I arrived early and made my way over to the small group of people who had gathered behind the Hartford Capitol. Although the day had been unseasonably warm, the sun had begun to set, and the temperature had plummeted to the low forties. My mom had come with me, and we were each given a sign. PIPELINES ARE OUT; CLEAN OIL IS IN, mine read. My mom’s simply said: #ENDENBRIDGE
Enbridge is a large Canadian energy company with fossil fuel infrastructure throughout the United States. Recently, the company proposed substantial upgrades to its Algonquin Gas Transmission line, a fracked gas pipeline that runs from New Jersey, through New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, and into Massachusetts. Dubbed “Project Maple,” the upgrades would include a large expansion to bring in more fracked gas to the Northeast.
At a time when we should be actively reducing our dependence on fossil fuels to combat the ever-growing threat of climate change, expanding a fracked gas pipeline is antithetical and shortsighted. While fracked gas–or “natural” gas as fossil fuel companies love to tout it–has historically been marketed as a superior alternative to oil and coal, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) releases large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps eighty times more heat than carbon dioxide in the first twenty years after it’s released. Methane emissions must fall by around 40 to 60 percent if we’re to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid triggering several potentially catastrophic climate tipping points.
If “Project Maple” were approved, it’d be yet another win for fossil fuel corporations that comes at the expense of the environment and our health. That’s why climate advocates throughout New England have been fighting the expansion, either by calling our elected officials and demanding that they deny the permits Enbridge needs to move ahead with the proposal or by gathering for organized protests, like the one my mom and I participated in yesterday.
There were only five or so people when we arrived around four; by 4:15, however, that number had at least tripled. We began by marching out of the Capitol and toward Elm Street, passing two police cruisers (I was surprised by how much police presence there was that afternoon) on our way out of the parking lot. We stopped at a busy intersection and waited for the walk light, waving our signs and chanting “Frack no; gas has got to go!”
At first, I was unnerved by how very visible the protest was. Normally when I’m out in public, I try to avoid drawing attention to myself–and the purpose here was to do the exact opposite. For the first several minutes, I hung in the back, mumbling the chant and warily eyeing the cars whizzing by. As we walked down the sidewalk, I struck up a conversation with another protestor, and that helped appease some of my nerves. Everyone I met yesterday was super friendly and welcoming, and it was nice to connect with others who shared my passion for environmental issues and fight alongside them for a livable future.
We stopped outside the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) headquarters and stood on the front steps, chanting “Energy from the wind and sun; fossil fuels are all done!” Although most of the employees had gone home for the day, we remained by the building for ten minutes or so. Several people driving by honked in support. At one point, the protest leader, an outspoken woman from the Sierra Club, pointed to the “Department of Environmental Protection” engraved above the arched doorway and rolled her eyes. “Give me a break!” I got the sense from the offhanded remarks she and a few other people were making that DEEP doesn’t exactly live up to its name or promise.
We returned to the Capitol and looped around the side of the building. We had exhausted about five chants by then, and the leader asked if I knew of any. I suggested “Climate change is not a lie; do not let our planet die,” which I had used in my current work-in-progress, a book that draws its inspiration from the 2018/19 School Strikes for Climate. So, that’s what we chanted as we continued down the pathway to Capitol Avenue. We situated ourselves in front of the Capitol, facing the sea of cars commuting home from work, and launched into the last leg of the protest. It was the exact location where the teenage protagonists in my book climate-strike every Friday.
“Climate change is not a lie. Do not let our planet die.”
Protesting is nerve-wracking, and it’s also empowering and important. By the time we returned to the parking lot, we had been marching for just shy of an hour. In that short time, numerous cars had passed us, as well as a handful of pedestrians. Maybe we’d gotten some of them to think. Maybe someone who worked at DEEP would read the flyer we’d left in the lobby and reconsider what “environmental protection” actually means. I don’t know. What I do know is that I can’t be complacent within a system that prioritizes endless extraction over human life and eternal economic growth over ecological longevity. Historically, real change has only ever happened when enough people came together to say “enough is enough” and demand better. And when it comes to the current state of the climate, we must demand better. Our lives literally depend on us doing so.
#EndEnbridge was my first environmental protest, but it sure won’t be my last.