I appreciated my environmental studies degree in undergrad precisely because it forced me to look at environmental issues from a range of disciplines: biologically, ecologically, politically, internationally, economically. 

Some are more obvious (studying ecology when studying the environment?  I'm shocked!)

Others are more fraught...to be an environmentalist who understands the science means I'm constrained politically.  There's such a stark difference between the two political parties that I'm pretty sure I'll only ever pick the one that, you know, goes with science.

But economics?  Capitalism?  Whole other story. 

So let's talk turkey.  Environmental economics is pretty straightforward.  At its core it says that environmental pollution created by human activity and usually from point sources needs to be accounted for in the market / economy.  Point source?  What is that you say?  Picture a factory with a pipe going up in to the air or a pipe putting leftover waste into a waterway.  If that factory or point source can just spew into the soil, air or water, we all pay for it eventually.  And we all pay for it extremely inefficiently when it's a pound of cure versus if we had just had an ounce of prevention at the point source.  (see: A Civil Action, Erin Brokovich, Dark Waters)

This is what economists call an externality.

The cost of environmental pollution - like greenhouse gas emissions or air / water waste - is often external to the marketplace.

Economists do not disagree with the existence of externalities.  Indeed, economists almost universally agree that externalities should be internalized to the marketplace.

Where people tend to disagree is in the how.  Corporations tend to have a lot of influence and the idea of paying anything additional brings on the heavy, heavy of lobbyists. 

Don't believe me?  Oh, I think you will.
(read after the jump)

We humans categorize each other.  Even from our youngest age, we group similar objects and people together. Yet, we reject when those categorizations apply to ourselves (even to the point of irony...see: my fellow Millennials reject the label "Millennial"). 

The reason is simple: when we accept or adopt a label it becomes part of our identity.

Many years back when I started Enviro(ish), I started it on a principle in the wake of this truth. I proposed that we should not get hung up on the label and just do eco-friendly things in our day-to-day.  This is still true, in part...meaning yes, please continue to do eco-friendly things.  With the way 2020 is going, here's hoping some people reading this don't leave their lights and faucets on and put recyclables in the trash out of spite.  But I digress.

As my Enviro(ish) conversation has continued, and as the systemic nature of the climate crisis has reared its ugliness, and seeped more deeply into our collective conscious, I've been spending more time thinking whether my theory of change of Enviro(ish) is really enough. Is it the only thing that matters?  That answer is no.  It's no longer "do eco-friendly things and don't worry about being labeled an environmentalist."   I fervently believe now it is "do eco-friendly things and embrace being an environmentalist."  

Nearly every conservative I know in real life enjoys hunting, fishing, visiting our national parks and/or getting outside in nature.  Newsflash: this makes you an environmentalist.  In this starkly regressive period of the Trump Administration on all the issues I care about most, there is a bright spot.  Do you remember when Congressman Chaffetz (R-UT) tried to sell of 3.3 million acres of public land and utterly failed?  I do.  I have posted before about how the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were passed on a bipartisan basis, but I feel the need to remind people these foundational laws for environmental protection were signed by a Republican President. Environmental protection use to be universally agreed upon.  (And while I have you here, President Nixon also started the Environmental Protection Agency.) 
(Read more after the jump)

We as a nation are grappling with corruption and inappropriate conduct at the highest levels of power.  Whether it is the White House, Hollywood, or corporate America...something about these past few years has broken open a multitude of stories that people bottled up or swept under the rug for years.  I believe this breaking dam flooding us with news is connected with Trump. It's been three years to the day since I woke up for the first time and realized a reality television star was voted into the most powerful role in the world by 3 million fewer of my fellow Americans over the most unequivocally qualified Presidential candidate in my lifetime. Given that the winner was a man and the loser was female screams at me every day exactly one thing:

No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I follow the rules and play the game, a man who works a fraction as hard will always succeed before I do simply because I'm a woman and people don't like women who have power, especially when they seek power.

Look, we can argue about whether the above statement is objectively true all the time...I know there are exceptions....but this *is* the rule.  There are study after study after study on the double bind women face that makes this the truth not just emotionally but experientially.  Yes, for all women.  This is the rule under which being female in America operates and something about the Presidency following this rule to the painfully egregious degree it did in the wake of November 2016's election made me confront its truth more directly than I had before.  And the bottomless indecency, the relentless corruption, and the endless circus going on because of the current occupant of the White House reminds me daily of the inequality and unfairness I face as a woman because of this steadfast and oppressive rule of life. 

In the wake of not being able to be in denial, what happened to me was a psychological and philosophical shift that will stay with me for the rest of my life, summed up as: "never again".  I believe we got this outcome because like everyone else I know, I bottled up truths and swept them under the rug.  I focused on optimism.  We all tried to live in a state of denial and belief that equality is inevitable on the long arc of the moral universe.  And we could comfort ourselves with famous words telling us that arc bends towards justice.  Just nobody ask what forces actually bend that arc.  Keep it to a superficial catch phrase, don't look deeper into what Nobel peace prize winner Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr really said.

But today I don't want to focus on the people in power or reflect on the inherent inequity of the situation.  We do a lot of that, all the time.  Today I want to talk about the passive way in which we respond to the courage of whistleblowers who disrupt that script.  How we discount the actions by the people who come forward first, who testify at great risk to their livelihoods and sometimes their life to speak truth to power.

We talk about power being held to account as something obvious and inevitable. Abstractly it always is talked about with phrases like "of course", as though naturally everyone does it in real life all day every day. 
Uh, N-O-P-E.

Look, not to go all hard-core Nazi history on you this early in a post, but everyone thinks they are Oskar Schindler and no one wants to admit they would've been in the Nazi party even though that math equation can't work out. More importantly, the majority of people would've been bystanders during that era of Germany: not actively perpetrating crimes against humanity, probably knowledgeable enough that something was amiss, and doing nothing about it.  Go along to get along. That's human nature yo.  That's where we're at.

So why do we persist in talking about whistleblowers as something run-of-the-mill we expect?  Like their courage is so every day and common?  I think that's because being righteous against oppressive power is so deeply in the narrative we have as Americans that it's part of our cultural DNA.  Our country was founded by patriots who pushed back against a monarchy...who held power to account and founded a nation based on democratic principles and liberty, with a first amendment enshrining our freedom of speech and freedom of the press.  We learn about that history in textbooks sanitized of not only the impact to indigenous communities and erasing the stories of non-white males who helped create that history, but more importantly, erased of the struggle to get there.  We downplay the sacrifice because we know the outcome.    We all know that the colonies defeat the British, that the North wins the Civil War and slavery ends, and we know that America and our Allies defeat the Nazis. Why focus on the messy middle when we have to get through 200 years of history in 2 months? Next decade please!

Today I want to reflect on the time periods when those outcomes were most unlikely and most uncertain.  Because in order to truly appreciate the courage of someone speaking truth to hold power accountable, we have to marinate ourselves in the moments where its not inevitable at all and soak in the truth of how systems of power protect themselves.  In order to understand the bravery it takes, we have to empathize with how much fear and abject terror a person has to overcome to speak up in the first place.  The more powerful the person who is doing wrong, the more important it is to come forward, obviously.  But also the higher the stakes, the scarier the threats towards the person who might speak out and the greater likelihood of irreversible, negative impact to that whistleblower.

And I'm not writing this down abstractly as a citizen.  I'm writing this as a way to explain my absence from blogging these past few months.  You see, I personally experienced something I knew was wrong in mid-June, a much worse second example that showed a pattern, and through a series of things that happened the week after, forces converged in my conscience and I was confronted with the choice every person in a situation like that faces: "do I speak up at great risk to myself and my future, or do I stay quiet and go along to get along". 

Courage is one of my top five values and given the severe nature of the situation, I chose to speak up.  This post isn't about whether I experienced this because of the organizations I volunteer with or where I worship or where I work.  It's not about who I went to in reporting it.  I want to level up to something more universal about the experience that applies to any power situation where speaking truth is somewhere in the range of hard to dangerous.  Here's what I've learned in the still ongoing, painful aftermath of my decision to speak up....

This is first in a series to reflection on each documentary I saw at Mountainfilm Festival 2019.  Each post will be a reflection on the documentary and a focus on the impact and the issue that documentary is raising.  My goal is to share my authentic take on watching the films as a witness who cares about having an impact. This is not a film review.  Spoilers are probably all up in this.

Like every American and likely every person around the world, we've all heard the sitting President of the United States talk about the wall.  I won't do that justice by linking out to it.  I've always said when the topic comes up in conversation that having grown up in San Diego, I realize how pointless a wall as a concrete barrier is.  Pointless both because people find a way around it always, but pointless also in a greater sense.  The amount of folks who crossed the border from San Diego / Tijuana everyday for commerce, for work, for recreation...it always was and continues to be high.  I remember vacationing in Rosarito and Ensenada growing up.  I remember my neighbor working in Tijuana, driving himself to the border and walking across to save time so his company would pick him up on the other side.  The talk and rhetoric about the border has always been puzzling and annoying to me as someone from a border community.  The rhetoric is so heated that other side from the United States could besome form of oozing evil that will come through any gap, when in reality, the border is an artificial construct in a way you really understand only by living near one.  In reality it's always porous like Swiss cheese going in both directions, and we're better off economically, politically and as humans when we think about it this way.

I had heard that the monarch butterfly which migrates across the border by the millions was being threatened by Trump's border wall, and so was intrigued to catch this documentary at Mountainfilm 2019.  The premise of the film is a fascinating concept.  The filmmaker and a team of characters (literally and cinematically) will travel along the 1200 miles of the Colorado River that forms the border between Texas and Mexico from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico.  Canoes or kayaks, sure.  I fully admit that I didn't expect before immersing myself in the film that this would involve bikes and horses.  Bikes for the first stretch from El Paso because the river is fairly dried up, and horses through the amazing wildlands of Big Bend National Park.

Check out this beautiful imagery from The River and the Wall webpage and read more after the jump.

This is my second year at this amazing film festival, and I have to admit something to you dear reader.  I didn't want to talk about it.  I knew how transformative this experience was for me last year, anticipated it happening again this year, and I decided before going I was so protective of the community that goes to Mountainfilm and the experience I get to have there that I didn't want to share it with the world.  Via social media.  Here.  Anywhere. Because getting to be in this stunningly beautiful place, seeing films that are made to move me, exploring the caverns of my emotions, and illuminating the power of storytelling...these were all things I didn't want to talk about for fear the stampede might follow.  Something like "the first rule of Mountainfilm club is don't talk about it".

I was wrong.

The theme this year was Equity.  While the moderator of the opening symposium focused on this topic -  Dr Michael Sawyer - was right to say "equity is a way of life, not a theme at a film festival," I found myself in an interesting spot amongst my Mountainfilm friends (family really, but I digress).  At first I was explaining the concept of equity compared to equality...essentially verbally stumbling through a description of this diagram that reveals equality as just giving everyone the same regardless of need, compared to equity which gives according to the need:

By the end of the film festival, I was personally so appreciative of the rare opportunity to really explore in depth the concepts of intersectionality and privilege.  It's rare as a white woman for this the opportunity to do such a concentrated amount of internal work on myself with such rigor and consistency over the course of a weekend.  The organizers of the conference, like me, I think held some fear that my fellow white people who attend the conference would not react well to having their privilege called out and dissected.  In the final talk on Monday - aptly named "What Now?" - an attendee of color said their skepticism turned into appreciation and I was grateful and more than a little relieved to hear that perspective from a non-white attendee. 

I thought I would keep Mountainfilm to myself, and jealously guard it as a treasure that I get to experience every year among the stunning peaks of Telluride.  I believed despite the evidence of very few clicks on this site that by not posting about it...that maybe some others wouldn't hear about it and they wouldn't come.  But here's how the equity theme challenged me: it told me I was wrong.  That wealth is - yes - my privilege as a white person and my economic income that affords me the chance to get to Telluride and vacation there for the weekend, but it's also the wealth of ideas.  That through Mountainfilm I gain immeasurable knowledge and have a responsibility to share that bounty with others.  That by benefiting from these stunning films on difficult topics, I should leave and continue this conversation in any and every way possible to honor their beauty and creation.

So I am committing to sharing individual posts on each one of the films as my contribution and my commitment to not be an elitist prick about it.  Being elitist was never a good fit for me anyhow.  ;)

Each post will be a reflection on the documentary and a focus on the impact and the issue that documentary is raising.  There's a lot to unpack with each one, so I'll focus just on one documentary and issue at a time. My goal is to share my authentic take on watching the films as a witness who cares about having an impact. It will not be a review.  I'm not here to enumerate flaws. I'm not a filmmaker, nor am I in "the industry".  Plus, I didn't get my nickname "sunshine" because I'm critical. I rewatch my favorite movies. Often. #unapologetic

I'm excited to share this journey with you here, and especially to hear your comments and reflections on the documentaries and this experience.  I have come down from the mountaintop both literally and figuratively. 

Shall we? Let's go!

As you can tell by this Enviro(ish) site, I have not blogged in over a year.  There’s a lot of reasons for that, excuses really, and one of them is that I’ve always questioned this online realm for impact.  Is it slacktivism?  Does it translate into impact in real life?  Who reads this anyways?  You do?  Awesome.  Thank you for that :)

But more importantly, the Trump era has drastically changed the landscape and re-defined the priorities of progressive causes so dramatically that I’ve been “in the weeds” as it were, trying to figure it out as it changes in real time. And just when I think I’ve seen the landscape enough to paint a picture of it here, it seems to shift.  I’ve been taking actions and redefining my theory of change, and I’m ready(ish) to share with you what I think, believe and know.  Truthfully, in any conversation about impact, you never really know what you’ve accomplished until the outcome stage.  “The proof is in the pudding” so to speak.  And so to be perfectly honest with myself and to you, for a long time I have struggled with writing this blogpost because when are you ever done?  The answer is never.  On this long arc of the moral universe as Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr said, I don't think we ever reach the end.  But that's not the point.  The point is we work towards bending it every day.

One of my founding principles, though, is never let the perfect be the enemy of the good or eco.  So here’s hoping this post helps you in one way or the other.

This idea for a post topic is in recognition of the numerous people asking me “but seriously Megan, how do you know which environmental organizations to give to that have the most impact?”  I am definitely going to answer that with a direct response.  But first I am going to walkthrough a few priorities on that journey.  While it may seem to swerve and wander, I can assure you it’s with necessity and intention. And I hope you end up having the impact you are truly seeking.

This is going to sound hokey, and new age…but honestly the MOST important thing about having an impact is growing your mindset.  Let the belief settle within you that *you* *can* make a difference.  We live in a world that simultaneously and often negates aspects of our identities, which can undermine our sense of self and especially self worth.  And it all comes wrapped in an ever increasing amount of disconnectedness and isolation.  I’m not here to disagree with any of those experiences that are genuine barriers to having an impact.

I am here to tell you one simple truth: if you believe you can’t make a difference, then you definitely won’t.

The individual belief that one person can’t make a difference is something we all share.  This feeling is universal.  This cuts to the core of our own insecurities as people.  Every human has this doubt.  But therein lies the unlock.  If every person had this same doubt, then so did Nelson Mandela, Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, and Susan B. Anthony.  We talk about their legacies as though it was inevitable.  But in reading autobiographies of all these folks the theme of self-doubt is deep throughout.  Their doubt is the same doubt that we all share, and it is the relief valve towards progress.  They were just one person, too.  And their progress was not theirs alone.  Their progress was thanks to thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of individual actions from people whose names we don’t know and were part of the movements they have come to symbolize.  Embrace the possibilities and hold space for awe at what can be accomplished.  And I've said before, if you have a case for optimism as the way to solve climate change, you can be optimistic about the change you seek too.

So if you want to have an impact, first, you have to believe you can.

The next four steps are after the jump, after this poem which always inspires me to bring my mindset back into the truth of infinite possibility.

This blogpost is to lay out the journey and rationale behind the Action Network petition I am asking you to sign.  It has some text.  Some lengthy text.  I will not apologize for starting off with my personal story.  #notsorry  There's also this TEDx talk that says storytelling is best practice for change petitions anyways.  (In case you don’t know me, I’ll let you in on a secret before we get into it...I do my homework and am thorough as fuck.  You’re welcome).  

Climate change has been the one issue that threads my entire adult life into a cohesive fabric/story.  I am not exaggerating.  I left my parents a doe-eyed college freshman to get called an “environmentalist” solely because I turned off the faucet, recycled my cans and turned out the lights.  I did those things because I came from a state with droughts, aluminum rebates and rolling electrical brownouts.  It wasn’t “environmental”, it was just common sense where I came from.  But the label people applied to me stuck and found its way into my subconscious.  

I gave environmental classes a try and only a couple years later, environmental work had me doing some pretty cool shit.  I got chased in the African bush by charismatic megafauna (loved it!) and those experiences inspired me to commit my academic and professional life to helping find ways for humanity’s survival on this overtaxed spaceship Earth.  I’ve struggled on oil/gas regulation as a contractor for the EPA under George W Bush.  I’ve drowned my eco depression during the climate change denial backlash of 2008-2009 with frequent Facebook posts on the facts of climate change.  I knew it was a shout into the abyss, but sometimes you just need to repeat things that are true - the facts - to maintain a fingerhold on sanity in a denialist, crazy world.  Friends give me eco-related birthday presents, e.g.  a copy of Al Gore's book An Inconvenient Truth, a coffee mug with a picture of the world where when filled with hot liquid the shoreline disappears to represent sea level rise.   My classmates in business school introduce me as "into eco and green stuff" because it is clearly “my brand.”  My environmentalism has ruined multiple dates for me...I mean, I recognize these "romances" were doomed before they never started, but having a climate change denier red-faced yell at you on a date, in a public space, is extremely not awesome.  That has happened more than once. 

I’ve lived this issue.  I’ve given my blood, sweat and tears to this issue.  I’ve trolled for this issue.   In summary, it’s pretty much the defining characteristic of Megan Rast, and I’d like to take this opportunity to say:
FUCK YAS! 

So when November happened, and I marshaled the strength on November 9th to go to my day job as an environmental and diversity professional, key parts of me were broken.  I felt personally indicted.  How could my fellow Americans have gone so far from the eco, equitable and just country I’ve devoted my sweat equity to building?  How could the meaningfulness infused in my choice of life’s work be meaningless to so many?  

These questions have weighed heavily on my soul.  They have changed me.  They have reformulated my theory of change.  They have converted me into an active citizen participating in my democracy.  They have made me a proud, card-carrying member of the resistance.

People say to focus on one issue, focus on what you know.  Well people, this is my one issue.  This is what I know.  And if planting my “Carbon Tax is THE Answer” flag in the sand ends with me tilting at windmills or Thelma-and-Louise-style driving off an insanity cliff, so be it.  When I was getting chased by elephants and rhinos doing that fieldwork in the South African bush, the wildlife rangers nicknamed me Dudwani, which is Zulu for honey badger, because I would doggedly go forth no matter what.  That means I was honeybadger status almost a decade before the viral Youtube video,  since before it was a thing on the interwebs.  And this I promise you: I’m going to keep on honeybadgering the shit out of this idea because it is that awesome and good ideas go to Washington DC to die.  Not this time.  Not today, Satan.  #staynasty

Depending on how you count, I have either been sitting on this for 15 years or 3 months….
—yes, it is true (but unflattering to moi) that 15 years ago in an environmental economics class I learned about the efficiency and effectiveness of a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The numbers and data said it all.  I was a convert then, but obvi did nothing about it.  Life gets in the way?   The takeaway is this: very smart people in our most venerable institutions of higher learning know some stuff, and we’ve ignored them this whole time. That is silly.  We should stop, collaborate and listen.
—3 months ago I was listening to my favorite Crooked Media podcasts on my public transit commute home (low carbon intensity, natch) and heard laments about how the Democratic Party has no solutions for globalization and automation, Democrats only whine about the problem.   Maybe a universal basic income so people can retrain?  They said.  But how would that even get paid for?  [Insert rant with no solution].  

How about NOT ending the conversation and solving the greatest threat humanity has ever faced AT THE SAME TIME?  Attention successfully grabbed?  Super.

OK let’s get something straight: this is not my idea.  Clearly.  Obviously.  I didn’t invent it, I'm not even repackaging it compellingly.  There's already been a bill in the Senate, multiple times over. I only want you to read it, digest it, love it as much as I do, sign the Change.org petition and spread the word to five friends about it.  My personal aspiration is solely to be the honeybadger who unabashedly shoves this idea again and again out into the ether for long enough such that it gains and sustains the momentum it richly deserves.  Especially since this Trump-era clusterfuck seems to have what used to be the "crisis of the year" on a daily basis.  It's going to be a trek.  Yes, I know.  But I'm in it to win it.  And rather than passively thinking that the arc of the moral universe will bend towards justice I’m going to bend that motherfucker cause it’s long past time.  Who run the world?  GIRLS.

The best ideas can be explained simply and quickly, so here’s the short-sized version of it, because yes.  We really can solve these two problems at once.  And yes, it really is this obvious: 

Below the jump is a longer FAQ on why and how this idea will work.  Take it and run people.  Share, do your thang on social media.  In order for this idea to gain traction in the Democratic Party, you - yes YOU -  have to take a few minutes one time and share it with five people.  

Got that?  
Enviroish/Megan: Wrote this all up and made a petition for your slactivist activation.
You:  Sign the Action Network petition and share it with 5 people.  
The end.

Questions about what you are signing and why?  I got you.  Read on below the jump.

I haven't posted a blog in a while.  Most of the reason is that in the post 11/9 Trumpster fire I am channeling my activities into a Facebook-Live-recorded daily resistance where every weekday I call my Republican Senator and curate a list of actions I'm taking to try to have an impact in these troubled times.  But to ignore the moment that started me on this journey would be not right.  It would make my actions seem a little too angelic and altruistic.  Whatever they seem to you I can assure you that I am not either.  

The catalyst that got me started with my first Facebook live on calling my Senator was a white guy.  A well-meaning but insistent white guy who after a congenial hour and a half coffee chat when I said "hey I have to go pick up some posters for the In Solidarity with Muslims March later" decided that was the time to try to talk about "the Resistance".  He self-proclaims to be an independent who in real terms is liberal/progressive and the conversation stayed congenial so it was 5 or 10 minutes into it that I realized he was trying to argue with me.  He was trying to correct me.  He was trying to mansplain where the Women's March got it wrong.  And the phrase that sticks with me is "you all have been so extreme and should find some policy goals and places to work together"...to which inside my head I said something to the effect of "what the fuck, are you kidding me???!?  How do you not see what's happening right now" And out of my mouth I said "I think we have a fundamental disagreement about what is happening to our democracy right now.  We are fighting for a return to first principles."  But he didn't give it up.  And so when I finally left, I went to the March and when I got back I was still stewing.  It made me so angry.  That this guy who placidly saw things, who wasn't personally impacted by the situation, who wasn't engaged in the struggle thought that instead of truly listening and learning that from his white ivory tower *he* knew what was best.  A guy who never lived in DC like I had.  A guy who had never been a Federal government contractor like I had been.  A white guy with all the privilege that it entails in "Manver", the nickname of my new city Denver.  Who the fuck does he think he is?  And why does he think it OK to overwrite my much more knowledgeable voice on this situation?

Focus not on my anger dear reader, I channeled that in a positive and constructive manner like I usually do.  It got me to do these daily resistance videos.  But do focus the latter.  My voice.  I recorded that first Facebook video just as a one-off to show that with a call to my Republican Senator because I decided that I wouldn't let his ignorance be something that lessened me.  That quieted me.   I refused.  I had the womens voices from January 21 still fresh in my head and they were so powerful, and they were so true, they called out to me like sirens, and I answered their call.

 Sometime in January, right around the time I participated in the Women's March on Washington, a few things happened in a confluence.  There were worries that scientific and climate data would be taken down which have since been proven on the data and the qualitative phrasing.  There were actual media blackouts of the EPA communications that led to first the National Park Service and then all government scientists going rogue with "Alt" Twitter handles (hearts to the founders and authors of these!).  There was So-Called President 45 tweeting irresponsibly.  There was article after article about the nihilist pick by the Republican Administration to lead the EPA (and this was before the emails revealed how crony he is, vomit).  All I could think was "quick!  how can I record the truth on climate change in a way that will be most needling to President 45?"  And so my datasheets of tweets repasting what the EPA website says on climate change was born.  Since January, the twitter handle for this blog (@enviroish) has tweeted over 2500 times to @realdonaldtrump and @EPAScottPruitt (formerly @scottpruittOK) with very short quotes in succession from the EPA website.  A tweet-sized documentation of climate truth from the EPA.  It's micro, it's certainly not the most impactful thing I've done as part of my resistance...but it helps me sleep at night.  Literally because I know that every 10-15 minutes my prescheduled tweets are being sent out around the clock.  In essence my Twitter handle continues resisting while I catch some R&R.

After the jump is how I did this so that you can do it too if interested.  There's a free way to schedule tweets in which you would write your own (more time-consuming, but opportunity to focus on what matters most to you).  If you want to do the bulk uploader of my climate tweets, I've made that available too (HUGE time-saver!)

Whether you personally work on taking back Twitter for the resistance or not, just make sure you keep resisting.  Our climate is already showing no mercy when it comes to the emissions we've done to date, so show no mercy for those who deny the science.  #nocompromise #neversurrender #nevergiveupthefight
(more after the jump)

Further below I talk about the amazing experience of attending the Women's March on Washington, and my experiences before and afterwards to continue attending marches and rallies for causes I care about.  There are so many good reasons to join in the movement with your actual bodies, or as Rep John Lewis says "find some good trouble", or as Gloria Steinem said at the Women's March "put your bodies where your beliefs are."  My feelings on climate change are extremely, super, duper, really, insanely, obvious. 

But I wanted to start this blog addressing the elephant in the room (I do lurve elephants, but that's not connected to this post!).  And that's the criticism that rallies don't do anything, they are pointless.  I want to put aside the really stupid and ignorant comments like Women's Marchers are running around naked (<-actual comment from someone on my Facebook, we're not in the 60's kids, and even then I don't think bra burning = running naked on the National Mall #justsaying)....and I want to put aside my typical reaction which is "haters gonna hate, ainters gonna ain't" (courtesy of the movie I got cyberattacked by North Korea over and am proud to have part of prevailing in the face of terrorism #freespeechrepresent).  I'd like to spend a minute and focus on the root of what they are saying.  They are ultimately questioning whether protests and marches are a valid way to lead to real change.  

If any message has been pounded on the liberal/progressive side since 11/9, it has been that we're in an echo chamber.  That we do not listen, we don't understand the economic ravaging of rural America, that we do not speak for "real" Americans.  But the media is a filtered version of everyone's reality, and an increasingly, insanely skewed one at that (I will save the actual problem with fake news for later).  For example, in microcosm, how do you square there being clearly over 100 people (see my video on Twitter) with a report by my local Denver Fox affiliate as "dozens" with a weak photo of 1/5 of the crowd?  It's inaccurate and bias.  The media is a funnel in which the news pops out with biases. 

In a polarized world we are looking for something, but I'd like to differentiate once and for all.  There's a HUGE difference between looking for media that validates your position or self-soothes you on your views...and the search for truth with a scout mindset.  People have labeled some news outlets as liberal because they often support the liberal and progressive side in op-eds and so forth, but that just politicizes and polarizes.  The fundamental issue I have with outlets like Fox News or even Breitbart is not that they are championing a conservative viewpoint, but that they are entirely unleashed from facts and from the search for truth.  

So how do we combat this?

Resolutions.  I was listening to the commentary from Times Square leading to 2017 about resolutions and something struck me.  How not only are New Year's resolutions themselves, but also the way we talk about them, so indicative of how things used to be for me.  We would make a commitment for our own good (rarely the greater good), a bit of self-improvement, and (at least in my case), by the time Lent rolled around in February I would have to make a whole new commitment to self-improvement.  Resolutions have a shelf life of maybe a week....and that's only because you have to eat that food you bought. We give up before we even start.  We release ourselves from achievement before we've even tried. 

I've lived nothing but change and tumult for these last couple months.  And not only because I moved from Seattle to Denver and changed jobs over the holidays, and not only because the aftermath of election day launched my commitment to Never Forget 11/9 and get activist.  When thinking about typical resolutions (prune through your closet, get rid of junk, eat healthier), I'm actually doing a lot of them already compared to 2016.  I think the tumult I had not anticipated was of the internal and relational variety.  By stepping out unapologetically into the sunlight, I found that my light reflected made some cover their eyes and turn away.  The more I became the person I am and I embrace the person I am meant to be...the more parts of my former life reject me.  And I have a choice...do I reach back out and keep those parts of myself at all costs?  Or do I let those relationships pass away with the former parts of myself?
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It's no secret that I'm a woman (gasp!).  And so it shouldn't be surprising that I take a lot of inspiration from the women who fought for 72 years to achieve the 19th amendment which gave me the right to vote.  I have been reading about Civil Disobedience and watching Suffragette and Selma and brushing up on the power of non-violent protest.  And there's one phrase that sticks with me:  Deeds Not Words.

It's used by the suffragettes when they finally give up on changing the system from within and advocating with their impassioned pleas, and changed tactics to take disruptive actions to achieve their aim of Votes for Women.  And the concept of "deeds not words" is true, basically a maxim of any theory of social change.  If we've learned anything from this election on a universal basis, I hope it's the fruitlessness of posting on Facebook or social media only.  It's how we all got our news, but it's a big echo chamber of people who agree with you.  Change in the real world cannot be slacktivist, it must be done through grassroots mobilization, through calls, through peaceful protest, through volunteering, through donation.

But I'd like to put this "deeds not words" thing down, flip it and reverse it.  I've found myself using this term to evaluate President-elect Donald J. Trump and I think it's a befitting measuring stick we should all use.  For the liberals and progressives and Democrats among us, I think it will help us maintain some sanity and steady on the helm.  (And not only because we cannot trust his word, since he's been "Pants on Fire", "False" or "Mostly False" 60% of the time out of 334 claims on Politifact....seriously, I can't really fathom living my life where only 15% of what I said was "Mostly True" or "True"....I'm pretty sure I would be unemployable if that were the case)

But more importantly because "deeds not words" put any other way is pretty much how we roll here in the United States of America...

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As part of engaging in a dialogue in the wake of Trump being elected, I've written up a compilation of where Donald Trump has broken the Ten Commandments to engage with my fellow Catholics.  Shared here in case others find it useful.  Take care of each other out there.  And if you are in the trenches, just know that I am right there with you. 
 
#1 - I, the Lord, am your God.  You shall not have other gods besides me
How can you be a Christian if you never go to church?  (he also broke #8 on this one)
"Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told reporters Thursday that he attends a church in Manhattan, but the church released a statement saying the real estate developer is not an "active member."  http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/28/politics/donald-trump-church-member/

Also, what kind of Christian doesn't believe in the need for redemption and forgiveness from the Savior....what kind of Christian doesn't bring God into the picture of forgiveness? 
"I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there. I don't think so," he said. "I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don't bring God into that picture. I don't."
Trump said that while he hasn't asked God for forgiveness, he does participate in Holy Communion.
"When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink -- and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness, and I do that as often as possible because I feel cleansed," he said. "I think in terms of 'let's go on and let's make it right.'"  http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/18/politics/trump-has-never-sought-forgiveness/

#2 - You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain
Well, this one is easy thanks to the interwebs...you can see him say it himself...
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My darlings.  My dear small handful of readers.  Even among you there is a diversity of thoughts and voting in this election.  I don't want to turn you away.  I want us to stay together and not break up.  Because dialogue and openness is the most important thing everybody needs right now.  Along with goodness, and you all are people I value so much.

I have to cheat on you though, and I want to tell you why.  11/9 changed me from who I was when I started this blog. I began this journey as encouraging you to be environmentalish and allowed myself and us all to believe that was the pathway to progress.  Do one thing.  Make it a habit.  Rinse, repeat.  That the drumbeat of progress on environment and climate would be steady at the national level - we had just made AMAZING gains - and you and I together just had to make small changes to our dailies to get there.  I was wrong.  I was heartbreakingly and painfully wrong.  In the wake of President Trump winning people have accused me of hubris, of thinking I'm "better than", of not listening.  They have said I only care about what happened in this election because my job depends on it.  They have laughed in victory at my Facebook posts of the grief cycle I'm going through after pouring myself into 15 years of environmental work.  They have attacked me personally for decrying the hate crime spike after this election.  They have called me a racist for defending minorities against that hate (no really, I quote: "the definition of a bigot").

I may have been wrong about this election, but those people?  They've got me all wrong.  Most of you know me in real life, so I know you might think this doesn't need to be said, but as a woman and an environmentalist, America just indicted me.  Slapped me upside the head and spit on me. Some of my fellow citizens just tumbled me to the bottom of Mt Everest with no oxygen and bricks in my backpack.  I'm gonna need to take a moment to assess my scrapes and bumps and bruises (done, check).  And now I need a minute of affirmation before I get back to climbing (spoiler alert: I WILL NEVER STOP CLIMBING). 

Who am I then? I am an optimist.  I am hopeful.  I believe in the importance of active listening, of going deeper than soundbites.  I look for the inspirational.  I love to laugh about things that should make us all weep (not kidding).  When I think about what I do every day when I get up and go to work, I think about whether I'm having an impact.  Whether I'm making a difference. I worked hard to learn my craft.  I practice what I preach.  I am a builder.   I am a Catholic.  I reach across the aisle.  And those people who want to bring me down?  Haters gonna hate.  Says a whole lot more about them than me.  And besides, I've long ago decide to be myself anyway.  And sounds like I'm in good company....PREACH AMBER, PREACH!
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So a casual read about me would indicate why I'd vote Democrat, and my previous posts on joining the Paris Agreement calling President Obama POTUS with the MOSTUS is probably a dead giveaway too...but I think it's important to lay out my reasoning.  Because too easily in every election - and especially in this election - we jump straight to stereotyping each other and lose the value of understanding each other's reasoning in their point of view.

I have to admit, I didn't even notice that climate change wasn't brought up in the debates.  I was so pleased, however, to see my non-enviro friends outraged about it on social media.  As I've thought about why I missed noticing that (I mean really...whaaaa?  how did I not notice that on my own??) I've realized that working on environmental issues for almost 15 years is like a long-term death march of being beaten into submission by the denialists.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm flat out optimistic and nerdy excited about our future....but I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge the insane history of this issue that led to me posting about it impacting my personal life and how over the course of a decade plus, it will skew your views on things (yes, a neocon really asked me if I "believed" in climate change on a date and then argued with me about it for 30 minutes.  awk. ward.)

Here I think it important to pause so that you understand something about me.  I come from a Catholic, Italian-American family.  A votes-all-conservative extended family on my mom's side that can layer on guilt like nobody's business about the morality of how I should be voting on exactly one women's health issue. So although I vote on a different issue, because of that intense shaming (Catholics know it best!), I've struggled with the very concept of voting on just one issue: environmental protection.  And it doesn't help that I've been called a "cafeteria Catholic" for pretty much my entire adult life because I practice a social justice, inclusive approach to my faith...that is, until Pope Francis came along and validated everything about this approach to my faith at the highest levels (bless!  holla Papa Francisco!)  My previous post on Christians and Climate Change is where I first explored the problems in the way that Christians approached this issue and how inconsistent it is with the life we are called to as Christians and my understanding of the morality of issue has only deepened over time (more on Pope Francis' encyclical at a later date...rich and beautiful is Laudato Si - An Encyclical Letter from the Holy Father on Care for our Common Home). 

Because of the interconnected and expansive nature of the secondary, follow-on effects related to climate change, it's hard for me *not* to see this issue in all the other domestic and foreign policy arenas.  Maybe it's just the way that sustainability professionals like me think...always "dot connecting"...but there really are a LOT of dots to connect when it comes to climate change and everything else at a governmental level.  So in some ways, voting on addressing the top environmental protection issue of climate change is a validation of the ways the Democrats approach nearly all major domestic and foreign affairs issues.  I see it as the root cause of so many future problems that a Democratic administration is lightyears more equipped to handle.  Don't believe me?  Read on below:

• Job Creation.  If you're all about strengthening the U.S. economy then you should challenge any assumptions you have lingering over "economy vs. environment".  Renewable energy is on a fast track to massive-job-creation town, with 5% increase YOY between 2014 and 2015 and surpassing oil and gas for the first time earlier this year.  And if you think about the act of installing solar panels and building wind farms, it's not that hard to see why companies like GE have the lone brightspot in a quarterly report to investors from their renewables division.  Still don't believe me?  Well how about this: you know it's really gaining traction when a Republican Senator from Iowa says Trump will do away with renewable energy "over my dead body" due to all that stable income earned for rural economies - Democrats are the party pushing for all manner of renewable energy actions, including the champions of renewing the tax credits (notably less profitable than the oil & gas kind, but I digress) so on this one, Democrats are job creators that are both sustainable for the economy and the planet. 
• Refugees. The Syrian refugee crisis is seen as a dictator regime's failure in the wake of a previously productive agricultural area experiencing a drought worse than experienced in 900 years because of climate change that drove people from being able to make a living - Democrats recognize this humanitarian issue and have a solutions-based approach that allows screened refugees to migrate to the U.S., which is an adaptive policy that is going to be all the more necessary in this rapidly changing climate that will only drive more people out of their homes and ways of life.  I'm proud that Hillary has committed to accepting 65,000 refugees as part of this unprecedented crisis.
• Increasing  Domestic Resiliency to Oil & Gas Volatility and Violence.  I wasn't around for the 1970's and the oil shortage, but it looked awful.  So I find it kind of incredible that after that experience...and the Gulf War...and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars...that now for four decades we haven't done more investment to wean ourselves off the reliance on this stuff.  It's one of the most powerful politically conservative cases for climate change action, and yet because Republicans bring snowballs into the Senate floor to "prove" climate change isn't happening (THANK YOU COLBERT, STILL MY ALL-TIME FAVE TWEET!), they lose out on being on the right side of this super obvious one - Hillary recognizes this connection in her policy and addresses the environmental issues of unregulated domestic production in a common sense way.
• International Affairs.  Climate change is being experienced incredibly unequally across the globe, with low-lying areas like Bangladesh and island nations losing land and driving people to being internal refugees - Democrats support multi-lateral and coalition building approaches to international affairs, which is going to become increasingly necessary to maintain equity in the face of this extremely unequal consequences by some nations and not others.
• Global Security.  "Global climate change will aggravate problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions that threaten stability in a number of countries...Climate change is a security risk because it degrades living conditions, human security and the ability of governments to meet the basic needs of their populations." - this is a verbatim quote from the Department of Defense under the Obama Administration.  Democrats are conducting the climate change adaptation and resiliency exercises in the most important organization to be in a state of readiness to meet this challenge: our military.
• Poverty.  There's a reason why Pope Francis wrote in Laudato Si:

• ...Environmental justice is the term that connects the degradation of our planet and the resources we depend on with those who are less well of, those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.  In order to solve these deeply intertwined problems, it takes someone with an understanding of their deeply integrated solutions - Hillary has a platform on environmental and climate justice, and I have a particularly soft spot for her plan to revitalize coal communities most impacted by the clean energy revolution.  You go girl!
  

So here's where I leave you.  Hopefully now you see the world as a little more connected, a fabric interwoven.  When I first began learning about environmental issues and particularly climate, I became inspired precisely because of how interconnected they are to everything else.  To livelihoods, to equity, to justice, to peace, to prosperity.  Like we are as people when we appeal to our better selves and our nature.

Ok, and if this hasn't educated or convinced you, then maybe Leonardo Dicaprio can. I just HAVE to share Before the Flood since it's a new and extremely well-done walkthrough on climate (props for making it so widely available!!)....and I have to admit even my climate-know-it-all self got goosebumps at Piers Sellers "final mission" segment.  Heart stuff.

Yes, it was purposefully released in the lead up to the U.S. election. 

Yes, you should absolutely let it sway your vote :)