Young climate activists bicycle into Hartford

Six young adults rolled into Hartford on their bicycles recently, full of energy despite pulling all of their belongings for the summer in addition to two large trailers behind their bikes. These riders are part of Climate Summer, a ten-week internship program designed to build on the movement against deadly energy and climate change. This summer, the team of college students and recent graduates will bike from community to community in hopes of learning from, supporting, highlighting and connecting community members to search for local solutions to climate change.
 

While in Hartford, the riders have been working with and connecting organizations such as Summer of Solutions, the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, and Neighbor to Neighbor. The team has also been collecting signatures for a petition to end government subsidies to large corporations that produce fossil fuels. They will end up in Bridgeport and host a day of action against its deadly coal plant on August 4^th. The riders were graciously hosted by the Vernon United Methodist Church, located fifteen miles outside of Hartford.

The six young adults on this team have chosen to spend their summers with Climate Summer for a wide array of reasons. Together, they feel that climate change is a pressing and complex issue of our time, and our dependence on deadly energy must be stopped as soon as possible. According to team member Dan Blaustein-Rejto, "deadly energy is energy, typically created from fossil fuels coal, oil and natural gas, that causes deaths by fundamentally changing our climate."

These students come to New England from all across the country. Xhoana Ahmeti (Woodstock, IL), Alivia Ashenfarb (Staten Island, NY), Dan Blaustein-Rejto (Woodstock, NY), Jayson Castillo (Long Island, NY), Kristy Choi (Washington, D.C.) and Sally Holmes (Prairie Village, KS) hope to assist in building a better future for Rhode Island and Connecticut this summer, by joining in community efforts that are progressive and sustainable. "Emissions from deadly energy power plants alone directly kill 20,000 people each year in the United States when they breathe in polluted air. That's not even counting vehicle emissions or indirect causes of death," says Ashenfarb.

The six riders will travel exclusively by bicycle for ten weeks this summer, biking upwards of 1,000 miles. In each of the five communities that this team will visit, the riders will typically sleep on the floors in houses of worship. The team subsists on $5 per person each day for food. "We are all here because we believe that people should not have to die so that we can use energy to eat, get to work and stay warm. The effects of climate change are vast and widespread, and need to be mitigated," says Holmes.

Climate Summer is part of Better Future Project, a non-profit focused on building a future that is free from the ties of deadly energy and able to live to its full potential. These riders will travel onwards Sunday to Middletown, Connecticut to continue their work. For more information, visit www.climatesummer.net.