Arts & Culture
International author and tree-sitting activist defies gravity of environmental rhetoric
The Pointer
lgern177@uwsp.edu
Henry David Thoreau once said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Every once in a great while, thinkers like Thoreau break through every encumbering artifice of contemporary reality, boldly confronting these essential facts with a raw authenticity of conviction.
Julia Butterfly Hill, internationally known activist and author who visited the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point campus on Tuesday, April 14, shares the ranks of dynamic thinkers like Thoreau.
Upon Hill’s request, the event was more of an open forum in which the audience could ask questions. Chris Diehm, philosophy professor, facilitated this discussion.
“I hate being lectured at. I love dialogue; I love conversation,” Hill said. “As more voices come into the conversation, maybe we get to see a bit more of ourselves.”
If Thoreau is perhaps most known for living in a cabin on Walden Pond, Hill is best known for living in a California redwood tree named Luna for two years to raise awareness of the detrimental effects of clear-cutting forests by conglomerate companies like Pacific Lumber.
Hill said this act of civil disobedience was not a societal hiatus but rather a confrontation of reality in which she learned valuable life lessons.
One such lesson came while enduring the worst storms in California’s history while 180 feet, or 18 stories, high in the branches of the tree, with wind gusts up to 90 miles per hour.
“Rigidity was breaking me,” she said. “I was terrified I was going to die … but I realized the only branches that break in the storm are the ones that are too rigid and I let go.”
She said this has influenced her everyday life by causing her to approach intense situations with more flexibility.
“Critics would tell me, ‘These might be good lessons, but how are you going to apply them to the real world?’ They’d say, ‘You’re not living in the real world, you’re living in a tree,’” she said. “But who gets to define what the real world is?”
After living in the tree, Hill co-founded a non-profit organization, called Women’s Earth Alliance, which addresses environmental issues that confront women on a daily basis, like water and fuel availability. It works with women to create their own environmentally sustainable businesses.
She has also traveled to promote environmental activism in places like Ecuador. In 2002, she was thrown into Ecuadorian jail with seven other activists for protesting a proposed oil pipeline that would cut through an Andean forest.
She said she was aware that being thrown in jail would bring media attention, thereby leveraging awareness and inspiring more people to become more conscious of inherent human connectedness to nature.
“If we’re talking about solving these problems that face us as a family, we’re going to have to include all the family members,” she said.
Hill said she believes in a vast, interconnected web of all living beings, highlighting the importance of being conscious of this web.
“Every issue is a symptom of a disease—that disease is disconnect,” she said. “If you’re disconnected from people, you can drop bombs on them and call them a statistic … If you’re disconnected from the environment, you don’t see that everything, whether it’s genetically modified foods or global warming, is somehow related.”
Hill said she once carried her trash around with her for a month to raise her own consciousness.
She said her willingness to put herself in uncomfortable situations is a large part of what has made her extraordinary.
“I refuse to stay in my comfort zone,” she said. “Comfort is an addiction. I’m not going to destroy the planet just because I might be comfortable for the short term.”
Hill said she is aware her actions may look radical to some, but encourages people to have different beliefs from her and engage in conversation with one another about these beliefs.
“Everything in nature thrives in diversity,” she said. “A monoculture of thinking is no healthier than a monoculture in a forest or garden.”
If biodiversity within ecosystems creates symbiotic balance, diversity with human communities creates peaceful interaction, which Hill said she believes leads to common ground on which people can implement viable, positive change.
But the rift between what we are doing and what we need to do is still vast because of hindrances like fear, greed or apathy. Even small, courageous actions that may set you apart, like bringing your own dishes to coffee shops, can make a difference, she said.
“No choice happens in a vacuum,” she said. “It’s theoretically impossible to not make an impact while being alive … So the question is not ‘Can I make a difference,’ but ‘How am I making a difference?’”
