“Death by a thousand cuts.” This is the image that Pastor Paul Wilson and his colleague-in-arms Jeeva Abate bring to their grassrootsrun fight against a 600-mile fracked natural gas pipeline.

Four EMU clubs— Earthkeepers, Black Student Union (BSU), Peace Fellowship, and The Young Democrats—joined forces and invited Wilson and Abate to travel the nearly two hours from Buckingham County, Va. to Harrisonburg to talk about their work resisting the pipeline that will run through a historically heavily African American community.

The two men spoke in Common Grounds to nearly forty-five people on Sunday, Feb. 4. They shared about their work and how it connects to their diverse religious beliefs and traditions.

Junior Andy King, a current co-president of Earthkeepers, first met Wilson at an NAACP event in September.

“I knew that Paul was a deeply passionate man and that he had a knack for connecting with people in a meaningful way. I didn’t know anything about [Abate] until Paul told me that he would like Jeeva to accompany him to the event,” he said.

Abate is a member of the intentional community Yogaville in Buckingham County, where the proposed pipeline will run. Yogaville’s website describes it as, “a vibrant spiritual community,” a place to, “experience the yogic lifestyle.”

gic lifestyle.” In the same county, Wilson serves as an ostensibly very different kind of religious leader: the Baptist pastor of a mostly rural, mostly African American community Dominion Power Company is the driving force behind The Atlantic Coast pipeline. The pipeline will feature three compressor stations, one of which is located in Buckingham, Va.

When both men learned about the effects of the compressor station in their county, they were determined to get involved. Abate noted that the pipeline’s routes often have an “inordinate impact on poor communities.” Companies like Dominion offer landowners undeniably tempting deals, sometimes as much as millions of dollars, for the rights to their land.

The pipeline companies and the governmental organizations that regulate them often fail to address the potential environmental damages that occur with the installation of a pipeline, the speakers argued. Abate and Wilson cited water, air, and human health impacts associated with fracking and the transportation of natural gas.

Junior Lindsay Acker, president of Peace Fellowship, attended a dinner with the speakers where she learned more about the details of the implementation of the compressor station and surrounding pipeline.

“Even people who don’t think the pipeline is bad have to admit that Dominion has designed a particularly poor one here,” she explained.

The talk’s focus was primarily concerned with issues of environmental justice. The speakers identified several surveys conducted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that said that the community affected by the pipeline is 60 percent white.

Wilson said that the actual population is closer to 85 percent black. This poses questions about the unfairness of loading environmental risk onto poorer, more disadvantaged communities.

For many student leaders, the things happening in Buckingham connect with their own concerns. “This is Earthkeepers’ first climate justice-oriented event, but it’s not the first to challenge our student body and community to think in new ways about how they can have an impact on our sustainable future,” King added.

Acker noted, “This year, Peace Fellowship is making an effort to center indigenous voices in our conversations. While not all of these conversations are focused on climate justice, the conversation is almost always present, as the United States continues to use and abuse native land.”

However, the event was not only geared towards students. A large group of community members gathered to learn more about this issue.

“I am a new arrival … I’ve been learning about the issues [in this area],” said Irvin Peckham, who was drawn to the event on the recommendation of a friend. “I’ve been interested in the environment for most of my adult life; the friends I’ve been making in the area are [also] interested in the environment.”

During a question and answer time, Senior Nidhi Vinod asked Wilson and Abate if they had any pieces of advice specifically for students.

Wilson said that students need to “be concerned.” He added that college students need to process information for themselves and added, “and don’t let anybody tell you what it means.”

Wilson concluded, “God made us to be in dominion over the earth, and not for Dominion to be over us.”