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.

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?

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]

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 :)

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...