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Julia Butterfly Hill
Beginning in 1997, Julia Butterfly Hill lived in the canopy of a 1,000-year-old redwood tree affectionately called “Luna” (Luna still stands!) in Humboldt County, California. For 738 days, Julia ate, slept, and did everything else humans need to on Luna in order to keep loggers from cutting her down. Julia went on to become a notable person within the international environmentalist movement. But wait, hang on a moment, this article isn’t precisely about Julia Butterfly Hill. Let’s take a moment to jump into our DeLorean powered by 1.21 gigawatts (of renewable energy) and head back to the year 2000.
It’s the year 2000. A chad wasn’t the epitomic meme of a so-called “alpha male”. A chad, at least the hanging variety, was the basis with which to disregard votes unless a ballot card was punched fully through. Hanging chads and their lesser known counterpart, pregnant chads (insert smart alec social commentary on how the hanging Chads seemingly overshadowed the pregnant chads here), were the central focus of the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore wherein the Supreme Court halted a Florida Supreme Court ruling mandating a manual recount of ballots associated with the American Presidential race that occurred that year. Rage Against the Machine, a rock band whose entire lineup is now above the age of 50, closed the New York Stock Exchange prematurely while filming the music video for “Sleep Now in the Fire”…
