Marc & Helen Hudson

“We support HEC because of its mission to protect Indiana’s waters, natural environments and biotic communities, its stance on environmental justice, its good-hearted activism and its patient work with a difficult state legislature.”

We’ve enjoyed attending the last many Greening the Statehouse gatherings (and so look forward to attending them again in person in coming years!) We are so fortunate to have such a talented team of activists working at the state level on environmental issues of profound concern to us all during this time of rapid planetary warming and collapsing ecosystems. We understand how significant these times are, how much we have to do as a human collective in the next few decades to reduce global warming, soil loss, biocide use, extinctions, etc. and grateful for your continued work in all sectors of the local household of nature.

We especially hope more Indiana farmers come to understand how industrial farming, especially the wide use of CAFOs, is unsustainable and how we must learn to care more for the soil’s fertility. We hope that we can phase out all coal-fired plants and come to rely more and more on solar and wind energy here in Indiana and across the U.S. and the planet so that we can slow the rate of and eventually end global warming. We hope we can do more to protect and increase the acreage of our natural areas and ensure our creeks, streams, and lakes are bordered with forests (rather than eroding fields) and thus enable our state’s biotic communities to survive. And we hope that greater care will be taken for those who live in heavily industrialized areas and bear the brunt air and water pollution. We hope, finally, that our state legislatures are peopled with folks with some environmental understanding, imagination, and respect for God’s Creation so that they make decisions with an eye not to their re-election or the power of their party but to the prosperity of our human and biotic communities.

(Marc Hudson). I am a writer, a medievalist, and scholar who taught English and American literature and creative writing at Wabash College for 28 years. I have written articles on the environment and natural history for such magazines as Audubon, Sewanee Review, Iceland Review, Pacific Northwest magazine, and Environmental Action. My several books of poetry, including Afterlight, The Disappearing Poet Blues, and, most recently, East of Sorrow, often focus on the natural world. I am presently finishing a book entitled, Imagination and the Household of Nature: A Study of the Lives and Thought of Henry Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson and Wendell Berry. At Wabash, I was a member of the Environmental Concerns Committee; I was also a board member of our local Friends of Sugar Creek for many years and wrote and edited the newspaper column, Currents from 2015-2020. I am also a member of St. John’s Episcopal Church and have served on its vestry; and a member of the League of Women Voters and serve on its Climate Action Committee. I am an unrepentant Earthiest, gardener, and vegetarian. And proud father of a daughter, Alexandra Hudson, pre-school special ed. teacher, actor, and playwright, and of a son, Ian G. Hudson, now gone but beloved of many.