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)

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.

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!
[Read more after the break]

I finally figured out the stats of my blog site and turns out I have more than one reader.  Huzzah!  The most interest was my recent EcoPartyDownload...so here's to listening and continuing that conversation. These type of posts take me a lot more time, but is it worth it?  Give the people what they want?  You tell me! 

I had to update the "Meet Megan" section of this blog recently and realized I've been doing environmental work for almost 15 years.  Shoot. Time flies.  But then again, in such a fast-moving and constantly evolving profession as sustainability has turned out to be, that feels like light years ago.  Particularly when thinking about the future I see for how corporate sustainability is shifting.  And in this regard, the environmental movement and its theory of change going back decades has not yet embraced what I believe to be the greatest opportunity for corporate America to "step up".  But before I can get to advocating for what I think is the answer, we have to get on the same page, and that involves dipping into how we all got here (I'll make it quick! Like ripping off a band-aid).  But I really do have to give you the skinny on why the environmentalists got to their belief system on what causes corporations to reduce their impact on the planet.  They have a really good reason for being that way.

In the days of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and the blue marble photo of Earth that sparked the environmental movement, there wasn't a political lens to it.  I mean, consider: who doesn't benefit or get impacted by waterways, drinking water and air clean of pollution? Passage of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were strongly supported on a bipartisan basis by Congress (I know...feels like a fairy tale to say that these days!).  And then....came the reaction.  The backlash.  President Reagan's underlying principle of "economy vs environment" meant appointing a blatantly anti-environmentalist to lead the EPA and ripping out the solar water heating system installed by President Carter.  Which all led to the formalization and codification of environmental issues being deeply partisan with the GOP being "anti" for all things environmental, and that divide has stayed the rule pretty much to this day.  With the notable and extremely temporary exception of when climate had it's moment in 2007 where conservatives supported taking action until they collapsed into this still toxic and resistant strain of denialism. Deep roots that denialism has. Sigh.  Anyways, that concrete-like hardening on the political front was a result of multinational corporations deciding that environmental regulation was onerous, expensive and corporates came in heavy to all levels of government against any further action.

So how did this play out outside of the Beltway?  How were companies interacting on environmental issues in their business during the 80s and 90s before corporate sustainability became "a thing"?
(Read on below the jump)

What a difference 3 weeks makes!  Since I first blogged about the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Native American protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the situation looked bleak.  I mean really horrifying with protesters bitten by security dogs drawing blood and attacked by pepper spray awful.  But since then the movement has netted real results.  And I hope this march towards justice achieves its aim.

Most recent, 1,200 archaeologists wrote a letter to President Obama condemning the damage to our cultural heritage of one of the most significant sites in North Dakota that the Pipeline LLC company did by bulldozing Tribal burial grounds.  This is the incident that led to the above atrocities...and the fact that the Dakota Pipeline company did it without permission from the Army Corps of Engineers and ONE DAY AFTER the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed the location of these sacred sites makes them as I've opined before: corporate psychopaths.  So huzzah  for the experts agreeing.

Most importantly, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has received an even greater step/win with an official halt on pipeline construction order from a Federal Appeals court, which is significant because the Obama Administration letter was only a request in support of a stoppage.  Not to mention the protest at the White House over this issue (raised profile is a good thing for justice!) or the consultations with the administration.

Having read a lot of Brene Brown lately, I am beginning to understand the power of shame to prevent conversations that desperately need to happen.  As a white person, I believe it's important to recognize the impediment fear of shame brings to this conversation and acknowledge this history so we can start to do right.  This video handles the subject with humor (which I always appreciate).  Worth a watch...what did you think?  

So I'm clearly pro-Obama.  On this blog I've called him my Prezzy in Rezzy and POTUS with the MOSTUS.  This I know, dear lone reader.  But this time around, when Obama finally said the words that I've been waiting to hear for 2788 days of his Presidency (not to mention eight. extremely. looooooooong. years. of that Dubb-ya fella)...when Obama finally said to the press comments on climate change in real terms the way I've long hoped and expected my President to say...it's as awesome as it is bittersweet.  I can only explain it by saying this: if you've been waiting at a restaurant to be served dinner and after hours and hours the waiter finally drops off dessert minutes before the restaurant closes...how much do you enjoy the dessert?  Isn't the decadence lessened by the long wait and by the coming close? 

I can only relish Obama's climate change talk in the context of his arrival to the end of his POTUS-ness.  Not to mention the sword of Damocles of it potentially all coming undone when an under-minded and small-handed Donald Drumpf potentially wins. God help us all. So even though Obama has done amazing work and joined the Paris Agreement which I've waited my whole enviro(ish) life to see....I just need to take just a beat, just a few short minutes, to point out how absurdly long it took President Obama to get here and finally give this interview to the NY Times on climate.  Seems only fair to have one little blog posted into the interwebs abyss after waiting 66,912 hours.  4,147,320 minutes.  You get the idea.

Because yes.  Obviously.  Absolutely.  He said the things I've longed and ached to hear from POTUS about this issue.  That climate change is terrifying and hearing about it in briefings both depresses people in his Administration and spurs them into action.  That what makes it difficult is the fact it's not an "instantaneous catastrophic event" but "a slow-moving issue that, on a day-to-day basis, people don’t experience and don’t see."  That it's the greatest long-term threat facing the world, one that could lead to massive refugee crises (multiple!) and political instability unseen in our lifetimes.  Welcome to me circa 2002 when I first started looking at these charts and trends.  I mean for reals.  Seriously. I still remember experiencing heart-racing panic in my environmental studies classes.  Actual to-my-bone-marrow, all-out PANIC that this was happening and people were still going about their daily lives in trucks and SUVs, leaving their lights on and letting the A/C or heat out.  Didn't they KNOW?  I remember thinking how panicked they would be too if only they had the same information I did...that any person with even a bit of common sense would be equally freaked out.  If only I could snap them out of it we could get down to doing some real change.  But alas,  I would fail for many years due to a well-funded counter-opinion war by oil companies.  Really "great corporate citizens" who hired literally the same guy that worked for tobacco companies trying to sway opinions that smoking didn't cause cancer to also combat opinions that climate change isn't real and we're not the cause.  No, I'm not kidding.

So it's rewarding to hear my inner dialogue, the one based upon facts and reason and logic...and you know...SCIENCE...coming out of the lips of the person sitting in the most important job in the country and arguably around the globe.  That's a great and wonderful and amazing thing, and my environmentalish philosophy is to celebrate the good...so I'm celebrating it.  I promise.  But 2788 days into his Presidency, I also have to ask just this once, why did it take this obscenely long?

So I work for "the man" and I've been around corporate America these last 7+ years.  I like to think of myself as a middle-of-the-road kind of gal.  But the more I dig into the facts and what's happening since my #NoDAPL blogpost on the outrageous event that happened when Native Americans this past holiday weekend stood with Standing Rock Sioux against the Dakota Pipeline and were bitten by dogs and attacked with pepperspray...the more outrageous such an already obscene event has become.  The more I'm certain that this corporate entity is the epitome of a bad actor and evil in both its actions and its premeditated intentions.  If "corporations are people" according to the Supreme Court, then Enbridge and Dakota Access LLC are diagnosed psychopaths.  Here's why....

People.  PEOPLE!  I woke up to the news that President Barack Obama and Premier Xi Jinping jointly, formally joined the international climate agreement reached in Paris last year.  It is so FREAKING AWESOME and inspiring that I finally got THE steroid shot of inspiration to get off my duff to blog again...which isn't to say that SO MUCH isn't happening that's already awesome: getting to laugh about extreme weather this summer, getting full-on optimistic by the insanely high adoption of clean energy and getting Republicans to be so supportive of wind it would get removed "over my dead body".  Wow.

But that wow ain't nothing compared to this: having the two largest greenhouse gas emitters JOINTLY agree that their countries have met the necessary requirements and set reductions targets...this my friends is the turning point for our planet and a turnaround that has been 20 years in the making.  

As someone who's been in this space since 2003, there's two certainties if you find normal people with whom to chat about this topic (not the flipping weirdos who argue with me about climate change...but I digress)...they will say "there's no way Congress will pass this" and "well why would we do anything if China won't."  Which were decent points well made until about 5 years ago...particularly because China has become a world leader in the green energy revolution and received absolutely no credit from everyday Americans for this huge successful pivot.  Which means I have spent a ENTIRE DECADE of my life having to argue something that today's joint agreement makes totally irrelevant in the most amazing way.  Let me break this down for you...

I've been reading about the climate deal struck in Paris over the weekend and reflecting this whole year about what might happen.  Something different was in the air.  And it's really, actually, happened.  200 nations have signed onto the climate accord, and it's been something I've hoped for going on 12 years now.  Personally.  Even the horrible California drought I escaped from this year had a respite after five years.  This has been the longest drought of my enviro-life (let's not talk about dating...)

On the Paris Agreement there's nay-sayers and yay-sayers and everyone weighing in and yet I don't hear the most impactful thing being discussed here in the U.S.  It's been and continues to be earnestly discussed.  Since 2007 climate change was buried in the media and hardly given the focal point it deserved.  I've had to read articles outside the U.S. for the best news coverage.  Unlike the past, this year I've heard daily coverage of the talks in Paris in the manner they should be covered - who's there, what's being traded, what's the impact, what the island nation coalition says, what corporations are advocating for.  Every day I hear the coverage and said a prayer in gratitude for the fact that this massive global climate treaty was being treated in the press like a massive global climate treaty. That in and of itself is a huge WIN.  Seriously.  HUGE.  And that's not just my Stockholm syndrome induced by climate change deniers talking.

How climate change is presented and communicated matters.  In fact, I believe that the presentation of this issue matters more than any other aspect.  Climate change is not actually controversial.  Scientifically, logically, morally.  It's pretty straightforward in substance.  Not so straightforward and in fact, twisted, when it translates into the public domain.  In fact, I've been paying close attention over the past year to some signals that fiscal conservatives and Christians from evangelicals to Catholics are rallying behind this great moral test of our time.  Our use of natural resources that is unsustainable and comes from war-torn and unstable places....and maybe that's the best reason ever to stop overusing those resources.

Oh you want to hear more about the actual climate accord and my take?  Not just celebrate the AMAZINGLY POSITIVE news that it's happened and call it a day?  That my friends is the problem with society!  But fine fine, EcoPartyDownload after the jump...

We desperately need to change the conversation on conservation.  Climate change is somehow a very contentious political issue (n.b. in the U.S. only, a study across 39 nations found it ranked as the #1 global threat...but I digress).  The environmentalist in me finds the whole thing bananas....it's akin to having a national debate over whether smoking causes cancer.  The American Academy for the Advancement of Science has a campaign on the facts of climate change because our "national debate" is a bad sign for science at large.  And that doesn't even account for the fact that the climate change denial machine is not just using the same tactics - but the exact same people - that spent time a few decades back trying to confuse people about whether cigarettes caused cancer.  Like I said, bananas.

It's easy to find despair.  The poster child is a Republican Congressman from South Carolina who lost his 2010 primary battle because of backlash for his stance on climate change both existing and being man-made.  He was on the House Subcommittee for Energy and Environment that got "Burn Noticed" for its lack of common sense on science basics. 

But Enviro(ish) is extremely anti-despair.  I'm a believer in MLK Jr's quote that the arc of the moral universe is long, but bends towards justice.  And the first step we take is acknowledging the truth.  It's been a few years, so I checked up on that Congressman Bob Inglis, and checked in with an energy initiative in Washington D.C. led by four-star generals.  Seeing conservatives not just having discussions but taking policy action regarding climate change gives me incredible amounts of hope.  Here's the EcoPartyDownload on conservative solutions for climate change.  Yes, you read that right.....conserve IS the root for both conservation AND conservative....is it not?  (See what I did there?? Boom!)