It's no secret that I'm a woman (gasp!).  And so it shouldn't be surprising that I take a lot of inspiration from the women who fought for 72 years to achieve the 19th amendment which gave me the right to vote.  I have been reading about Civil Disobedience and watching Suffragette and Selma and brushing up on the power of non-violent protest.  And there's one phrase that sticks with me:  Deeds Not Words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who am I then? I am an optimist.  I am hopeful.  I believe in the importance of active listening, of going deeper than soundbites.  I look for the inspirational.  I love to laugh about things that should make us all weep (not kidding).  When I think about what I do every day when I get up and go to work, I think about whether I'm having an impact.  Whether I'm making a difference. I worked hard to learn my craft.  I practice what I preach.  I am a builder.   I am a Catholic.  I reach across the aisle.  And those people who want to bring me down?  Haters gonna hate.  Says a whole lot more about them than me.  And besides, I've long ago decide to be myself anyway.  And sounds like I'm in good company....PREACH AMBER, PREACH!
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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:

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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.

At my best friend's wedding in May, I caught up with a friend from college I hadn't seen in a few years.  She offhand mentioned Brene Brown and I asked who that was.  Her response included "you are basically what Brene Brown is all about."  So when I made it back home I watched her first TED talk on the Power of Vulnerability, immediately followed by her second TED talk on Listening to Shame.  Within 5 minutes of finishing I texted my friend and said how obsessed I had become with this message...how honored I was to be thought of as "whole-hearted"...and she sent me Brene's Daring Greatly book and I read it start to finish.  It's safe to say it has been a life-changing reframe for me.  I read the "Man in the Arena" aka "Daring Greatly" quote often to stay grounded and inspired.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'd encourage you to take some time to listen to her TED talks in order.  For the purposes of this blog....finding inspirations that will keep us going...I enjoyed discovering Brene's talk to 99u, which is about supporting the "99% perspiration" principle in the creative community.  In it, she focuses on the sweat we expend because of fear of criticism and she extends the arena metaphor to walk us all through how to deal with critics and how to make sure we reserve the best seats for our champions and ourselves.

I love this talk (and I re-listen to it often!) because I think the messaging of feedback and criticism is missing what this brings to it.  In business school you have to be open to feedback and it's seen as extremely negative if you are not.  But we know there is some criticism that is not helpful, on the far end, there's bullying and trolls and the like.  So how do we differentiate constructive feedback from criticism and more importantly, how do we forge ahead when faced with a landslide of criticism?  The power is immense in what she's saying here...knowing what the critics will say and saying back: "I see you, I hear you, but I'm going to show up and do this anyway".   Bless.

Steep yourself in some Brene Brown...you won't regret!

I finally caught up with Al Gore's most recent TED talk from earlier this year giving the latest updates on climate change and the case for optimism.  That's right, optimism!  The results are compelling when it comes to the clean energy revolution, eye-popping proof positive that we are not only going to win this in future tense, but are already on an accelerated path towards winning it right now. 

I'll go through the facts and figures in a future post (or posts...there's a LOT of them!) but as usual wanted to make this personal.  So gotta give a requisite SPOILER ALERT.  Al Gore ends his TED talk with a remembrance to when he was young and heard President Kennedy announce that we would land a man on the moon within ten years.  He recalls hearing adults of the day say that it's reckless, expensive and will fail.  But lo, eight years and two months later when Neil Armstrong stepped out onto the moon, the cheer that went up from NASA's mission control was done by a group of systems engineers average age 26.  Meaning they were 18 when they heard Kennedy's announcement and the subtext is that Kennedy's inspiration drove them to commit their careers to space...a mission that proliferated technologies and brought us the "blue marble" view of our planet that helped birth the environmental movement.

My friends, that is me.  I am that "space nerd" except the cause that rallied me was climate change.  At the age of 19 when I began learning about this issue and all environmental issues I felt a deep and lasting pull of the significance of the damage we have caused not only to the planet but to the ecosystems on which we depend for our lives.  What better purpose in life could I find than dedicating myself to overcoming a seemingly insurmountable issue that will save humanity?  By the time An Inconvenient Truth came out I was already on the journey and it just added fuel to my en fuego (thank you to my enviro professor & honors thesis advisor who gifted me this book!)  I've worked in environmental positions since undergrad, always seeking new opportunities to have an even greater impact.  I even spent the dark climate backlash years posting on social media in a failed attempt to change hearts & minds (not sure that worked...a bit of self-reflective criticism on this blog too.  Am I speaking into the void?  What do you think dear reader, my dear singular reader?)

People confuse optimism with naivete.  That optimism can only happen if you don't have enough reality.  I can't tell you the number of times people have looked at me and stated directly that I just don't know better, I'm too young, or rhetorically did a pat on the head for "that's cute" that I have this passion for our planet.  I strongly, whole-heartedly and forever disagree.  And the systems engineers in mission control would too. 

I have walked through the hellfire of what I like to call "eco depression".  I went deep into the dark depths of how badly we've choked ourselves and other living creatures on this planet.  But here's the thing: I've come out the other side.  My optimism comes precisely because I have a strong dose of reality.  I know exactly how steep the path is towards that destruction, but I see the ladders to redemption too, and I choose to go there and bring as many people as I can with me. I choose to amplify and enable those opportunities.  I've made it my life journey and career to find those ladders and invite others to see them and join me on the climb.  "Alone we can go fast, but together we can go far."

It doesn't mean I don't hear "no".  In fact it's quite the opposite.  I hear Oh. So. MANY. No's.  I laugh a little too hard and personally at lines in movies of "No? Is the only word you know, NO?"  But I see those no's as someone who just hasn't gotten the right or enough information to see what I see. 

So get dosed in reality and join team optimistic on climate change.  Take a look at America's climate-explainer-in-chief on the latest for climate change and why we all have cause and hope to be optimistic...I know I am!

Only SNL Weekend Update legend Seth Meyers can:

• take the fact that this is the hottest summer & year on record and make it funny
  
• point out we've experienced extreme weather events that should only happen every 500 years eight times in the last 12 months and make us giggle
  
• make fun of Donald Drumpf's lack of using "all the best words" to even describe the problem...and provide only a hand gesure "like this"
  

Here's to paying attention housewives in lingerie in front of the tv.  Personally, I've always thought the planet has some damn sexy legs....work it girl...work it Mother Earth!

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!