There’s only one essential role humans have on Earth

Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
green plant

Paul Watson and  Independent Media Institute

December 21, 2021

I would like to introduce you to an alternative way of looking at this planet that we live on. We call it planet Earth, but in reality, it should be called planet ocean. What makes life possible on this planet is one very important element: water. This is the water planet. We have been taught that the ocean comprises the sea. However, the ocean is much more than that.

This is a planet of water in continuous circulation moving through many phases, with each phase intimately linked at every stage. It is the water in the sea, the lakes, the rivers, and the streams. It is the water flowing underground and deep, deep down inside the planet, locked in rock. It is the water in the atmosphere or encased in ice.

And it is the water moving through each and every living cell of every plant and animal on the planet.

Water is life, powered by the sun pumping it from sea to atmosphere and into and through our every living cell. Water is the life that flows through our bodies, flushing out waste and supplying nutrients. The water in my body now was once locked in ice. It once moved underground. It once was in the clouds or in the sea. Even the gravitational pull of the moon acts on the water in our bodies in the same way it acts upon the water in the sea. Water is the common bond among all living things on this planet, and, collectively, all this water in its many forms and travels forms the Earth’s collective ocean. The ocean is the life-support system for the entire planet. From within the depths of the sea, phytoplankton manufactures oxygen while feeding on nitrogen and iron supplied from the feces of whales and other marine animals. The water in rivers and lakes removes toxins, salts, and waste. Estuaries and wetlands act like the kidneys to remove further toxins, and the mineral salts are flushed into the sea. The heat from the sun pumps water into the atmosphere, where it is purified and dropped back onto the surface of the planet, where living beings drink or absorb it before flushing it through their systems. It is this complex global circulatory system that provides everything we need for food, sanitation, and the regulation of climate—for life.

Water is life and life is water. Rivers and streams are the arteries, veins, and capillaries of the Earth, performing the very same functions that they do in our bodies: removing waste and delivering nutrients to cells. When a river is dammed, it is akin to cutting off the flow of blood in a blood vessel. For example, the great Aswan High Dam on the Nile River in Egypt starved the lands below of nutrients, building up toxic water above.

This entire interdependent system is its own life-support system. The book Gaia by James Lovelock is a hypothesis proposing that all living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that helps maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. In other words, life operates its own life-support system. In this system, not all species are equal. Some species are essential and some species are less so, but all species are connected. The essential foundations of this life-support system are microbes, phytoplankton, insects, plants, worms, and fungi. The so-called “higher” animals are not so essential, and one of them—humans and the domesticated animals and plants we own—are alarmingly destructive. I like to compare Earth to a spaceship. After all, that is what this planet is—a huge spaceship transporting the cargo of life on a fast and furious trip around the enormous Milky Way galaxy. It’s a voyage so long that it takes about 250 million years to make just one circumnavigation. In fact, our planet has only made this trip 18 times since it was formed from the dust of our closest star.

For a spaceship to function, there needs to be a well-run life-support system that is managed by an experienced and skillful crew. It is this crew that produces the gases in our atmosphere, especially oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide. It is this crew that sequesters excess gases, particularly carbon and methane. It is this crew that cleans the air, recycles waste, and assists in the circulation of water. It also supplies food, both directly and indirectly through pollination. It is this crew that removes toxins from the soil and keeps the soil moist and productive. The plants serve the animals and the animals serve the plants. The plants feed on the soil and the animals feed on the plants, and, in turn, the animals impart nutrients to the soil.

Some species, especially the ones we call the “higher” animals (mainly the large mammals), are primarily passengers. Some of these passengers contribute a great deal to maintaining the machinery of the life-support system, although they are not as critical as the absolutely essential species that serve as the tireless engineers of the system. There is one passenger species, however, that long ago decided to mutiny from the crew and go its own way, content to spend its days entertaining itself and caring only for its own welfare. That species is Homo sapiens.

There are other species, both plant and animal, that we have enslaved for our own selfish purposes. These are the domesticated plants that replace the wild plants that help run the system. These are the animals that we have enslaved to give us meat, eggs, and milk, or to serve the purpose of amusing us, only to abuse, torture, and slaughter them.

As the number of enslaved animals increases, wild animals are displaced through extermination or the destruction of habitat. The plants that we enslave must be “protected” with lethal chemical fertilizers and genetically modified seeds, along with other chemical poisons, such as herbicides, fungicides, and bactericides.

We are stealing the carrying capacity of ecosystems from other species to increase the number of humans and domestic animals. The law of finite resources dictates that this system will collapse. It simply is unsustainable.

Because of our technological skills, humans have evolved to serve one very important function: We have the ability to protect the entire planet from being struck by a killer asteroid like the one that paid our dinosaur friends a visit 60 million years ago. Although I sometimes wonder if we could even do that, considering our lack of cooperation within our own species. We also have the skills and intelligence, if we so choose to utilize these abilities, to aggressively address climate change, the problem that we are directly responsible for creating. But will we?

Captain Paul Watson is a Canadian-American marine conservation activist who founded the direct action group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977 and was more recently featured in Animal Planet’s popular television series “Whale Wars” and the documentary about his life, “Watson.” Sea Shepherd’s mission is to protect all ocean-dwelling marine life. Watson has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including Death of a Whale (2021), Urgent! (2021), Orcapedia (2020), Dealing with Climate Change and Stress (2020), The Haunted Mariner (2019), and Captain Paul Watson: Interview with a Pirate (2013).

This excerpt is from Urgent! Save Our Ocean to Survive Climate Change, by Captain Paul Watson (GroundSwell Books, 2021). This web adaptation was produced by GroundSwell Books in partnership with Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

 

Reclaiming Our Common Home: Expand the Commons to Include Everything We Need

Ecological civilization is based on the consciousness that we are part of the Earth, not her masters, conquerors, or owners.

by

Vandana Shiva

The planet is 70% water. Our bodies are 70% water. Water is the ecological basis of all life, and in the commons, conservation creates abundance. (Photo: Davide Restivo/Wikimedia/cc)

The path to an ecological civilization is paved by reclaiming the commons—our common home, the Earth, and the commons of the Earth family, of which we are a part. Through reclaiming the commons, we can imagine possibility for our common future, and we can sow the seeds of abundance through "commoning."

In the commons, we care and share—for the Earth and each other. We are conscious of nature’s ecological limits, which ensure her share of the gifts she creates goes back to her to sustain biodiversity and ecosystems. We are aware that all humans have a right to air, water, and food, and we feel responsible for the rights of future generations.

Enclosures of the commons, in contrast, are the root cause of the ecological crisis and the crises of poverty and hunger, dispossession and displacement. Extractivism commodifies for profit what is held in common for the sustenance of all life.

The Commons, Defined

Air is a commons.

We share the air we breathe with all species, including plants and trees. Through photosynthesis, plants convert the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and give us oxygen. “I can’t breathe” is the cry of the enclosure of the commons of air through the mining and burning of 600 million years’ worth of fossilized carbon.

Water is a commons.

The planet is 70% water. Our bodies are 70% water. Water is the ecological basis of all life, and in the commons, conservation creates abundance. The plastic water bottle is a symbol of the enclosures of the commons—first by privatizing water for extractivism, and then by destroying the land and oceans through the resulting plastic pollution.

Food is a commons.

Food is the currency of life, from the soil food web, to the biodiversity of plants and animals, insects and microbes, to the trillions of organisms in our gut microbiomes. Hunger is a result of the enclosure of the food commons through fossil fuel-based, chemically intensive industrial agriculture.

A History of Enclosure

The enclosure transformation began in earnest in the 16th century. The rich and powerful privateer-landlords, supported by industrialists, merchants, and bankers, had a limitless hunger for profits. Their hunger fueled industrialism as a process of extraction of value from the land and peasants.

Colonialism was the enclosure of the commons on a global scale.

When the British East India Company began its de facto rule of India in the mid-1700s, it enclosed our land and forests, our food and water, even our salt from the sea. Over the course of 200 years, the British extracted an estimated $45 trillion from India through the colonial enclosures of our agrarian economies, pushing tens of millions of peasants into famine and starvation.

Vandana Shiva. Illustration by Enkhbayar Munkh-Erdene/YES! Magazine.

“We receive our seeds from nature and our ancestors. We have a duty to save and share them, and hand them over to future generations in their richness, integrity, and diversity.”

Our freedom movement, from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, was in fact a movement for reclaiming the commons. When the British established a salt monopoly through the salt laws in 1930, making it illegal for Indians to make salt, Gandhi started the Salt Satyagraha—the civil disobedience movement against the salt laws. He walked to the sea with thousands of people and harvested the salt from the sea, saying: Nature gives it for free; we need it for our survival; we will continue to make salt; we will not obey your laws.

Expanding Enclosures

While the enclosures began with the land, in our times, enclosures have expanded to cover lifeforms and biodiversity, our shared knowledge, and even relationships. The commons that are being enclosed today are our seeds and biodiversity, our information, our health and education, our energy, society and community, and the Earth herself.

The chemical industry is enclosing the commons of our seeds and biodiversity through “intellectual property rights.” Led by Monsanto (now Bayer) in the 1980s, our biodiversity was declared “raw material” for the biotechnology industry to create “intellectual property”—to own our seeds through patents, and to collect rents and royalties from the peasants who maintained the seed commons.

Reclaiming the commons of our seeds has been my life’s work since 1987. Inspired by Gandhi, we started the Navdanya movement with a Seed Satyagraha. We declared, “Our seeds, our biodiversity, our indigenous knowledge is our common heritage. We receive our seeds from nature and our ancestors. We have a duty to save and share them, and hand them over to future generations in their richness, integrity, and diversity. Therefore we have a duty to disobey any law that makes it illegal for us to save and share our seeds.” 

I worked with our parliament to introduce Article 3(j) into India’s Patent Law in 2005, which recognizes that plants, animals, and seeds are not human inventions, and therefore cannot be patented. Navdanya has since created 150 community seed banks in our movement to reclaim the commons of seed. And our legal challenges to the biopiracy of neem, wheat, and basmati have been important contributions to reclaiming the commons of biodiversity and indigenous knowledge.

Partnership, Not Property

So, too, with water. When French water and waste management company Suez tried to privatize the Ganga River in 2002, we built a water democracy movement to reclaim the Ganga as our commons. Through a Satyagraha against Coca- Cola in 2001, my sisters in Plachimada, Kerala, shut down the Coca-Cola plant and reclaimed water as a commons. 

Ecological civilization is based on the consciousness that we are part of the Earth, not her masters, conquerors, or owners. That we are connected to all life, and that our life is dependent on others—from the air we breathe to the water we drink and the food we eat.

All beings have a right to live; that is why I have participated in preparing the draft “Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth.” The right to life of all beings is based on interconnectedness. The interconnectedness of life and the rights of Mother Earth, of all beings, including all human beings, is the ecological basis of the commons, and economies based on caring and sharing. 

Reclaiming the commons and creating an ecological civilization go hand in hand.

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist and eco feminist. She is the founder/director of Navdanya Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology. She is author of numerous books including, Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis; Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply; Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace; and Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development. Shiva has also served as an adviser to governments in India and abroad as well as NGOs, including the International Forum on Globalization, the Women’s Environment and Development Organization and the Third World Network. She has received numerous awards, including 1993 Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize) and the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize.

This article was written for YE

 

Researchers present wild theory: Water may be naturally occurring on all rocky planets

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN THE FACULTY OF HEALTH AND MEDICAL SCIENCES

Research News

 

The emergence of life is a mystery. Nevertheless, researchers agree that water is a precondition for life. The first cell emerged in water and then evolved to form multicellular organism. The oldest known single-cell organism on Earth is about 3.5 billion years old.

So far, so good. But if life emerged in water, where did the water come from?

"There are two hypotheses about the emergence of water. One is that it arrives on planets by accident, when asteroids containing water collide with the planet in question," says Professor Martin Bizzarro from the Centre for Star and Planet Formation at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

Together with Assistant Professor Zhengbin Deng he has headed a new study that turns the theory about the emergence of water upside down.

"The other hypothesis is that water emerges in connection with the formation of the planet. Our study suggests that this hypothesis is correct, and if that is true, it is extremely exciting, because it means that the presence of water is a bioproduct of the planet formation process," Martin Bizzarro explains.

If Martin Bizzarro and Zhengbin Deng's theory proves correct, life in planetary systems may have had better chances of developing than previously assumed.

The researchers' studies show that there was water on Mars for the first 90 million years of the planet's existence. In astronomical time, this is a long time before water-rich asteroids bombarded the planets of the inner Solar System like Earth and Mars, according to the first hypothesis. And this is very sensational', Martin Bizzarro explains.

"It suggests that water emerged with the formation of Mars. And it tells us that water may be naturally occurring on planets and does not require an external source like water-rich asteroids," he says.

The study is based on analyses of an otherwise modest black meteorite. But the meteorite is 4.45 billion years old and contains invaluable knowledge about the young solar system. Black Beauty, which is the name of the meteorite, originates from the original Martian crust and offers unique insight into events at the time of the formation of the solar system.

"It is a gold mine of information. And extremely valuable," says Martin Bizzarro. After having been discovered in the Moroccan desert, the meteorite was sold for USD 10,000 dollars per gram.

With help from funds, Martin Bizzarro managed to buy just under 50 grams for research purposes back in 2017. With the meteorite in the laboratory they are now able to present signs of the presence of liquid water on Mars at the time of its formation. First, however, they had to crush, dissolve and analyse 15 grams of the expensive rock, Zhengbin Deng explains:

"We have developed a new technique that tells us that Mars in its infancy suffered one or more severe asteroid impacts. The impact, Black Beauty reveals, created kinetic energy that released a lot of oxygen. And the only mechanism that could likely have caused the release of such large amounts of oxygen is the presence of water," Zhengbin Deng says.

Another bone of contention between researchers is how Mars with its cold surface temperature could accommodate liquid water causing the depositions of rivers and lakes visible on the planet today. Liquid water is a precondition for the assembling of organic molecules, which is what happened at least 3.5 billion years ago at the emergence of life on Earth.

The researchers' analysis of Black Beauty shows that the asteroid impact on Mars released a lot of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

According to Zhengbin Deng, 'this means that the CO2-rich atmosphere may have caused temperatures to rise and thus allowed liquid water to exist at the surface of Mars'.

The team is now doing a follow-up study examining the microscopic water-bearing minerals found in Black Beauty. The age-old watery minerals are both original and unchanged since their formation, which means that the meteorite has witnessed the very emergence of water.

###

THE PITCH
On the Scene at Bon Iver’s Oil Pipeline Protest Show

The band headlined yesterday’s Water Is Life festival, which was held in opposition to Minnesota’s controversial Enbridge Line 3 project.


By Andrea Swensson

August 19, 2021

Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon onstage at the Water Is Life festival. Photo by Tony Nelson.


With the ragged last chord of “Blood Bank” still echoing off the hills around Duluth, Minnesota, and a cargo ship passing behind him in Lake Superior, Justin Vernon stepped to the mic to speak. “We haven’t been on a real stage since March 7, 2020,” the Bon Iver bandleader said, gazing out at the thousands of music fans, environmental activists, and Indigenous tribal members who had amassed in Duluth’s Bayfront Festival Park for the Water Is Life: Stop Line 3 festival last night. After 10 hours of performances and pleading speeches about the nearly completed Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline in Northern Minnesota, which experts say would exacerbate climate change, sully sacred Anishinaabe territory, and contaminate the area’s water supply, Vernon used his moment in the spotlight to address the receptive crowd.

“Being a music fan can just become, well, ‘I like this band and I like that band,’” he said. “But for me, this whole thing started out as an expression of being alive. And you know the one thing we need to be alive? Water. And that’s why we’re here.”

“Blood Bank” began with a poignant collaboration with the pow-wow singers and drummers Joe Rainey Sr. and Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings, who both appeared on Bon Iver’s most recent album, i,i . Over an unflinching drum beat, Rainey and Jennings repeated the lines, “They don’t want us to live here/But we’re still here,” to a roar of applause. Their voices were interlaced with the mournful moans of Vernon’s electric guitar and then completely enveloped by a full-tilt rendition of “Blood Bank,” with founding Bon Iver member Sean Carey on drums and Michael Lewis on bass, that sent the audience leaping into the air (and the baseball cap flying off Vernon’s head).

The cross-cultural exchange between indie rock bands and Indigenous traditional and folk artists was a defining aspect of the Water Is Life festival. The yearly event is spearheaded by the prominent activist and water protector Winona LaDuke and her Honor the Earth organization. LaDuke has been on the frontlines of the Line 3 protests across Northern Minnesota, and is one of the 700 activists who have been jailed so far in the years-long resistance to the tar sands oil pipeline that is snaking its way through the region’s pristine wetlands and lakes.

As they attested throughout the festival, Line 3 protestors have been met with violence by the local police, including being physically tackled and shot with rubber bullets. LaDuke herself was most recently arrested and detained just three weeks ago, shortly after choosing a date for the festival, and several mayors from across rural Minnesota petitioned Duluth’s mayor to stop the event from even taking place. But the pipeline has now garnered national and international attention, and the bands played on.

When asked about the role music can play in protest, LaDuke simply told me, “Music is about love, and it changes us all.” Before walking away, she smirked and added, “Did you hear about those mayors that tried to stop this? I’m not going to jail this week. But maybe next week.”



The festival featured protestors who have been on the front lines of the Line 3 resistance and have raised more than $60,000 in bail funds for the cause. Photo by Tony Nelson.

The day began out in the festival field, with a with a diverse crowd quietly observing a Midewiwin water ceremony and taking sips from small Dixie cups of blessed water, before LaDuke hopped up on the stage to say, “OK, the rock and roll guys are going to play now.” And play they did: From the searing rock anthems of Navajo songwriter Corey Medina to the protest songs of troubadour Larry Long to the harrowing guitar howls of Low’s Alan Sparhawk, who performed a long electric guitar solo accompanied by drum duo Giniw and Nigigoons.

As a prop plane flew a banner with the menacing message “GO LINE 3” over the lake behind the stage, the Ojibwe songwriter Annie Humphrey wrapped up her set with a somber piano ballad version of Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock,” turning the eternal pick-up truck commercial soundtrack into an ode to the strength of the activists who stood in the crowd before her. “No matter what we do, it’ll never be enough,” Humphrey said onstage. “But you can’t do too little, so do something!”

Other artists kept their commentary brief. During a cathartic performance by St. Paul rock quintet Hippo Campus, guitarist Nathan Stocker simply said “Fuck Line 3!” and was greeted with an enthusiastic call and response from the giddy crowd. The entire front half of the festival field had filled in by the time Hippo Campus finished their set, and the large audience remained rapt for a final set of speeches by a full stage of protestors and tribal leaders, including an 11-year-old member of the White Earth Nation named Silas, who said, “This corporation tried to bury us, but they did not know we were seeds.”

After a short set by the Red Lake Nation rapper Thomas X, Bon Iver took the stage to close the night with an eight-song set, beginning with the For Emma, Forever Ago opening track “Flume” that placed a special emphasis on the line, “I move in water, shore to shore/Nothing’s more.” The pared-down, three-piece version of the band was at their most powerful when joined by the omnipresent Minneapolis guitarist Jeremy Ylvisaker, who added an emotional dimension to a cover of Leon Russell’s “A Song for You” and a transportive, drawn-out version of For Emma’s “Creature Fear.”

Before sending attendees away from the shoreline and back up the city’s steep hills, Vernon closed with a cover of Duluth-born Bob Dylan’s “With God on Our Side” and a final call to action: “This is an important part of the process, lifting people up and coming together. But there’s something that happens tomorrow too, and I hope we all remember that.” A Stop Line 3 march is happening today in downtown Duluth to demand that the Army Corps of Engineers pulls the permits for the Line 3 pipeline, and a subsequent rally is scheduled at the Minnesota State Capitol on August 25.

Backstage after the performance, Vernon was energized. “I’ve been inspired by Winona LaDuke since I was 16 years old,” he said, remembering back to when he saw her at an Honor the Earth concert with the Indigo Girls in the ’90s. “This is the only thing that matters right now

Watch Bon Iver Play Fest Protesting Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline, Their First Show Since Pandemic

Ben Gabbe/Getty Images
NEWS AUGUST 19, 2021 8:55 AM BY TOM BREIHAN
Right now, the Canadian oil company Enbridge is proposing Line 3, a massive pipeline expansion to take tar-sand oil from Alberta to Wisconsin. This pipeline would cut across Minnesota, and it could cause environmental devastation and cold violate treaty rights of Anishinaabe peoples and nations. Naturally, a whole lot of people in Minnesota would love to stop this pipeline from being built. Last night in Duluth, as part of a Stop Line 3 benefit, Bon Iver played their first show since the pandemic began last year.

At Duluth’s Bayfront Festival Park, Bon Iver headlined the Water Is Life festival, which raised money for Winona LaDuke’s Honor The Earth organization and which also featured a Minnesota-centric bill of artists like Hippo Campus, Lissie, Adia Victoria, and Low’s Alan Sparhawk. Talking to the Star Tribune before the show, Justin Vernon said that he was looking at ways for Bon Iver to reduce their carbon footprint while playing shows, and that the band would show up to Duluth in one car, with no crew and no sound people, hoping to create “renegade, howl-at-the-moon, urgent musical energy.” (When asked if there were any plans for a new Bon Iver album, Vernon said, “Absolutely none!”)

At the show, Bon Iver played an eight-song set that included older tracks like “Flume,” “Blood Bank,” and “Creature Fear,” as well as covers of Leon Russell’s “A Song For You” and Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side.” Check out some videos and photos from the show below.

Mellow oldie to start out the @boniver set. #WaterIsLife pic.twitter.com/wJYxaDzRBh

— C. Riemenschneider (@ChrisRstrib) August 19, 2021


Genuinely baffled as to how one single person can be so talented.

The lyrics, the accompaniment – everything, has gotten me through so much over the past eight years or so.

It was a pleasure, @boniver – don’t think this is something I’ll ever forget. pic.twitter.com/HBvwFPeQnj

— Jacob Schneider (@_jacobschneider) August 19, 2021


@boniver playing blood bank while a ship comes in during @HonorTheEarth event pic.twitter.com/ERtA0ITKlE

— Ryan Glenn (@ryanglennmn) August 19, 2021



Blood Bank sounded something special tonight. #boniver #WaterIsLife pic.twitter.com/0i4KjwMRiK
— C. Riemenschneider (@ChrisRstrib) August 19, 2021



Creature Fear… we have lift off pic.twitter.com/KghVWVKCds
— kyle (@solace) August 19, 2021

Here’s last night’s setlist, according to one Reddit user:
01 “Flume”
02 “666 ʇ”
03 “Blood Bank”
04 “29 #Strafford APTS”
05 “A Song For You” (Leon Russell cover)
06 “00000 Million”
07 “Creature Fear”
08 “With God On Our Side” (Bob Dylan cover)
You can find out more about the effort against Line 3 here.

Water Is Life protest concert draws diverse, dedicated crowd to Duluth waterfront

Native voices mixed with Bon Iver, Hippo Campus and other rock acts at the 10-hour festival. 

By Chris Riemenschneider Star Tribune

 

AUGUST 18, 2021 — 10:52PM

GALLERY

GRID

1/21

ALEX KORMANN, STAR TRIBUNE

Gallery: Bon Iver member Justin Vernon performed in the Water is Life Festival at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth on Wednesday.

Water Is Life protest concert draws diverse, dedicated crowd to Duluth waterfront - StarTribune.com

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DULUTH – He wasn't yet a fan of Bon Iver or Hippo Campus, but George Martin loves Bob Seger. So the Vietnam and Korean War veteran was touched to have Seger's song "Like a Rock" dedicated to him from Bayfront Festival Park on Wednesday afternoon.

"This is a special day," said Martin, 85, of Wisconsin's Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, after Minneapolis singer Annie Fitzgerald gave him and his service a shout-out.

Martin's wife, Sydney, added, "This makes our heart feel powerful, seeing so many people young and old come out to an event like this."

The event was the Water Is Life Festival at Duluth's waterfront amphitheater, which — depending on your view — was either a rock concert with a purpose or a protest with a great soundtrack.

The 10-hour, 14-act music marathon carried a strong undercurrent of American Indian culture and brought together a lot of different groups of people based around a divisive issue: the Line 3 pipeline, which Canadian oil company Enbridge is currently building across northern Minnesota near the Mississippi River and other waterways.

Organized by Indigenous environmental activist Winona LaDuke and Minneapolis musician David Huckfelt with production help from First Avenue, the festival came together in less than a month's planning time but surprisingly still ran smoothly — even after 11 other northern Minnesota mayors sent a letter to Duluth Mayor Emily Larson trying to stop the event. They cited a risk of violence and their ongoing support for Line 3 to provide jobs and energy.

In the end, the only thing that seemed dangerous at Water Is Life was Wednesday's baking heat and the wildfire in nearby Superior National Forest, which LaDuke singled out on stage.

"It's not supposed to be like this in Duluth," she said in one of a dozen-plus speeches from Native activists about protecting the environment. The concert doubled as a fundraiser for her long-running nonprofit Honor the Earth.

Many of the 4,000 or so attendees were there mainly to catch the main-stage music, a lineup that included Bon Iver — playing his/their first post-quarantine concert — along with other Upper Midwest mainstays Charlie Parr, Hippo Campus and Lissie, plus bluesy South Carolina singer Adia Victoria.

Still, the music fans on hand also seemed to appreciate the added messaging.

"Especially after the pandemic, I want to find ways to contribute and make this a better world," said University of Minnesota Duluth student Emma Bursinger. "This feels like the right way to do it."

Native voices weren't just prominent as speakers but also as musicians throughout the day.

Dorene Day Waubanewquay added spiritual chants to Minneapolis folk musician Larry Long's old-school-folk fight songs. Drum duo Giniw and Nigigoons joined Duluth indie-rock vet Alan Sparhawk of Low fame during an improvised set of electric guitar drone and traditional Indian singing. Hoop dancer Samsoche Sampson and Oregon singer-songwriter Quiltman joined Huckfelt for the earthy soul-searcher "The Book of Life." Red Lake's Thomas X rapped about the struggles and strengths on Indian reservations as he filled in for no-show Mumu Fresh in the slot right before Bon Iver.

A hundred mostly non-Native attendees formed a traditional Indian dance circle during Ojibwe songwriting legend Keith Secola's anthem "NDN Kars."

"Welcome to the resistance," Secola yelled at the dancers, a scene impossible to resist smiling over.

Many of Wednesday's performers purposefully dropped in songs about water. Huckfelt and his all-star band the Unarmed Forces delivered a lush cover of Willie Nelson's "The Maker" ("Oh, deep water / Oh river, rise from your sleep"). Lissie talked about growing up near the big river and pollution in Rock Island, Ill., before her spirited "Oh Mississippi."

Performing as the sun set over the Duluth hillside, Victoria delivered a shimmering set full of poetically haunted, gospel-based songs based on her family's Old South African American heritage: "We have a lot in common," she noted toward her fellow Native performers.

With as many fans singing along as in Bon Iver's set, St. Paul-reared pop-rockers Hippo Campus looked downright giddy playing their first show of 2021, offering extra-buoyant versions of "South" and "Warm Glow."

Bon Iver's eight-song set started out mellow with "Flume" but quickly turned feverish as a pair of Indian drum circle singers, Jeremy and Dylan, set up a smoldering "Blood Bank." Singer Justin Vernon ended with a cover of "With God on Our Side" — "a song by a man born in Duluth [dedicated] to the men of Enbridge," he said.

After 10-plus years of building up Bon Iver's set musically and visually, singer Justin Vernon made a bold step back to a raw, three- and four-piece band that exposed a few cracks (namely his voice in the high-reaching "22 #Stafford Apts") but also added a tenderness (especially in a cover of Leon Russell's "A Song for You" accompanied by Mike Lewis on sax).

Summing up his emotions about being back on stage, Vernon said music "started as an expression of being alive."

"And you know what the number one thing is to keep us alive?" he asked.

"Water" was the answer, but live music like the passionate and often urgent performances at this festival also might have sufficed.

Chris Riemenschneider • 612-673-4658

Chris Riemenschneider has been covering the Twin Cities music scene since 2001, long enough for Prince to shout him out during "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)." The St. Paul native authored the book "First Avenue: Minnesota's Mainroom" and previously worked as a music critic at the Austin American-Statesman in Texas.

chrisr@startribune.com 612-673-4658 ChrisRstrib

 MUSIC

Justin Vernon on Duluth anti-Line 3 concert: 'We have to come together to save our environment'

Grammy Award musician from Bon Iver is the headliner for "Water Is Life: Stop Line 3," a festival organized by Honor the Earth as a fundraiser to stop the Enbridge pipeline.

Written By: Christa Lawler | 6:04 pm, Aug. 17, 2021

Bon Iver. Contributed / Graham Tolbert

Justin Vernon wasn't trying to dash other people's dreams of being a pop star during "Water Is Life," a 30-minute conversation with Winona LaDuke and other artists and organizers involved with the "Water Is Life: Stop Line 3" festival, scheduled for Wednesday at Bayfront Festival.

But he didn't get into the music business to get famous — or semi-famous with a lower-case f, as he described himself. Rather, the Grammy Award-winning artist behind Bon Iver said he wanted to move people.

"I've never really stopped thinking that art has the ability to move and change people's hearts," he said. "Conversations are one thing, philosophical debates and town halls are one thing, politics are one thing. But that's why I'm here and that's why I can't stop doing what I do."

He's offered a portion of royalties to organizations combating domestic and sexual violence, gender inequity, and in 2020, he launched a campaign to get Wisconsin voters registered. He's also invested in saving the planet.

"I have this feeling, it's more than a belief, it's a feeling in me, " he said. "We are all so similar and share so much. We have to come together to save our environment, save our earth from total annihilation. That's on its way."

Winona LaDuke

Bon Iver is the headliner for the all-day festival, a fundraiser for Winona LaDuke's Honor the Earth organization, with its mission to raise awareness and money for environmental issues, especially those that affect the Indigenous community — specifically Enbridge's Line 3 project. The annual concert starts at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday at Bayfront Festival Park and the lineup includes Corey Medina, Larry Long & Friends, Annie Humphrey and Band, Charlie Parr, David Huckfelt and Unarmed Forces, Adia Victoria, Hippo Campus, Mumu Fresh, Superior Siren, Alan Sparhawk, Quiltman, Keith Secola and Lissie.

Tickets are $65 at axs.com.

David Huckfelt, formerly of The Pines, described the musicians in the lineup as "living and dying by the spirit of music." He said he has seen online comments from people are surprised that these artists would support an effort to stop Line 3. There's no reason to be surprised, he said, have you listened to their music?

SEE ALSO: Despite plea for cancellation, Duluth says it can't call off anti-Line 3 concert at city park

"The support from artists is vast, massive," he said. "This intersection of art, music and activism reminds me of a John Trudell, a huge mentor and leader and groundbreaker," Huckfelt said.

Trudell, the late Minneapolis-based artist and activist, told Huckfelt that some people define insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But, he recalled Trudell saying, "That's not all of it," Huckfelt said. "He said, 'I think about alchemy. We do the same thing, we show up, we bring our creativity, our ideas and our passion. We do it again and again and again until the conditions are right and then everything changes.'"

LaDuke, who met the Indigo Girls in 1990 during an Earth Day event and launched this concert with them soon after, told the News Tribune in 2019 that there had been about 100 shows since. Artists, she said, are who she connects with, and she spent most of her life around great musicians who are "doing the right thing."

"I want to be with the team that has the vision and the courage and the beauty to change the world," she said. "I don't want to listen to a bunch of guys with dumb ideas trying to make a buck. I want to be with the heart and the spirit."

Last week, a handful of officials along the pipeline route sent a letter to the city of Duluth asking the city to cancel the concert. That request was denied. In previous years, artists like Chastity Brown, Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt, Brandi Carlile and The Chicks have played the festival.