What is Earth Democracy?

“The fight for truth…is not just our right as free citizens of free societies. It is our duty as citizens of the earth.”

~Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy

In January of 1973, United Farmworkers leader Cesar Chavez reached out to the Central Valley chapter of the Sierra Club. Chavez called for an alliance to protect both workers and ecosystems from the poison of pesticides. The Sierra Club turned him down, concerned that a new focus on workers would distract from more land-based preservation issues. When the Sierra Club turned down Chavez, they turned down more than a larger movement between labor and environmental causes. Indeed, the Sierra Club turned away a chance for a new kind of democracy—an emerging form of democracy that we will prepare to reclaim in a workshop together —earth democracy.

What is earth democracy? Earth democracy has four main layers.

First, earth democracy emphasizes the rights of more-than-human beings. The Endangered Species Act, for example, is a beginning instance of earth democracy, because it shows the ability of a representative government to mitigate the impacts of economic growth on the habitat needed for a fragile species to rebuild its resilience.

Second, earth democracy understands that ecological communities are most exploited when the voice of average citizens is silenced by the influence of money in politics. The disproportionate influence of fossil fuel companies on lawmakers, compared with the declining influence of voters living with the consequences of climate disruption, is an example of how ecological health is threatened by corporate control of political leaders and campaigns.

Third, earth democracy recognizes that marginalized human communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental exploitation, so environmental solutions must begin with the empowerment of the voices and choices of underserved communities. In fact, social inequities are the very thing making unjust impacts on land possible in the first place. Without historically reduced democratic voices and economic choices of the global poor, it is hard to imagine today’s dramatic pace of ecological exploitation in those places. Communities facing social injustice are thus at the front lines of climate chaos and other environmental disruption, so their vision for change must lead the way in an earth democracy.

Fourth and finally, earth democracy seeks ways in which agency and kinship among species in an ecological community can teach us how to live more compassionately, equitably, and justly—together—in our political communities. We are, as Earth Democracy author Vandana Shiva says, “citizens of the earth.”

So, what does it mean to “cultivate” earth democracy, as the title to our course suggests? How will our four days together tap into the work of four of my co-edited books to develop the values, skills, and connections for improving our capacity to cultivate earth democracy?

• On Day One, and based on my co-edited 2017 book Wildness, we must ask: who and what is a citizen in an earth democracy? The Wildness book sought to find “wildness”—what Aldo Leopold called “the capacity for self-renewal”—across a spectrum of communities. Where and what is wildness in a designated wilderness area? Where and what is wildness on a working landscape? Where and what is wildness in the built environment? Where and what is wildness in the underserved communities struggling for environmental justice? In addition to reading, discussing, and writing in the style of Wildness essays, we will embark on a scavenger hunt of the self-renewing systems that make Shelburne Farms (where we will gather) so special.

• On Day Two, and based on my co-edited 2021 book Kinship, we must ask: how do the responsibilities of being a citizen in a democracy grow from being a member of an ecological family, from being a relational member of a bioregional community? (Given where EcoGather is based, how might we become a “Northeast Kin-dom”?) In addition to reading, discussing, and writing in the style of Kinship essays, we will engage in mindfulness exercises to ignite our inner and outer awareness of the kinship networks of which we have always-and-already been a part.

• On Day Three, and based on my co-edited 2021 book What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?, we must ask the question posed by the book’s title. In addition to stretching the responsibilities of citizenship from human society to the earth, we must think about citizenship across countless generations in the past and future. According to the poet Gary Snyder—and from the perspective of ecosystems—“Rome was built in a day.” Time moves more patiently in earth democracy—slowing political time to respect diverse cultural senses of time, biological time, evolutionary time, geological time, and even cosmic time. Earth democracy swells our responsibilities as earth citizens to the needs, and thus time-scales, of all living and non-living entities. In addition to reading, discussing, and writing in the style of Ancestor essays, we will each go on a multi-hour solo on the ecologically diverse landscape of Shelburne Farms to contemplate this question.

• On Day Four, and based on my co-edited and forthcoming 2024 book An Elemental Life, we must ask: what does it mean to live elementally (connected with and mentored by the elements enlivening all more-than-human beings and communities)? How does living elementally—simply, connected with-and-for the elements that sustain everything—bring personal, emotional, cultural, political, and ecological resilience to earth democracy? In addition to reading, discussing, and writing in the style of Elemental essays (and participants will get a sneak-peak!), we will physically sculpt our visions, hopes, and fears for earth democracy from the elements of earth, air, fire, and water found at Shelburne Farms.

Few democracies in history have lasted. As Thomas Jefferson imagined the fledgling U.S. democracy in the 1780s, he feared that a disconnection from the land would lead to a dependence on social hierarchies, and thus an erosion of place-based, self-organizing practices that made democracies on all scales possible. “Those who labor the earth,” Jefferson mused, “are the chosen people of God.” Two centuries later, Cesar Chavez said, “we are not beasts of burden, agricultural implements, or rented slaves; we are men.” Chavez also understood that a healthy democracy came from a combination of (just) human labor on the land and a connection with environmental health. He understood the interconnectivity of human and more-than-human rights, stating that “kindness and compassion towards all living things is a mark of a civilized society.” Chavez saw how pesticides threatened both the humans and the animals that he considered kin. Most importantly, he understood that healthy environments emerged when the people working in those environments—and experiencing the consequences of pollution on the landscape—participate equitably in the decision behind how the land and the workers are used.

The Sierra Club turned down Chavez’ gesture to merge human rights and environmental health in a new movement. In that moment, the Sierra Club turned down the chance to enact an earth democracy. In June of 2024, let’s resurrect the solidarity, and the democracy, that Chavez imagined.