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.

 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)

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?
[Read more below the jump]

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...

[Read more below the jump]

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...
[Read more below the jump]

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)

I'm always so much more of a visual learner.  And thankfully in corporate America we're in a world of PowerPoint decks which lends itself well to my existing preference (shoutout to my people with different abilities though...sorry friends I'm sure it's hard to adapt!)

Anyways, I have finally been trying to get my Twitter on for these posts so that I could have more than you, my dear singular reader.  So I've written a couple on the post that was most difficult and scary for me...The Act of Listening, Especially When It's Hard...in which I steeped myself in the ways I could in the black experience to extend my support of Black Lives Matter to the Kaepernick peaceful protests through understanding...especially in light of him being the most disliked player in the league and death threats.  Holy cannoli that's aggressive of us America!  It's called exercising his Constitutional right to freedom of expression...take a deep breath and chiiillllllllll.  Anyways, my decision to purposefully increase exposure and understanding worked pretty well in terms of increasing my empathy.  And so far the interwebs hasn't pilloried me for trying to engage in a race conversation as a white person (thank you for that, my dear singular reader!)

Saw this graphic from Think Progress and just love everything about what it says.  Americans standing up together with Kaepernick in solidarity of his peaceful protest.  I think it gives new and deeper meaning to the phrase "When the Game Stands Tall".

I was very scattershot about podcast listening, but have recently discovered them while traveling (no eyestrain during turbulence!) which means with my work travel I'm becoming a regular.  Have a long car ride to Palm Springs? Finally caught up on the entirety of Serial season 1.  So over this past weekend, I went through a number of the TED Radio Hour podcasts, and this one about Crisis & Response had a great mention of something I had never heard before.  One of the segments is about a man who lost all of his money in the Madoff ponzi scheme.  He spoke about how he finally connected with others who lost everything who had decided to think about it differently....they had embraced with gratitude that the experience had made them more connected to others than ever before.  He ultimately learns as well to overcome the blaming and shaming of the experience, determining that just because he lost all of his money to Madoff, he didn't want to surrender who he was as a person as well.  

When pivoting towards advice for others to "prepare", he says two things which I agree with whole-heartedly:

1. Know that you will have a crisis in your life.  That the concept of living a charmed life free of crises is not possible for anyone, so that when something does take place that unbalances you, you only experience the shock of what your are actually losing or dealing with...not the amplified shock of "I can't believe something like this could ever happen to me".  Ummm...YES. 
   
2. He quotes a principle called basic trust, which I had not heard of before and am already 200% in support of:

(Read more after 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?  

I used to think the world was so organized.  Blame it on the media I grew up with - a book, a movie, a television show.  Everything seemed so neatly organized into distinct units with a beginning, middle and end.  So I've become increasingly interested in gatherings that defy my own limitation.  Climate Week NYC is one of those weeks.  It has become a week on the calendar where strategic, global thinkers on climate from government, private sector, universities...anywhere...swarm the city and all kinds of micro and macro announcements are made.  More importantly, all kinds of connections are made between those with funding to those with the big ideas that are going to solve this thing.

And almost in perfect PR unity, the Empire State Building, eco-famous for it's own massive environmental retrofit, now has LED lights (eco-perfect!) which can mark the occasion.

Excited to see what comes out of this Climate Week 2016!  Take a look at the 3 minute overview video on the organizing group.  FWIW...pretty proud I'm one of the 100,000 EVs driving on the road in the U.S.  "Everything we do locally will have an impact globally"...pretty slick quote and I dig it.

This post took me a few days to write and get the courage to share...because for me this post is really hard.  I'm grateful that my job allows me to learn from the best in the field of engaging in race related conversations.  That being said, I'm white and I still suck at it.  Evidence in a recent  Facebook "conversation" that went poorly.  But I've learned to think of this as work, because that's what the "Courageous Conversations" class called it.  I've learned to think of engaging in the conversation as important to live my values, that silence is consent, that being neutral in the face of injustice is not the answer nor the way forward.  So here we are.  If you could read with a belief in my good intentions dear singular reader, I think we'll find our way onward together. 

Sunday September 11 passed and it was 15 years.  In the years since I've been humbled by people's experiences and loss. I like every other American have memories of that day, but some people's memories are more visceral and painful than others like mine. Finding out a classmate from business school was focused on renewable energy because he lost a brother that day and wanted to help get American dependence off foreign oil, that humbles me to this day.  About a month ago I watched The Falling Man, which is a horrifying refresh of the realities of that day, and of the sanitation we went through as a country to try to heal from this terrorism and tragedy.

But this year I wanted to do something other than post about it personally.  Rather than watch Zero Dark Thirty which has become my go-to way to deal with feeling terrorized.  Maybe I was inspired by the TED radio podcast the Act of Listening.  Maybe recently watching The Falling Man felt like enough remembrance of that day.  Maybe it was the fact that Straight Outta Compton on dvd was sitting on my table from Netflix that got me thinking.  Reminded me about #Oscarssowhite. And reading on why the ad industry's diversity initiatives are failing.  Got me thinking about Colin Kaepernick's nonviolent act of protest of kneeling during the anthem, and both the negative reaction he had received and the acts of support from fellow NFL players and one of my hometown female soccer athletes.  And my thought process was this: I wouldn't protest the anthem nor burn the flag, and I will fight for my fellow Americans Constitutional right to do so...but more importantly...why do they feel the need to do so? What is their experience that has driven them to do so on September 11, this sacred American day? 

I decided instead of looking online at the 9/11 remembrances and instead of posting on my Facebook, that this year I would spend that day listening.  That I would try to understand what I do not "get" based upon my own experience in the most accessible way I could: movies.  I would listen by watching Selma and Straight Outta Compton back-to-back as an active steeping in the African American experience and community.  And here's the thing that shook out for me by watching these two movies back-to-back that reach back to the 1960s and the 1990s:  how very little has changed.   Time has passed, but even this recent history has a way of repeating itself.

It's still hard for me to personally imagine kneeling during the anthem on September 11...but that's because I haven't faced the decades long injustices and struggle of African Americans in this country.  And if that were my experience, I would be hard pressed to find ways to get people to listen.  I would be out of avenues that weren't like kneeling during the anthem.  The backlash that has come to the leaders whose voices have been heard and led to change for these communities is severe.  In the 1960s, they were murdered.  In the 1990s, they were discounted and silenced in the mainstream media as thugs. 

What happened when NWA were interviewed by the mainstream media in the 1990s has almost no difference to the way we've engaged in the mainstream media about Black Lives Matter.  The average American and the media has only given space to address the "how" there's been engagement in the conversation.  The outrage at the method as a way to ignore the message.  I keep thinking what I would do if my voice wasn't heard and I felt my life was on the line?  Any rational human would say it louder or find new ways to get themselves heard, myself included. 

So through the act of listening in the way available to me, I empathized and I learned.  And decided firmly that it's not hard to see how we've gotten here at all.  I for one want to count my voice in with their movement for justice.  Silence is not the answer nor the way forward and I believe more people like me - aka white - need to be anti-racism not just not racist. 

I may just be one voice in the void, but I think it matters, because that's what enviro(ish) is all about:
Because you can despair that each action you take is only one tiny drop in the ocean....or you can be inspired that the ocean is made up entirely of tiny drops.