BY BROOKE LARSEN
On May 17, I walked into a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auction at the Salt Lake City Public Library with fellow organizers of Uplift, a climate action community for the Colorado Plateau. I witnessed police dragging powerful young women out of the room for peacefully singing in protest. After I started singing, I was soon escorted out of the room as well. Our words? “People gonna rise like the water, we’re gonna calm this crisis down. I hear the voice of my great-granddaughter saying, ‘Keep it in the ground!’”
Recently, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called the Keep it in the Ground movement “naïve.” But how can it be naïve to demand a livable future? I think it is even more unrealistic to believe young people will remain silent as our future is sold for as low as $2 an acre. We fully understand the significant challenges of a just transition away from fossil fuels. If we don’t demand that transition, we risk it not happening...