Exploring an Indigenous Just Transition: Conversation with Earl Hatley

Earl Hatley will join Middlebury College for a conversation on the essential and critical frameworks we need to have when discussing a just transition in Vermont, the USA, and globally. Hatley argues that, at this moment, the transition away from fossil fuels towards solar, wind, and battery storage heavily depends on precious minerals like copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, and many more. Where are these natural resources being extracted from? When we understand that most of the mining happens in or near rural and indigenous territories, we must consider if these extractivist logics will replicate similar social and environmental problems. So, what does the alternative look like?

Earl is a life-long environmental activist because it is his calling, changing thousands of people’s lives for the better for more than 50 years. He is a co-founder of the LEAD agency, an environmental justice organization working on a total of 18 Superfund sites. Earl also serves as the Grand Riverkeeper, protecting Grand Lake and the upper Grand River watershed, working in conjunction with the Waterkeeper Alliance. Earl also serves as an organizing consultant to national and state-wide non-profit groups, including Western Mining Action Network and the Indigenous Environmental Network. He is an enrolled citizen of the Missisquoi Band of Abenaki Nation with Cherokee/Shawnee heritage and a disabled veteran. Earl is retired.