Living inside the Beltway for over 3 years I learned a valuable lesson.  Sometimes you really do have to find a way to laugh so that you don't cry.  Thankfully while working on and getting depressed by the George W. Administration's environmentally "protective" activities, I had the Daily Show and Colbert Report to keep me laughing.  And that was before Congress made doing nothing the most electable trait.

So I've long been an admirer of folks who can be pithy and funny about climate change.  It's a talent I will never possess.  Especially when it comes to fitting it all into 140 characters or less, like Stephen Colbert did in my favorite tweet ever... 

​That right there, boom.  Makes you see the absurdity of what people say about this issue.  Bless satire for this power.  

And here's a shiny new best example, the comedic viral video geniuses behind Funny or Die partnered with celebrities to make this spoof on 1985's "We Are The World"...now titled "The Earth's Not Getting Warmer" and brought to you by the Koch Brothers.  Having seen "Green Team" from many years ago, which is funny but unnecessarily off-color, I had my reservations.  But this thing is 110% enviro(ish) approved.

Keep us laughing comedians.  We simply have to laugh so as not to cry. That's been my motto for this past decade, but I might have to rethink it.   With an international climate accord for the first time ever...maybe The Force Awakens is on trend beyond the box office (Harrison Ford! Love that guy.  Bless)...it's time for A New Hope that things are looking up for once.  There is hope for humanity (and our planet) after all.

The first 18 years of my life were spent in very sunny places.  Denver-born, San Diego-raised. I spent the last 4 years back in sunwashed southern California and so the first question I get is how I'm coping with the Seattle weather.  Well, truth be told, I lived in New Hampshire and Washington D.C.  But when I really give an answer, it's usually this:
"I left the state when it was in drought and on fire, so I absolutely love the rain".  And seriously.  I mean it. 

My favorite link right now is the weather in Seattle.  It's an El Nino year not seen since 1997, and I am so excited I just can't hide it.  Halfway through December has already had more precipitation than average.  Bless. 

The more I think about living up here in the PNW (that's the way only Californians like me refer to the Pacific Northwest), the more sustainable it really is.  I take a long, hot, guilt-free shower without turning it on/off navy-style in the way that just was never thinkable in California.  Which leads me to my theory....

I'm going to break tradition here at enviro(ish) and post a really long video on this one.  Because it was new to me when I heard about it at SXSW Eco in October, so you have the full, unabridged keynote from Isha Datar at that conference below.  I am no longer "ick", but excited at the idea of someday being able to eat meat from a lab.  Just like a brewery makes artisan beers, someday we could have customized meat products.  It could grow the market, provide more access to protein to an increasing and undernourished global population, reduce health risk and have the same environmental impact as your regular building instead of this CAFO catastrophe.  WOW.  Definition of a game changer.  Personally, I'd be happy just to finally be a guilt-free meat eater (I know I should be veggie for many reasons...but bah!  I love my meats!)

The idea of growing proteins in a petri dish is actually not that special or hard scientifically.  Making the proteins grow into the textures we are used to eating is the hard part that's currently getting worked on.  We live in a world where biotechnology is actually pushing towards growing replacement organs out of your own tissue/DNA.  And it's significantly, INFINITELY, easier to get edible animal muscle proteins than getting ones your DNA won't reject.  So from that standpoint, this is really a "duh/of course we will" new idea.

So what a fascinating, next-level pursuit Datar is taking with the non-profit New Harvest.  Trying to advocate and support funding and businesses in this new economy and most importantly, change consumer perception.  Because yes, the hardest piece of the puzzle will be getting you to feel comfortable ordering and eating these  new meats.

And if you think this is too far in the future, it's not.  The future is here!  Already! Beyond Meat - the most amazing plant-based meat alternative company from (holla!) El Segundo - is now in Walmart stores nationwide. 

Peoples, this is a trend that's here to stay, and as an enviro(ish) environmentalist...I'm SUPER excited at the idea of getting to still have my meat and eat it too!

We had some miraculous rain on Halloween here in Los Angeles.  About an inch when the last we've had was one tenth of an inch April 1.  Considering the Biblical/DEFCON4 drought in these parts, it was glorious!

The next day I was playing flag football and got mud under my fingernails and had a moment.  The kind of moment gardeners must have all the time...how wonderful that feeling of earth is.  

It's all about the frame isn't it?  Dirt on a chair/bench when I'm dressed up purty is very UNwelcome.  But digging my toes into the sand or the feel of soil when you're playing on a field or in a garden is kind of magical.  Do you ever have those moments?  How do they make you feel?

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

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

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