350Vermont Mother Up Meet Up

Mother Up!: Families Rise Up for Climate Action is a project of 350VT bringing together families to talk about the tough realities of climate change and to participate in the transition to a healthier and safer world. For our May gathering we will have a conversation with Randy Kritkausky, co-founder of a Middlebury-based international non-profit, ECOLOGIA.

ECOLOGIA began as a citizen-to-citizen initiative in international cooperation during the Cold War. The founding concept was that environmental cooperation could replace Cold War brinksmanship. ECOLOGIA’s current work focuses on the virtually hidden world of global governance where “international standards” are created. In this context ECOLOGIA played an important role in creating an International standard on green house gas accounting. Bill McKibben wrote about this work in a brief Orion article titled “When Boring is Beautiful” (http://www.ecologia.org/news/boring.html).

After decades of international and local environmental activism, Randy is returning to his Native American roots, as an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and is exploring ways of rekindling spiritual connections with nature in order to overcome the gaps left by trying to reason or business-case our way to sustainability. He will discuss his own journey toward directly connecting with Mother Earth in Vermont and how such spiritual awakening might impact mainstream culture and environmentalism.

A vegetarian meal and childcare for ages 8 and under will be provided. RSVP helpful, but not required. Contact J Ashley Laux for more info at motherupmidd@350vt.org.