Thank you all for being here today.

 

My name is Sydney, and I am an alumni and current employee of UConn and a youth climate advocate. I wanted to start by sharing a bit on how I got into climate advocacy. For me, it didn’t begin in the classroom or at a protest. It began at home. I grew up in a small rural town in Connecticut called Willington. My home was surrounded by woods with distant neighborhoods on our cul-de-sac. While it grew my love for the outdoors, it was also fraught with small rural town problems. My mom and stepdad struggled with alcoholism and co-abuse, and like many rural communities, we had no public transit, no grocery store, a mediocre school system, and a lack of diversity. My mom and stepdad both worked in the car industry, and our lives were very car dependent from driving to school, to getting groceries, and who wrote their paycheck. There was a lack of culture, and knowing who I am now, a huge lack of representation for my young queer self. 

 

When I first learned about the climate crisis, I was shocked. It sank my heart. The trees, rain, stars were the sense of safety and community I had. How could our planet be in harm's way and no one was doing anything about it? As I got older and struggles with family intensified, I was really scared. Scared of family chaos and scared of what our future held. I learned to people-please and hide my truth, my anxious brain thinking denial and avoidance was my way to hold onto safety. 

 

When I went to college and began studying environmental science, there was no way to avoid the truth anymore. The facts were staring me in the face. While I had spent years avoiding tough conversations at home, I was faced with an even bigger one with myself. How could I stay silent in the face of something so urgent, so pressing as the climate crisis? During late college, I found myself at the doorstep of the UConn recovery community (URC) and started to explore my own recovery. I was scared, but there was a sense of hope, knowing that my homelife could be more whole than the alcoholism, substance misuse, and loneliness that my homelife grew to know. 

 

Recovery means being vulnerable, being scared, admitting I feel helpless, and asking for help. I was and still am terrified. It means constantly challenging the defense mechanisms and internalized beliefs I have and still want to hold onto. However, recovery isn’t easy. Because the more I started to honor myself and my story, I had to honor the even more terrifying truths:  the truth that we are in a climate crisis and young people have a future where they don't know how ugly it will be. 

 

Recovery has shown me what it actually means to feel alive, whole, and connected. And how tragic that at the same time, my recovery has shown me that that's not guaranteed. Because in the face of the climate crisis we see worsening storms, extreme heat, and sea level rise threatening the lives of millions of people today. Because big companies and governments have determined that the lives of young people are worthy of being abused.

 

Even harder, my recovery has shown me I am not alone in my struggles and even more, they weren’t my fault. Because there are layers of systemic problems and oppressive systems that we exist in that victimize so many communities with the same and worse struggles that I and my family face, from our economic system to racial violence to the brutalizing military industrial complex and many more. 

 

I found that this fight we are showing up for today is about more than just fossil fuels. It’s about justice and liberation and reclaiming our right to live. Because fossil fuels don’t just fracture our land—they fracture our communities and strip us of our right to feel safe, connected, and whole. Rural communities like mine often suffer from higher rates of alcoholism, community isolation, and loneliness, which can be attributed to fossil fuels and the culture and system it supports. Studies show communities near extraction sites experience greater feelings of isolation and up to 40% higher rates of substance misuse and mental health challenges, especially affecting low-income communities, communities of color, and indigenous communities. 

 

Communities with high fossil fuel dependency also report lower levels of community attachment and trust, showing fossil fuels destroying our social networks and support. There are over 17 million people in the U.S. that live within half a mile of fossil fuel infrastructure. I don’t want to lose any more people to alcoholism, substance misuse, and suicide.

 

This is a threat to our communities and also a threat to our fragile democracy. The rise of political polarization and extremism can be traced back, in part, to the rise of fossil fuels in a capitalistic system. Our fossil industries prey on rural communities, infiltrating them with a toxic capitalistic culture of hyper-dependence, economic instability, and exposure to toxins, leaving people feeling abandoned and desperate for connection and care. Trump and far-right groups know this and victimize people with extremist and violent ideologies in their search for blame and a feeling of belonging. 

 

But my friends, my brothers, my sisters, I’m here to tell you it's not your fault. We live amongst industries and economic systems that thrive by exploiting both our planet and our people. 

I stand with you all today, fighting against projects like Project Maple and fossil fuel company Enbridge that continue to harm communities like mine and ours. When we fight against these industries, we are not just fighting for cleaner air or lower emissions; we’re reimagining a world where we and our planet can heal, where we can be liberated from the toxic systems and values that exploit us, and find justice for our peoples from the alcoholism, substance misuse, and violence that plague us in our fossil fuel dependent world. So today we fight for our recovery, for our communities' recovery, for young people and our generations to come. Thank you.