus on water for as long as I did, is that I noticed that whenever water and climate are discussed together, the conversation only goes one way. Meaning that it's calling attention, people are calling attention to the impact that climate change will have on water sources throughout the world. But what's equally important is the effect that the water cycle has on climate. I know that other speakers are going to talk about this, but I just wanted to put that out there. So water challenges are really becoming kind of prevalent and prominent and in our face, our faces, a lot. And it's not always that land is connected with the water situation. But we can't really talk about water but we're also talking about land and land management, which means how we treat the soil. To a large extent, how we're able to meet these challenges, whether an epic flood means million in disaster relief or whether a river stays in its banks, turns on how we manage our soil. And why is that? Because as this series has emphasized, living carbon-rich soil is a sponge. And I don't know if you've heard the statistic yet, but every 1% increase in soil organic carbon represents an additional 20,000 gallons of water per acre that can be held on the land. And that is a huge, huge amount in terms of resilience to floods because all that water can be held but also allows you to last just that much longer between irrigations and withstand droughts. When people think of water infrastructure, this is generally what they mean. This is a lovely little bit of work here. This is the LA River. It's a 51-mile concrete corridor that channels rainwater out of the city and dumps it, pollutants and all, into the ocean. My colleague Brock Dahlman calls this the pipe shed, as opposed to a water shed. I think it's an effective way of coming attention to the disconnection between water and the land. So let's rethink water infrastructure. Maybe we can think of soil as our water infrastructure. This can work on many levels. First, there's the surface of the ground. If soil lacks plant cover, whenever it rains, it seals over and water streams away, carrying away precious topsoil along with whatever pollutants are in its path. With bare ground, falling rain drops batter the soil. I know that we think of rain as mild and nourishing, but seen under the microscope, rain striking bare earth is a kind of violence. Particles flying upwards like shards of glass, leaving empty craters. Soil covered by plants or mulch is sheltered. On a zoom lens level, we can see water infrastructure in the soil aggregate, where, as we've learned so much happens, well aggregated soil has core spaces for water to linger and filter through, replenishing underground water stores. What we now see as water problems, perhaps we can understand them as a failure to keep water in the ground problems. And here in Vermont, as in everywhere, we can address this by tending soil, making sure it doesn't degrade to lifeless dirt. When people talk about water, it tends to be water as a noun, as something bounded by place, something that you have or I have and maybe we fight over. I like to think of water as a verb, and I believe this is a crucial understanding of climate as water processes, meaning the movement of water across the landscape and also through the atmosphere, is a tremendous conveyor of heat. I mean, if we pause to ask the question, how does the earth manage heat? We would find the answer in water-based processes, but this tends not to come up in discussions of climate. Other speakers will be offering insights on the kinds of dynamics and nature that move and modulate water, but I want to hover for a moment on one water process that connects the soil and the sky and has a huge impact on climate regulation, and that is transpiration, the upper movement of water through plants. This is a huge force in nature. I interviewed Brazilian ecologist Antonio Nobre, and he wrote this amazing document. It really is stunning. Not only does it specify what is going on in the Amazon region, but also talks about water, forest, forest, climate dynamics. He points out that the collective transpiration in the Amazon rainforest creates a vertical river that contains five times the amount of moisture of the Amazon river itself. What's important to keep in mind is that this is a cooling mechanism, transforming solar heat into latent heat, suspended in vapor, as opposed to sensible heat, you can feel like a hot sidewalk. Healthy soil supports plants and robust plants help build soil, all of which supports climate regulation. In fact, in my reporting on soil and water, one thing has struck me, and that is the extent to which plants are running the show. I didn't expect to come to that notion, but that's kind of where it's led. There's a Spanish meteorologist, climatologist, fascinating guy that I spend time with on a reporting trip, and the way he puts it is, vegetation is the mid-wipe of precipitation. And, hey, I've got another for you. I'll leave you with a quote from Australian farmer author Peter Andrews, which says so much in just a few words. In fact, I realize it's basically a haiku. All right, here it is. Plants manage water, and in managing water, they are managing heat. Way back, about a zillion years ago, when I wrote Cow Saved the Planet, my book on soil, I came up with a bumper sticker version of what we need to do to address climate change, and that was oxidize less, photosynthesize more. And over the past several years, I and many others have been filling in that picture a lot, and including a lot more nuances. But essentially that kind of sums it up, and water, as well as enhancing the relationship between water and soil, is a really big part of that. And so, we will move on to Henry. Wow. Am I on this mic? Yes, I can hear myself. So I'm Henry Swayze, and a member of the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition. Just curiosity, how many members here? So how many are you members because you started coming to the series? How many new members? Why not? All right, well, we're glad we got you. I'm going to talk about cooling the planet. We were already gotten set up for that very nicely. And we all asked ourselves this question, what do we need to fix climate change? And at least most of us, I imagine. It's pretty daunting. I now believe that we actually have to focus on cooling while we're doing everything else. That without the cooling component, we won't win the battle. And this gentleman, Walter Yenna, Australian plant and soil scientist, he really transformed my thinking from thinking that we had to sequester carbon in order to fix climate change to thinking that we have to actually jump in and cool the planet now. So I have really bad news and really good news. We'll do the bad news first. So the World Health Organization estimates that 220,000 people will die each year as a result of global warming. That's in the 20, 30, maybe 20, 50 time zone. That's equal to 18.8 Vegas-like Vegas shooters.  That's what that sort of number translates into. And the international panel on climate change says we only have about 10 to 15 years timeframe to actually start to cool the planet. We actually have to flatten that temperature curve down. So we all have thought that turning a fossil fuel off was the answer. And I certainly was on board with that for a number of years. And I still am, but it's not the answer I don't think. So the question is, you know what would happen if we could grab hold of the big switch and at midnight tonight just shut off all fossil fuel? What would happen to our temperature? It'd keep heating up. And it would go up for as much as another 100 years. We've already stored a lot of CO2 in the environment. And it needs to get pulled out before you actually get a downward trend. Times limited as that temperature rises we start getting positive feedback loops. You people probably all have heard about these horror stories. And those positive feedback loops will give us runaway warming and we won't recognize theorists. This is temperature, what's been happening. And this I think finished in 17. But this curve is not only going up, red lines the average, not only going up for the temperature, but it's actually getting steeper going up. So right now we're not doing it. So okay, I've done that one. We sequester carbon. When do we start getting cooling? And it takes, if we were to sequester carbon really fast we might barely get done for 20 years so I start getting cooling out of that sequester. We'd certainly make it so the temperature didn't rise as fast. Now some very good news. So now we'll look at the power of natural systems. And so the first component here is to realize that when the sun shines on bare surfaces whether that's a cloud field an asphalt driveway, a roof, that surface gets hot. And that heat's radiated out at ground level. And that ground level radiation has to go somewhere and it goes up and tries to get back to space. So that's sunlight in and energy and radiant heat, infrared heat trying to find its way back out. It has a hard time doing that because we have microhases and we've got humidity in the air and there's a lot of feet of climate or of air between the ground and space. But space is cold and it's ready to absorb that, if we send it there. So that bare, if you look at it from a field point of view that bare field is likely to be 40 to 50 degrees warmer than the ground under a tree or under a plant. An enormous difference. And part of that is, as Jonas said, it's because we're getting evaporation from the tree or from the plant. We are capturing that heat and sending it up. And if we were to do that cover every all the bare surfaces with actively growing plants, not all dead ones, but actively growing plants longer the grazing season or longer the growth season, the better. We actually could cool the plant faster than greenhouse gases or currently warming it. So that alone would offset all the warming that's currently going on and it would draw down carbon as well. Now, for some more good news, we do the water cycle since this is a water evening. And that water cycle is driven by that solar heat coming in, getting evaporation at ground level, getting evaporation from plants and being sent up to clouds. So there is the answer to the question I was going to ask you. Which is how much heat do you think greenhouse gases are actually trapping in a dozen escape? And for those of you who are paying any attention, that number is 4%. And then we'll go on to if we're looking at that water cycle, how much heat is being moved around by that water cycle, that evaporation and raindrop formation cycle. Anyone want to take a guess at that one before I show it to you? Oh, 60% higher? 95%. That's very good. So 94%. And so why are we spending so much time thinking about the greenhouse gas piece of this and not paying attention to that water cycle and what it can drive? Yeah. So let's just look at what happens there. As Jan said, one minute. We get evaporation at ground level, goes up to clouds, and it gets formed into a raindrop that heat is released. It's closer to space, so more heat escapes than if it just the heat had stayed at ground level. So it's a pump to throw heat back into space. Raindrops to do that and those raindrops require a hydroscopic nuclei, something for the raindrop to form around, and those hydroscopic nuclei in part are coming from bacteria that live on the surface of plants. We get plants growing, we will get more raindrop formation as well as the cooling that comes from the shading and from transporting heat from the ground up to clouds. With that, we will roll it on to Jan to let her tell you some more about this. So before I started on my slides, I just want to point out I have a table full of stuff here and I'm hoping to give away a lot of it tonight as well as hopefully sell a few books. But the main thing is to get the information out there. And I'm an editor and a writer, so I also started an online library, a new organization called Voices of Water and Climate. So information is my thing. And I've got plenty of it to offer and I'm just barely getting a chance to just do it now. So please take a look at the stuff on the table later. So what Henry said about the water cycle is very important and there's even more great things about restoring water cycles. This is something I've been studying intensely for the last few years. Water cycles act directly on the climate as well. By restoring the water cycle you can restore climate and this book was written by Michael Kravchik in Slovakia called Water for the Recovery of the Climate and New Water Paradigm. You can download it for free from our website. It's all about what he calls the New Water Paradigm which also is located in a new publication called The Valley Water Journal which we just started last month and on the second page there's a chart describing what the New Water Paradigm is all about and it just starts out by saying the water on land, the old water paradigm, water on land does not influence global warming. The New Water Paradigm is an important factor in global warming, maybe changing the water cycle caused by drying and subsequent warming of continents through human activity. It's very important. I just wanted to let you know there's a lot of serious research being done, particularly in Europe. I have a scholarly paper called the Indirect and Direct Thermodynamic Effects of Wetlands Ecosystems on Climate. It's all about the extreme importance of evapotranspiration which is a combination of evaporation from plants and then evaporation from the land itself or water bodies. The statement of this is we argue that persisting with the dogma of climate change caused by the greenhouse effect alone results in society ignoring the most important functions of natural vegetation manifest through their direct effect on climate and water cycling. This is a very scientific study here and it gets into depending on how technically you want to get into it because it's a lot of really good reading. I'm going to lighten things up a little bit by just getting into based on the vast importance of wetlands how many of you realize how important beavers are to wetlands? Great. Wetlands they've been proven that they perform so many functions I'm sure you realize that they hold water in they help prevent flooding they help prevent drought two sizes in coin they also help the water cycle and the water cycle can be seen as a direct effect beneficial effect on climate. Water cycles are climate. Climate is just an average of weather which in weather is caused by water cycles and it's already been mentioned about the heat effect on the land when you don't have water and you have fair land well the same thing can be said by draining water off the land rapidly we're sending it straight into the rivers all that LA river which is draining it directly to the sea so all that water nature intended to be soaked into the land and being transpired to plants which in turns causes more clouds which in turn causes more rain now it's not that well known that much of regional climate is actually land based in other words something like 10% of the atmospheric water just keeps getting around and around from the land and so what happens when you keep draining the water off of the land and putting it directly in the streams it runs down to the ocean without getting a chance to be part of the water cycle and that's on top of the fact that Judy mentioned it exacerbates drought and flooding it's just, it's really easy to address that but the fact is the way that humans are managing our water we're just wasting it we're treating it as a waste product particularly in urban areas in the long transportation corridors so wetlands are just so important and I've become very interested in beavers so I'm going to how many moments to have oh jeez so we've already talked about water cycles and I want to emphasize what we call a small water cycle which is the same as a land based water cycle which really doesn't get much attention at all and evapotranspiration it's just, it's in high gear in wetlands it's important everywhere, it's important on forests but wetlands are just obviously this incredible source of evapotranspiration and you can see the mist rising in wetlands that's that's the water cycle that's the small water cycle in action and these wetlands here we're creating and maintained by beavers so beavers are incredibly useful animals they sometimes people don't like them because they cut down their trees but they do so much more good than harm the thing that I wanted, I don't have very long to get into this but they this is a wetland that is created by beavers in my property and of course they course a lot of other wildlife as well they create wildlife habitat for many many other species I mean it's just, they are just, they are the center really of life this is a woman near Brattleboro named Patty Smith who introduced me to some beaver friends of her she's made friends with beavers she's a beaver whisperer and I got to visit her one evening and I'm here in Georgia to get her an appetite and she's been she's a director of the Bonneville Environmental Center down here in Brattleboro and she's been studying these beavers for 10 years one of them is getting quite elderly so anyway she came up and I just went from zero to 60 that night on my knowledge of beavers I had heard that they make these piles called scent mounds with their castor glands to mark the territory well, George came up and he came up and he was two feet away from me George is the beaver? Yeah I don't know George and Willow is his wife George came up and he was a few feet away from me and he was there in the water and he started pushing this dirt at me out of the water and he just got it up on the land and he patted it out and he turned around and I said well I guess George just built me a scent mound and he said oh you've got to get down there and smell it and it smells like woodsman's burdo woodsman's burdo so anyway that was just really a turning point for me meeting a beaker personally and just seeing there's the two of them together actually Willow lost one eye she's the one on the right with a piece of apple Patty is a wildlife rehabilitator and she was able to treat Willow's eye infections she was able to save one of her eyes she's got such a rapport with these beavers she was able to actually put one in their eyes so the other thing I've got to get into is about Skip Lyle most people are a favor of beavers but there's a lot of beavers being killed in Vermont and your town has probably got a road suit and it's rid of all the beavers they can because they're so afraid they're going to flood the roads but that's almost entirely unnecessary because Skip Lyle Skip Lyle of Iraq and Vermont is world renowned for inventing the beaver deceiver and he's showing his property that you can live in harmony with beavers and here he's cured a flooded road and he makes it so the beavers and human skin live together he just did a project down in Marlboro, Vermont I just particularly wanted to point out he did it this spring where he actually improved things he made everybody happy because they had drained this fire pond because it was flooding the road but then they lost their fire pond because the beavers weren't there so he keeps the pond going so Skip brought the he came in and he built one of his beaver deceivers and all kinds of stuff about it if you want to talk about it and so he brought in his beaver deceiver and not only that but he built a platform out on the pond he's got it so calibrated that the pond is going to rise to a certain level and no more so now the fire department can come and they can bring the fire truck there and just nicely construct a wooden deck and get the water they need so everybody's happy it's very harmonious I want to offer a harmonious solution what was his name again? Skip Wilde he's got brochures up here accurate we can talk all about it but I guess it's time for Carl to talk about holistic grazing is that what you're talking about? oh good thank you oh yeah Carl you're not using he's not using slides you got the slides okay hello everybody my name's Carl and I'm co-founder Zora for climate we're a 501C3 non-profit based in Vermont I highly encourage you to join the Vermont Healthy, Slow, Pollution and as well if you use Facebook I encourage you to join Solar for Climate we have nearly 11,000 members from more than 100 countries around the world it's a great resource we're keeping current with the latest science videos articles and so forth all of us have taken a journey to be here tonight and that journey has involved learning that responding to climate change is more than about just cutting greenhouse gases there's so much more that we need to do in the ways that we manage water one of the important ways that's come out during the series is holistic plan grazing cows have been getting a terrible rap but thanks to the disruptive biological innovation of Alan Savry, a wildlife biologist we've learned now how to manage animals even in some of the most challenging climates around the world in a way that is beneficial by emulating the impact that the wild herds have had with pollution with grasslands over approximately the past 40 million years in their exquisitely tuned grazing patterns that led to the nourishment of the prairies for so long with all of my other co-speakers tonight having presented the slides and a lot of technical information I would like to continue the journey through a poetic process of written climate and environmental poems throughout my life and at each stage they represented what I was thinking and feeling at that time so the first two that I'll share date back to my pre-soil days not really knowing what the future looked like could any hope be found and so forth the first one dates to 1990 I just read Bill McKibbin's book The End of Nature which came out the previous year and it was just before the Montreal Protocol was signed those of you who don't remember that was there were fluorocarbons going into the atmosphere to protect the ozone layer the poem is called Lament of the Green the skin on my back should be brown but it's red this summer's tan is a burn instead as UV levels climb to the roof industry heads remain aloof less ozone fills the southern hemisphere but what is that thrust of fear traditionally the south gets trashed by the rain and a big wad of cash it's downright American to lend a helping hand while wreaking eco-havoc upon a foreign land but foreign is passe we're all next door our third world sins now pound against our shore imperial flags are yet unfurled red the blood of species no longer of this world white the fear of having tipped nature scaled too far blue once the color of oceans now covered with oil and tar how far will things degenerate before we stop and see there is a way to live with nature and peaceful harmony to use the fruits of our knowledge and might to nourish and sustain not for fear and blight continuing along my hopeless phase my next poem written in 2006 it's called Apocalypse Apocalypse almost now for the midnight ride of the Valkyries listen my earth mates and you shall know how carbon emissions rapidly grow pipelines by land tankers by sea we on the rising shorelines shall be from the beach the view is clear CO2s up new climbs are here glaciers melt oceans rise water pH coral reef dies studies agree forecast our dire cast out of Eden into the fire now I began learning about soil and my poetry took a turn for the more hopeful and optimistic this one written three years ago it's called climate farming so what's the future is there no hope land can help us cope and grow better food with less flooding too but carbon in soil is what we must do draw down the heat slow the sea rise let birds and bees thrive in the skies good farming is how we deal with this mess now the climate's fixed what's next to address I think we're sushi thank you a little like the national and then I began learning about Walter and his work and after attending his wonderful workshop last year I wrote a poem called moist mycorrhizal fungi bacterial life unseen soil carbon sponge I wonder what that could mean caterpillar butterfly total transformation giving life back to the earth Genesis creation infiltrate, condensate hydrological cycle exudate is draw down rate growth decay recycle compost, fence post grazing plan which side gets more rain stop the drought and the flood that's green this world again on a personal note growing up I was a very much a fan of John Denver whose music helped me connect with my love and passion for nature and for the environment I learned not too long ago that at the time of his death in 1997 John Denver was just beginning to learn about the need for plant grazing on a 1000 acre nature preserve that he had bought where livestock had been excluded and consequently the biodiversity began to plummet so I heard from Hunter Lovens some of you may know as co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute she was good friends with John Denver that she was actually teaching him about this at the time of his passing and I mentioned that because I attended a John Denver tribute concert in December and I've been thinking about writing a poem about grazing and as I began to re-hear a lot of his old songs I recall that the main characters all the songs had a character the songs weren't about grazing or about a fish swimming it was about the dolphin or about the eagle or the hawk or the stallion and so I realized my poem needed hero in that what better hero than the bison so my poem is called oh give me a home bison once the banquished our hero is now again creating better soil capturing more rain grazing nature's banquet fed by shower and sun keeping prairie healthy as billions before have done grasses making syrup exuded by leaky roots transforming carbon in the air into fungi worms and shoots silent climate army lorry yet unsung feeding the earth growing new life with hoof and pee and dump we're heading toward May 8th for us that means that we're going to get together and figure out how we can plug in to all of the amazing things happening already in our communities and what new amazing things we need to get going because there are certainly a lot of them we're not doing it all, we're not doing nearly enough but we're doing a lot and we can do more so I want to hear from all of you what are you thinking about do you have a question that's been burning but we are going to write that question down and we've been tracking the questions and comments from these sessions and those are what is shaping how we are going to work on May 8th together so what you say is actually incredibly important not only to all the ears in this room but into shaping the future of our work so we're going to pass it around please also say who you are and where you're from Henry Swayzee, Tumbridge and my question is how do we make the most change the fastest Chris Wood I want to add one thing if you're thinking you want to come on the 8th can you indicate that as can you indicate that as well and I don't want to add any time Hi Cochran, I'm from West Hartford on a small farm and I will be coming May 8th, I'm looking forward to May 8th I have about 32 years experience at a place called the Upper Valley Food Co-op which not only tries to provide really good food for people but also has a big education program and that's actually one of the reasons that I've been there for so long is this education program it's in a point of kind of trying to figure out what it's going to be doing right now and I have been pushing really strongly for it to be a center for some information and discussion on this very topic that we've been talking about for the last six sessions and I don't know where that's going to go but I'm really hoping that we're going to put something together so people can actually see things up in our big library room but also something online so we'll see where it goes Hi, I'm Laura Living Jericho right now and I think for me what keeps coming up is just how interconnected all these things are and how interconnected climate change is with the way humans, Americans in particular live their lives and how it's just fundamentally broken Hi, I'm Beth and the first thing I have to say is hooray for Henry because every point of answer now okay I'm saying hooray for Henry, thank you Grace every time he's been using his little slogan about cooling I thought, yeah huh? but tonight now I see he's actually talking about something that I couldn't understand I'm going to let him talk so my big questions are how do we connect with people who actually have land that they're taking care of that might want to do some of these things that we're talking about and my perennial question how do we get schools and teachers and school boards on board to let people like my grandkids learn enough to have the chance to get out in the summer work for the benefit of the land and get the right to defend themselves my name's Jessica Wright and I live up the road in Braintree here and this is actually the first of the series that I've been able to come to and I don't have a question that I don't have too many questions but what strikes me is much I have to learn and I really appreciate being able to come here and clearly there's a lot of work that's being done and it needs to be done too and I appreciate what people are doing Hi, my name is Nancy I live down that side of Bellas Falls and I've been to all of these except for one and I've been out working with my land the last couple of weeks and I now have two little cat buxtons on my shoulder I have my circle hoe in one hand and my rake and my digger in the other and cat's yelling roots in the ground on one shoulder and no soil left uncovered on the other shoulder I'm looking forward to May 8th because I need some help David Richie I am so impressed with those four, seven minute I don't know what to call them but each one was so succinct and I have to now try to read about everything that you all were talking about I want to do everything I can and we work at Green Mountain Spinnery to support the Grazers so this is so much good information for me and I also want to try to support the Navarro Nation because I go to the festival once a year and if anyone is really an expert on all of this work in dry land I hope you'll come and talk to me Hi I'm Art Schaler from Northview and I live on a pretty big track of forest land and it's painful to do forest management when there's less green and so my dilemma is what's the time cycle making a more healthy forest landscape which will always contribute to more cooling and so it's that balance that I'm interested in and thanks for the poems I thought they looked bad My name is Karen Dixler I live in East Bethel and I just can't thank you enough for this series because like you I've got her on my back when I'm out starting to dig roots you better leave Thanks Lisa I live in Bethel and this is only my second one of these series that I've come to but I what I've been thinking of is how much wealth of information and experience we have here and I'm looking forward to the next meeting where we can come up with ideas of what we can do collectively but I also have a lot of young people that come to our farm and to learn and I'm not seeing them here like I'm telling them about these meetings and I'm not seeing them come and I want to find out what does it take to put a fire on other parts to get them to it's one thing to have a quick conversation to learn something fast from somebody on the ground but it's another thing to actually invest and to let those deep roots penetrate and slowly absorb stuff and I'm finding that the generation that I'm interacting with a lot wants to just get it all right now or they don't have time and maybe that's just me but that's kind of what I'm sensing and I want to find out how we can grab them and get them involved and give them the patience to find out what they can do My name is Jenny Christensen My name is Jenny Christensen and we have a small open garden business my passion is nurturing the community of the soil and I am 100% yes to everything I hear tonight and it's upbeat and it's encouraging and I've been debating back and forth what I have to say maybe nothing at all and just move away but I microphone? I heard that we should share our questions and just now there are things that I've been pondering and questioning and I thank you for listening it's um I think we need to jump ahead because what I have to share is a dammer but I think we need to keep on keeping on as long as we're able to keep on I live on to the open sky because that's where we do our work the most of the season spring, fall the summer even parts of the winter good thought this is my grandmother taught me to always look at the sky I always look at the sky we are in a place where the sky is big and for the past three years I've been noticing jets leading lines in parallel in diagonal in particular I'm amazed at how many of my friends are oblivious but then they don't live under the sky like I do I don't know how many of you have observed it's less now it was much worse three years ago but I noticed that the sky in the morning to the south east usually has cloud banks not always but as a rule and in the evening there are cloud banks I notice not so much now but over the past three years and many many jets leading clues that then broaden and meld into clouds shapes that I've never noticed before I don't know how many of you are aware of these things but I ponder why I also have noticed something different in the sky as well where I'll see the light of the sun behind these cloud banks and the light will be here and the light will be there okay so the clouds are thinner here they're thicker here and then they're thinner here so I see light here and I see light here but I haven't noticed that in the past and it may be because of the cloud banks and the artificial clouds and I wonder why in the past two summers in the afternoons I notice a quality to the sun that is very dirty I've been out in the open for summers decades I'm in my sixties now so that's why decades and it's unique it's unique and I expect the intensity of the sun will be great this summer as well Saturday morning March 9th I lifted the shade and our kitchen with faces due east and it just so happened that the sun was in its place where there were no trees so that I could see a perfect clear sunrise and it was a uniquely clear morning and I love to watch the sunrise I love to watch the sunset I love to watch the sky and I saw the first sliver of the sun coming up to the left of the window frame as I pulled out the shade and I stood there to watch it because it's sublime it's majestic and it's powerful and then when I was watching it rise ever so slowly there was a second orb that rose to the left of it just a thin little sliver and so then as the sun rose higher I blocked it with the window frame and watched this second orb rise until it became too bright and it was over but I gazed at it and waited over several minutes and I wonder why and I wonder what and I wonder I wonder and I'm just a foolish old woman I suppose and I could just be breathing a lot of nonsense but could it be that all those artificial clouds are to buffer to hide could it be that ancient prophecies of a time of distress coming on the entire world a day coming when no man can work the earth being consumed by fire all of these ancient prophecies could there be a connection so I'm full of pondering and I'm wondering I'm Camby Joe and I know I'm talking about my grandchildren all the time but they are key I think I don't know a lot of like teenage bits and stuff but I spend a lot of time with my grandchildren and taught them to teach them everything I learned and I'm hoping to work with people to learn what I can do and learn more to teach my grandchildren that are coming up through and anybody else like coming contact that's interested in contact with that's interested in how to save ourselves basically so yeah so if anybody has anything that I can help them with I would like to volunteer my time initially to learn what I can do so I want to know more about the barriers between knowledge and systems that are continuing in the way that they have been working for a very long time and what the barriers are between those two things and how they can be broken down in other countries currently in Berlin and my question is where are young people tonight and every night I invited some myself tonight they did return my invitation but I'm asking where are they now each of us has young people we can invite or we can go to if they don't want to come to us maybe that will work I participated in Grange now 60 years the Grangers are not for long they have very good intentions and amazing systems of including young people for over 100 years and I do think that we can do it my name is Nancy Rice from Randolph Center I've only made a couple of these but we hope to see so many people caring about the land and nature and so and working together my name is Mike Baldwin I guess my question is why would you give me the microphone not to make light of it not to make light of it I wake up I'm going to honor the 30 seconds I wake up every day with a new question and the first of all I feel gratitude for waking up every day there's good people here I'm echoing what other people have said what a great group and the generosity is here you can feel it I can tell you young people today they're just looking for role models and there are not nearly the number of role models that there need to be that's where it starts so it's on all of us to seek to continue to provide that I guess my big question is why do we live in the Stone Age why do we continue living in the Stone Age why are we looking for water on Mars we have plenty of water here and it's got issues the Stone Age example I'll give you the Stone Age question I'll give you an example Social Security from the 1930s Farmville from the 1930s we're approaching the 2030s and we're still living in the 1930s I've never enjoyed fiddleheads I've never been a fan of fiddleheads but this came from just down the street a lovely batch of Japanese knotweed that would make a lovely I don't know if Sarah's here from the Black Creme but if she comes in we'll obviously look at her around and applause I know that everyone enjoys fiddleheads and I've been asking for a couple years everyone's so frustrated with Japanese knotweed why don't you just stop racking the fiddlehead ostrich ferns and start eating knotweed and garlic mustard because you know what comes in after the ostrich ferns are gone so that's edible and it's got resveratrol and all kinds of good stuff in it but no we stick with our tradition we need to wake up and move to turn a page I think I should stop there um my point is I heard today I was at the pesticide advisory council meeting today the only member of the public that was there no legislators were there either nor have legislators ever been to the pesticide advisory council meeting but I did ask them I did hear several times knowledge I'm not going to mention the parties everyone's trying to get the word out so sharing knowledge is great my question every day is we're yeah knowledge is great but knowledge is also power and power drives people to do some interesting things so I question knowledge every day and the stuff I heard today was not knowledge it was garbage I'm not going to go into it but um we need to really proof the knowledge every day and further what people have asked what can I do to make it a better place with that JL I live in Worcester so we need to take the show on the road and that's how we will get more young people we need to go to them a lot of young people do not own cars and it's hard for them to get places so take this up to UVM take it down to Bennington college um and take it to the state house um but what's been on my mind I'm a vegetable grower and um I feel a lot of solidarity with subsistence farmers around the world and what drives I guess my motivation is um how much those subsistence farmers are going to suffer because of climate change and um I feel so fortunate living in Vermont and farming in Vermont and um I feel like the knowledge in this room like if this knowledge was if world leaders um have this knowledge that there would be a lot more peace in the world my name is Brent Byler and my wife and I have a farm right here in Randolph we were dairy farming for many years and now we're still grazing we just don't have lactating cows and I have very much lived the um a lot of the principles that we talked about with the benefits of intensive grazing and watch soil building and water holding capacity on our farm in real terms and really hoping to find ways of better being able to communicate that to um really the young people I think is where I'm looking and wanting to have ways of more constructive dialogue because around climate there's such um so many strong opinions but the people that really farm the land that have the have it in their hands have very different approaches but they're not all um not all people are going to be grazing nuts like me but and we want to grow some other things other than um just um livestock so we're going to have to find ways to really have constructive conversations about how different approaches can be had for that and I struggle with that because um most of the farming community um sees that there's a situation that they need help with but um don't necessarily have um clear paths towards it water is really key to this conversation because that's where we can visually see things in our community um water rainfall simulations where you can watch um the water holding capacity in in with our own eyes and so I'm very appreciative of this series this is the first one that I attended but I really appreciate it tonight I want to thank the two people that wrote up with me today from Montpelier the two young people um they might not consider themselves young people but at least 30 years younger than I am so um thank you in addition to working with the tree board in Montpelier which I've been doing for about four years I also have about eight hundredths of an acre of land inside the city of Montpelier and most of it is covered by my house but the part that's not covered by my house is now covered by blueberries and raspberries and asparagus and um hazelnut trees, a cottonwood tree uh floral raspberries uh lingonberries cranberries and I have been fighting the battle every spring with my husband not to rake the leaves away and um my question is how can I work with my neighbors in town to keep the leaves on the ground rather than putting them in a plastic bag and sending them off to the stump dump if you've got the answer to that question you can talk online thank you I'm Charles Williamson I'm from Darlington, South Carolina but I'm working for a Luna Blue up in South Orleans and it's really a great introduction to New England for sure I really wholeheartedly agree with the role models point that was made my role model is you know, Judo Schwartz and uh you just give them for young people that you know that you want to bring to that I don't want to speak for like an entire generation or whatever what helped me was definitely having role models and I think that's very powerful uh folks like Judo folks like Alan Sabry and Peter Donovan who are out there you know with a passion and now we're talking about how it's hard to convince younger folks to to realize a passion and discover these really important issues of water, tension and erosion but I'm also I'm wondering what methods have you all found effective with addressing those issues with older generation farmers who do care about water and do care about the soil quality but do not want to change methods Tony Keller from Braintree uh question is how can local farming and local consumption be accelerated in our communities I'm Robin Russell I'm sorry to arrive late I really wanted to hear Henry speak when I first came to Vermont I bought an old farm up in Sunbridge and Henry was doing rotational grazing and I learned a lot about rotational grazing and the connection of land and culture so I guess my question to the point of you know in the context of a changing climate there's threats against us that we're all facing in the bigger in the bigger picture how do we keep heart how do we transition together how do and what can we learn from the soil from the from nature from the patterns in nature I do a lot of traditional bands and music and I've learned a lot about the patterns from those traditions that mimic the growing of things or the branching or the various patterns yes there's knowledge being lost very rapidly and not being transferred to new people but I guess my question would be through this connection of our hearts and our minds can we is there a way that maybe we do communicate this knowledge in a way that organisms in nature do and we don't quite understand and maybe we just maybe we won't understand but there's hope that it can happen hi my name is Rick Goddisman I live in East Bethel I'm one of four people who are this spring beginning a small community, small houses and one of the things that we're talking about is in the future right we're about to put in our first garden it's just to get us started but in the future we're thinking about how can we use a lot of work the land bringing animals to the land and what can we grow so we're talking about a permaculture plan and so this group right here and the idea of soil has given me another dimension to think about so when we start thinking about what is the next step this is a resource now that I can tap into and there's a lot of experienced people around here animal husbandry and growing different crops and whatnot that we can use and we want to make this available this land which is about 40 acres available to young people it's sort of like a laboratory and that's the partnership between the generations most young people don't have land to experiment on and learn and they're looking for places so we want to make it available and this is certainly a great resource for all of us my name is Stephen Marks and I'm living in Stratford and I guess my question would be how can we get people to understand that taking care of the earth is a spiritual journey and that it's our journey that we are all spiritual beings and what we have to do to take care of the earth my name is Faith I'm from South Stratford I guess I don't know if I have a specific question right now obviously a million and one different concerns lately I've been thinking about bank erosion as the river behind my apartment is washing away I guess also trying to find some sanity in the process thinking about what is natural and what is unnatural and I think trying to hold on to a little bit of faith that there is a bigger system that maybe will help do the work that we think that we're just responsible for so knowing that like nature has this incredible ability to balance itself out when there are times when it becomes unbalanced just trying to think differently about plants and species and stuff like recognizing that hemlocks are stressed out right now ash trees are stressed out right now and that seems so unfortunate and then we have all of these invasives but maybe trying to think differently about invasives like eating the knotweed or something because if there are plants that are not going to be able to survive in the future climates like we will still need plants so how do we work with things that seemingly are problematic or what really is a problem and I guess just being able to adapt my name is Keith Walsh I live in Bedford I am the in case you missed it very very lucky and blessed winner to re-school knowledge and I have been feeling that way from all of the events that I have been coming to here and even all of the information that comes through the copious amounts of emails I am a wiser person every single day so thank you all for everybody who contributes in that way and especially to the authors that I am assumed to learn even more from my question I just wanted to do quite a few but really thinking in terms of what plants are we hearing most about in terms of the general public these days it's the cannabis plant and we are and this is on the news almost every single day it seems when I watch the news which is maybe by annually strongly I think that there is a way for us to utilize this coming cultivation of a new cash crop to not only help support our farmers but to bioremediate our lands to bioremediate ourselves with the medicine that comes from this plant the animals by using it as feed for the animals building materials, fiber new products, new industry the Fairbanks up in St. John's very became famous for a scale that they invented to put their hemp on the train so let's keep in mind what's been done in this state in terms of utilizing that plant not only as a profit center but also as a way for us to all reach homeostasis so how do we help integrate this regenerative practice into this coming industry and how do we help take advantage of the continued conversation around agriculture and hoping to put the regenerative narrative into that through our public media sources I just want to pipe in and say it's 8.30 which is our official anytime so we wouldn't be offended if people want to leave but we sure hope you'll stay Hi my name is Jesse Martin starting a small mushroom farm looking to create a no waste mushroom farm and integrating it into the perennial agricultural systems very very glad that this series has been hosted I've learned a lot more about nutritional grazing and so how and even though I've known for a long time and feel like a lot of people in my age group have known for a long time that there are a lot of problems I think the big issue is just the getting past the stagnation point of feeling like it's too big and it's kind of like denial denial denial and then okay it's now too late and I think I have some just a curiosity of what other people's thoughts are on how to slow down while speeding up like how to slow down and let people have time to really absorb the enormity of the information that has taken me and I'm sure many other people resonate with you know takes time to absorb all of this different biochemical interactions in our biosphere and all like every single element of our day to day lives is going to change whether we want it to or not but how do we do this intentionally and learn intentionally to slow down and allow that time and space to do that in a comfortable way but also flip the paradigm in a quick way so that we actually have a little more climate to work with I'm not sure if that's a clear question but I just like to talk to people more about that in the future I am Sandi Gamora I'm from Heartland I live at Cobhill Co housing I've come to a few of these not all of them but I so appreciate that it's been a series and not just one off one day workshop because we're saying it takes time to absorb all this information and it's yeah it's just helped me to think about it more on a daily basis having the series and all the notes that come through and I just wanted to mention something I was a volunteer at Flavors of the Valley I don't know how any of you go to that this year by chance well I was helping and I ended up being kind of guarding the back door and I found myself between a water table that was set up I can't remember exactly who it was but I think it was Windsor Public Works or something like that and the other side of me was a soil tunnel for the kids and it was this setup of kind of a thing that was set up about four feet or so high there were little flashlights there the kids would take and go in and they could see what the soil looked like underneath there were things on the draped walls of this structure so I'm helping the kids go through that some kids did it over and over again they just loved it and on the other side I'm listening to the Public Works guys and watching people fascinated by their table where they had it wasn't sand it was little tiny pieces of plastic that are made like sand and the water is running through and they had little buildings and culverts and bridges and things but I realized as I was watching and listening you know plants really and I think they were mostly talking about these the infrastructure pieces and how you go about doing that to control and move water and I thought to myself oh gosh we have to get some information to these people and then they were sharing how to build up the plant vegetation around water ways and it was just so striking being in between these two things and wanting to pull them together somehow so I hope to do that. Also I just started volunteering at the Heartland Elementary School for their garden helping teachers do planting things with their students and teachers need so much help to have school gardens functioning at their schools and they don't have much time so if any of us have time to offer I think that's a great place to reach out to the youth coming along and they get so excited by you know what we're doing with them helping plants to eat some hardest stuff so thank you I'm Nicole Conti from Barnard this is the series but I'm going to watch all the other ones because you've been videotaping them so thank you for that and I just want to say thank you to all the farmers in the room because I love to eat and I appreciate all the local food in Vermont and I think it's so awesome that all of you work so hard and care so much about what you care about and I'm not saying I don't care about it but I I just I don't picture myself doing your job so just thank you and then thank you for the series and thanks for everybody sharing their sadness and as well as their hope and their good questions it's just really great and I my big question is how do we because of one person and then a group of people if you're working together how do you stay focused? what do you focus on? because there's so much and I found one thing that I can maybe offer is on Wednesday May 1st is the Vermont Youth Lobby's Wrap for the Planet and the slogan is Climate Jobs Justice so on this Wednesday coming up there will be school kids from all over who just told me today can I go on this field trip? I was kind of shocked she's usually not interested in this stuff so she's 15 and her school is taking a group to the State House and it's from a 9 to 130 on May 1st and they want adults to show up that's part of it and I'm sure a lot, half of you probably heard about it but maybe my question is how do we show up? how can it answer some of the questions that people were throwing out about youth today? my name is Carolyn Egley and I have a farm in Braintree and I've been raising herford cows and doing intensive grazing with them and it has brought the land back tremendously in a short amount of time with some inputs but the effects of the smaller pastures and the more moving them more frequently has made a huge impact on the land and I do think that that farmers are worried about doing something like that because it's more output and it's more seemingly more work but actually it's really not so much work once you get all the infrastructure in place I don't know that I have a question so much as I have a declaration and that is that every day I choose to be grateful for what is and then I when I do that I tend to see more possibilities for everything in the future and at that moment I do think that like the coming back of the land with the simple thing of moving the cows more often that there are and the soil actually sequesters carbon and there's a lot of as I wasn't here for the whole thing but I do know that it can, that pasture land can be as important for sequestering carbon as a forest if the land is in, if the soil is in good enough condition so it seems that the soil is everything and I'm so happy that there's so much interest here in this I didn't know about this series, I don't tend to read the paper that's really what happens anyway I'm grateful that this is taking place and thank you very much what's the name of your farm? Old Brainstorm Farm it's old Breckhouse on Breckhouse the big pond thank you, you took some of the words out of my mouth I'm Jerry Ward I live in Randolph Center I am not a farmer I'm not going to burden the view with another question frankly the questions are kind of oppressive in how big they are how hard they are to answer the next kind of the message, the feeling I'm getting is that these interactions we're learning about the big cycles with the air and how they're also intertwined is really so big that I think that has something to do with why the youth aren't coming they want more digestible ways of looking at the world that's part of our challenge as I see it is to make it where they just have to learn the hard way and one other problem I see is more my issue than others other people seem to stop talking about it as a population I just can't think about air, soil or water without thinking about the population as maybe the at least on a par is not the fundamental factor that's behind all of them I don't know what to do about it but as far as how you go on and find hope in the midst of all this for me personally a lot of my strategy is keeping my local connections buying as much locally trying to produce as much locally as we can and appreciating groups like this that are getting the kind of connections that I think is where I find hope and as I'd like to reiterate what Steena Marx just said about never forgetting our spiritual place in this earth my name is Abby Beiling and I live in Randolph Center and I don't have a question as much as a reaction also but in Jesse I resonated a lot with what you said and that's where I'd like to put my energy my name is Jason Vandreich I'm from Burlington and I've been thinking a lot about how crazy it is and how amazing the way that tiny little Vermont has been a leader and a catalyst for the country as a whole on so many issues and this came to mind most recently reading an article about the 10th anniversary of the marriage equality bill which opened up the floodgates nationwide and in that context the question that I'm thinking about is what would it take to pass here in Vermont a Vermont Green New Deal that's grounded in soils and agriculture in the next two years because we sure as hell know there isn't going to be a Green New Deal in the next two years nationally but boy we might be able to pave the way I would like to mention particularly to the farmers in the room and the ones who are racing sheep it's a conference coming up this weekend at Dartmouth it's a free two-day conference on Friday and Saturday called cows land and labor looking at the important role of livestock in human health, environmental health and local economy I also want to mention that the food and soil activists by Nana Shiva is written about a dozen books or so is going to be here in Vermont she's going to be at the state house of Pealia next Monday May 6th from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. so that will be an opportunity to hear her speak and to meet her and to learn from her work if you're available Hi I'm Josie Carruthers I live in East Randolph we slipped in a little late because we were finishing the Randolph region revitalized presentation on the task forces that emerged from here in Randolph as a result of Randolph's earning a participation in a program called the Model Climate Community where a year ago I guess four task forces were formed in order to work and work on getting Randolph positioned for what has been called the greatest economic opportunity in human history and that is to construct the climate economy an economy of resilience and positive action in response to climate change so you know would that everybody working in the R3 could understand the potential that we have in this state for and of course to represent elsewhere in the country with the soil and water knowledge this series has been powerful for me I've been to most of them and so there's a guy named Paul Costello who heads up the council for rural development and he's a profound guy he's an extraordinary surprisingly enlightened being and he gave us brief talk at the end and he said a lot of young people are so full of anxiety and when you look at the games that are marketed to them worldwide apocalyptic video games of the highest selling video games and people's talk about people's doomsday talk 10 years left all these things he said would that the adults would find a way to talk to and around the young people with with confidence creativity engagement we have in this room for example the wherewithal to have some confidence even if we don't make it and this is one of the things one of the great things in the dancing with the cannibal giant film that Gail made we all do this work we all embrace this we to the best of our ability decide to have this confidence and this creativity hey maybe we don't make it maybe we do but the quality of our lives and the inspiration that we are sharing and spreading by our presences is extraordinary and so we can do this we can do this I think Chris and Kat and everybody that's put this on has very carefully constructed programs with information to enable us to be the role models that we've been talking about everybody, all of us has the ability to do that so rather than a question that's like a declaration that certainly I'm in it for the long haul I'm in it to the best I can to be a role model to talk with creativity, confidence and engagement around young people to remember that climate change while yes, the largest crisis that humanity has yet faced doesn't mean it's insoluble we know that so I encourage us when we get together on May 8th to remember those words and maybe make our own vows and declarations of how we can actually be effective so I've been listening to everybody and it's also valuable trying to think how I could possibly add to all this except by saying that the spiritual aspects of our existence have been coming to the fore and one question has always been in my mind as a volunteer after her can I read the structure I was out there doing what I could and so were thousands of other people and the sense of unity and love and caring they're exhibited when a disaster strikes it just shows you what's underneath people's everyday demeanor and perhaps a group like this can my question is how do we tap into that that the underlying goodness in the human race where we want to be together we want to be as one we want to be working towards a I was thinking about the whole I love thinking about words community it just means with unity and that's Vermont really is my game I just want to mention before I give this up that last a year or two ago Michael Kravchuk over in Slovakia sent me a link to a newspaper over there in Slovakia some of you probably don't even know where that is but it's okay well their cover story was on Burlington Vermont this is a big long story about how Burlington was leading the world in sustainability for a city so don't think that little Vermont can't make an impact so I'm Tony E. Pryle I married to Judy Schwartz among other ways that I'm lucky I also get to travel with her photograph interesting people I just want to make one observation from my own background I was born in Johannesburg South Africa grew up there and when I was my early teens the family moved to London and London has a bank of clouds over it pretty much all the time and to me it seemed like it rained all the time in London and I missed the 350 plus days of sunshine a year in Johannesburg so a surprise when I learned that Johannesburg actually has a slightly higher annual rainfall than London does and the big difference is it all comes down in about six weeks in the summer in December every afternoon around four the clouds build up tremendous thunderstorms the rain comes down something that's changed in Johannesburg since I was a child there were always a lot of trees and the trees are much taller and Johannesburg is known as the largest urban rainforest in the world Rio also has been given that distinction so they can argue about it but the climate has changed in Johannesburg since my childhood and there are quite a number of birds that have come in simply because the trees have gotten bigger, there's more canopy there's more shade it's cooled off a little but mostly it's more regulated by this canopy of trees what this suggests to me a number of things since we're talking about water today is that we often talk about how much water falls but what really matters is where the water falls, how often it falls and what happens to it when it lands and that's part of the topic of Judy's book water and plain sight but it's an issue we all need to think about because water is vital to our lives and what we do on the land and with soil really is directly related to to the issues of climate and how water climate and the presence of drinkable water is possible Thank you I'm Judy and I'm glad that I can actually answer a question so someone someone posed the possibility of having I think he called it a Green New Deal in Vermont but focused on soil so a colleague of mine actually someone I'm writing a chapter about in my new book Jeff Goble worked with people in New Mexico and they have I mean it's passed it's a soil health it's soil health legislation based on those principles and D.D. Purse House is giving an online class for people interested in working on legislation and getting such a bill passed in their states I don't remember it would be on her website I think It's Monday the 29th I think I will make sure it goes out if you sign up you'll get it great opportunity because Jeff has this consensus model of working towards working with people getting people to agree on we'll just see that they all want the same things and have to get there and I heard about this process every step of the way so if it can happen in New Mexico it can happen here for sure although they've had a lot of water problems and I think that that really raised the stakes I'm Mark Kelly I moved to East Randolph about 10 years ago one morning I went down to the store and there were cookies everywhere there were cookies on the shelves there were cookies next to the register on the shelves with the automotive equipment there were just all over the place I asked the woman at the cash register what was all the cookies well Linney was going right at it this morning and I figured that Linney must have just got carried away with those cookies but what it says to us and in that spirit Josie and I have changed the approach we're taking to our micro rice farm we're this year basically doing away with the tiller we're mulching everything I've been putting micro rice on spores in all of the seedlings we're we planted barley in the fall clover in the spring as cover crops and so we're going right at it yeah thanks for everybody who's hanging in there I'm Grace Gershuni I live in Barnett in the Northeast Kingdom I'm very grateful to be part of this wonderful coalition with all of these great folks and I'm kind of fading out but I had a few comments like I'm so impressed by everybody's ability to do exactly seven minutes and to be really clear and succinct I've got a role model here for you all and I have tried to be a role model all my life and I would love to get dancing with the cannibal giant in St. John's Berry yes and I you know I'm really glad for the fellow who won the books and three of them are mine and I think they're already signed and I you know my life has been about and at this point you know in my life I'm really hoping to do more to share in a more direct way I live in paradise I need young people to share the work and the land where I live so you know young people looking for a place to be and you know I'm Jane Woodhouse this is my first night here I live in Peachham I came with Grace and Beth and I live on a piece of land it's about 35 acres with a raging brook going right through the middle of it I actually right up close to the house so I sort of have a reverence for this I love this brook but it can get pretty scary at times yet it's never taken out the house I raise and sheep there I have anywhere from 10 to 20 animals I have very little open land most of my land is a wooded hill across the brook but I graze the animals on various pastures in the neighbor I mean it's a rural road with lots of land but on the neighbors land and everybody's used to for 20 years I've walked those animals down the road and it used to be quite disastrous because they would go every direction but now everybody that I have has been born on that property and so they learn from their mothers and they actually stand at the end of the driveway the goats do till I get up there ahead of them and walk them down the road which is really interesting because they used to just keep going down the road and they'll turn they know to turn where the electronics is across the road I'm particularly interested in local textiles the tractors of the Vermont sheep and wool festival I've had fiber processed by David and Green Mountain Spinnery does a wonderful job with their environmental practices I think large scale textiles do a lot of damage to the land and the soil to workers the whole nine yards and we even did a panel discussion it was like 12 years ago I think here in Randolph at the NOFA when NOFA conference was still here on local fiber shed before that word kind of got to be the end word and we talked about local things that were going on in this state or in the region and at that time all we could talk about was being able to get local wool or animal fiber and now there's a possibility of hemp and down in western Massachusetts there's a whole project focused on flax I think they're working toward getting flax processing equipment down there which means we could get most of our fiber for a year's worth of clothing out of the northeast my regular work is for pay is odd jobs but I do a lot of weaving people that have animals and produce fiber and they have their yarn made and they bring it to me and I weave products that they then sell at the farmers market or craft fairs and stuff so I'm particularly interested, I mean water is a key part of it, I mean how things are dyed, how things are clean and how animals are tended on that land I would also offer at the at the bull festival to have a table for like next to nothing and it doesn't have to be related to the sheep and wool, I mean anything that has to do with agriculture in Vermont is we'd love to have people come so if anybody is interested the wool festival happened the first week in October in Tunbridge at the fairground I've always wanted to go oh you should come it's fun I play in a band called wool playing drums we dream about playing there well you should talk to the community radio station because they do all the entertainment I know some people at the community radio so thank you all so much I guess I should also share my statement or question Chris you might want to as well no I passed but I do want to do a reminder on the well that my question was going to be how do we get lots of people to come on May 8th and that's just one day so the intention is that we need to stay connected we live in a community together we have so many skills and if you all could meet the two or three hundred people that have come to these events total just over 300 yeah I mean it's amazing for this series some people came for all of them but just over 300 people counting the 50 that are here tonight all on Wednesday nights all between 7 and 9 p.m. two snow storms we still managed to get that many people we did get a number of young people but I realize there are definitely challenges Randolph isn't around the corner from a lot of places transportation etc we've got to keep doing this I'd love to take this around the state the talented people from communities all over the state it doesn't have to be the same people I think one of the things we're realizing is that we are the ones we've been waiting for we have everything we need and we need each other we need everyone who's not in this room we need everyone who's in this room and we can do this we can build the resilient future that we need we are the parts of the social mycelium that will hold our communities together I just know that we can do it the fact that you all keep coming shows me that we can do this and I hope you'll come on May 8th and if you can't come on May 8th I hope you'll give us your email so that we can continue to let you know when things are going on and we can connect with your groups that's another thing is that we really want to know every neighborhood group everything that's going on we want to be able to plug people in to the place where they feel comfortable where they feel a little uncomfortable too because we have to get uncomfortable if we're going to fix this mess thank you all so much this has been a really amazing experience