Culture & Community | Environment | Arts & Culture | Nature | New Haven Climate Movement
Adrian Huq and Contributed Photos.
Chalked messages encouraging climate action spread out across the New Haven Green. Children sat on the asphalt to make environmentally-themed posters. Banners detailing the dangers of climate change lay on the grass for passersby to read.
Largest of all was the eye-catching “Solar Butterfly,” a fully solar-powered trailer parked on the grass.
This scene unfolded Monday in front of New Haven City Hall, where members of the New Haven Climate Movement (NHCM) hosted a three hour-long action ahead of Earth Overshoot Day, or the date by which humanity has consumed all the resources that the planet can naturally reproduce for the year. This year, the actual day fell on Wednesday, August 2. Close to 30 people, as well as additional passersby, attended.
The event was a collaboration with Solar Butterfly, an organization based out of Switzerland that promotes climate solutions by traveling around the world using its fully solar-powered trailer. The self-proclaimed “largest sustainability tour in the world,” Solar Butterfly is undertaking a 2022-2025 tour spanning six continents and 90 countries.
The Solar Butterfly team, which is currently on the North and Central America leg of the tour, reached out to NHCM about collaborating on a public event together for their stop in New Haven.
Videoman Kai Hicks and Max Schiwbe.
“We want to showcase that the world is full of solutions, and to find these solutions, we travel around the world with our butterfly,” said crew member Noël Heinz.
Built in 2022, the physical trailer also has a sustainable backstory. “To build this trailer, we collected one ton of PET bottles,” said Max Schiwbe, a driver and mechanic in the crew. They also used aluminum for the outside.
After an hour and a half of socializing, art making, fliering, and tabling outreach by the New Haven Coalition for Active Transportation, several speakers assembled in front of the wing of the Solar Butterfly. Emcee Manxi Han, a rising sophomore at Wilbur Cross High School, Youth Climate Action Team (YCAT) intern, and a key NHCM member in organizing the event, welcomed guests.
Toni Odom-Kelly, a rising senior at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School and NHCM summer art intern, began as the first speaker, connecting the overconsumption of resources by the United States to the Earth Overshoot Day theme.
“We, America, are greedy. However, what people fail to realize is that greed kills,” she said. 
Top: Hampson at the mic. Bottom: Odom-Kelly holding up a protest sign.
“Greed killed 61,672 people due to heat exhaustion in Europe last summer,” Odom-Kelly continued. “Greed kills approximately seven million people due to air pollution each year. America’s greed has caused it to be so hot in Arizona this summer that you can receive severe burns just from falling on the ground. Our greed has caused South Florida’s ocean to reach an astounding 101.1 degrees Fahrenheit, which creates a devastating reality for the ocean’s coral and marine life.”
Rosie Hampson, a rising senior at Wilbur Cross High School, YCAT intern, and NHCM organizer, spoke on the need for the New Haven Board of Education (NHBoE) to act on the objectives of the Board of Education Climate Emergency Resolution that was passed last September.
Calling the need for change “undeniable,” Hampson recalled how much food waste she’s seen in the city’s public schools, as well as the impact of diesel buses on the health and wellness of her community. She said that she can feel “the frustration of living in a time of extreme crisis,” exacerbated by the fact that she and her peers aren’t taught about what is happening, or “given the tools needed to take action.”.
“We need these climate solutions to be implemented in our schools without delay,” Hampson said.
Steve Winter, executive director of the city’s Office of Climate and Sustainability, pointed to municipal projects that are meant to address climate change on a city level. He announced the city’s purchase of an electric refuse truck, a push for the NHBoE to apply for an electric school bus grant this year, and the completion of a study to electrify all of the refuse trucks in the city’s fleet.
He also noted an effort to put solar panels on top of New Haven Transfer Station to power refuse trucks. As part of his vision for what New Haven will be like in 2030, he also hopes to see a city-wide composting program implemented to divert organic matter from the waste stream while providing compost to community gardens and Connecticut farms.
Following the speeches, some attendees stuck around to do more chalking and poster making.
Top: Han, a member of NHCM who served as the event's emcee. Bottom: Rising high school seniors Ethar Nofal (Metropolitan Business Academy) and Sama Abdulghany (James Hillhouse High School) holding up a poster they made in advance of the action at an NHCM workshop hosted by Odom-Kelly.
“I think that climate art, or just art in general, is such a powerful way to express things,” Han said. “Us encapsulating the climate emergency into these pieces of art is just really important because they really do catch the attention of the people who are walking by.”
This rang true for this action, where adults, teenagers, and parents with kids slowed down to take in the scene or stuck around to ask questions or make art. A pair of siblings, Laina and Roman Byron, worked on a piece together that proudly proclaimed “We Love the Planet.”
Han also noted that art is a gateway to get to people who wouldn’t normally engage with the topic to learn more. One Spanish-speaking man who rode by on a bike spoke at length about the project with an NHCM member who was close to fluent in the language. He then joined in by chalking his own message in Spanish on the sidewalk afterwards.
The Solar Butterfly crew plans to conclude this leg of its tour in Panama this Christmas. After touring Asia, Australia, South America, and Africa, the crew hopes to complete their journey by attending the 2025 United Nations Conference of Parties (COP30) in Brazil to deliver their collected 1,000 climate solution ideas from individuals, groups, and businesses around the world.
Learn more about NHCM through their website. You can also keep up to date on their work through their Instagram and Facebook. Learn more about the Solar Butterfly on their website. In the interest of full transparency, this writer is a cofounder of the New Haven Climate Movement Youth Action Team.