This is first in a series to reflection on each documentary I saw at Mountainfilm Festival 2019.  Each post will be a reflection on the documentary and a focus on the impact and the issue that documentary is raising.  My goal is to share my authentic take on watching the films as a witness who cares about having an impact. This is not a film review.  Spoilers are probably all up in this.

Like every American and likely every person around the world, we've all heard the sitting President of the United States talk about the wall.  I won't do that justice by linking out to it.  I've always said when the topic comes up in conversation that having grown up in San Diego, I realize how pointless a wall as a concrete barrier is.  Pointless both because people find a way around it always, but pointless also in a greater sense.  The amount of folks who crossed the border from San Diego / Tijuana everyday for commerce, for work, for recreation...it always was and continues to be high.  I remember vacationing in Rosarito and Ensenada growing up.  I remember my neighbor working in Tijuana, driving himself to the border and walking across to save time so his company would pick him up on the other side.  The talk and rhetoric about the border has always been puzzling and annoying to me as someone from a border community.  The rhetoric is so heated that other side from the United States could besome form of oozing evil that will come through any gap, when in reality, the border is an artificial construct in a way you really understand only by living near one.  In reality it's always porous like Swiss cheese going in both directions, and we're better off economically, politically and as humans when we think about it this way.

I had heard that the monarch butterfly which migrates across the border by the millions was being threatened by Trump's border wall, and so was intrigued to catch this documentary at Mountainfilm 2019.  The premise of the film is a fascinating concept.  The filmmaker and a team of characters (literally and cinematically) will travel along the 1200 miles of the Colorado River that forms the border between Texas and Mexico from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico.  Canoes or kayaks, sure.  I fully admit that I didn't expect before immersing myself in the film that this would involve bikes and horses.  Bikes for the first stretch from El Paso because the river is fairly dried up, and horses through the amazing wildlands of Big Bend National Park.

Check out this beautiful imagery from The River and the Wall webpage and read more after the jump.

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....

There's a little discussed fact in the U.S. when it comes to Tribal peoples mobilization against pipelines in Canada.  They have been at it a lot longer, and they have been successful.  In fact, to understand why Keystone XL pipeline even was requested to bring crude oil allllllll the way down from Alberta (that's Canada) through the U.S. to the Gulf, you have to trace the failure of those same oil companies to successfully get passage on a much shorter westerly journey through British Columbia.  (See my EcoPartyDownload on Keystone XL for more).

I woke up this morning to news that the primarily Native American activists protesting the newly desired corporate pipeline in Dakota walked onto private land to block the construction that had started while the appeal is awaiting to be heard in court...and those people were attacked by dogs from the company's private security firm.  Yes, PEACEFUL PROTESTERS WERE JUST ATTACKED BY DOGS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  I mean...W.T.F.  Is this amateur hour?  Is it 1963? Has the opposition not learned ANYTHING from history?  Is it "opposite day" when it comes to how best to handle peaceful social justice protests?  Who are these awful security people and why should we now trust the people who hired them?  Some kind of modern-era Bull Connors from Birmingham styling themselves as "big deals" because they have a walkie and a dog frothing at the mouth?  Dogs biting children...sigh...why does history always have to repeat itself?  When will people learn?  Why do the words of Nelson Mandela feel so necessary right now for those corporate oilmen to hear?

Activism seems very "environmentalist" instead of "environmentalish" of me...I get it.  Feels intense.  But.... (stick with me after the jump)

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....

In honor of Coastal Cleanup Day tomorrow, this post is going to be about how to be Enviro(ish) when shopping/grocerying.  But since this is a perennial “which is more eco, paper or plastic?” question going back decades, I get asked it often.  And not just in a conversation where it makes sense, I’m talking about random strangers and on a first date, OFTEN. 

Example: I'm at an oyster bar on a first date I met from online. The guy obviously knew I worked in sustainability from my profile, so one of his get-to-know-me questions was “when you go to a grocery store, paper or plastic?”  Points for doing his research and like a Boy Scout always being prepared….but it falls into that awkward “green police” bucket (plus, is knowing my bag choice at a grocery store really getting to know me?)  The guy rocketed through 20 similar questions, so everybody around us could tell it was one of "those” first dates.  Even the oyster bar shucker behind the counter was laughing out loud (which is “bagging up” according to the kids these days/Urban Dictionary….see what I did there? FTW!)  But I digress….

TELL ME THE ANSWER ALREADY

The simple answer is bring your own bags and reuse them (to take you from the land of simple, read further below).

Caffeine may kick off my workday, but water keeps me going and hydrated.  I've never drank from a single-use plastic water bottle at my desk...and the more you really think about plastic water bottles, the more it sounds silly and ridiculous. 

For example, I spotted one of my coworkers drinking from a single-use 1 gallon plastic water jug.  Pretty much a different one every other day.  Since I'm known to be 'eco', I don't even think I had to ask him about it....he saw me notice and, let's face it, if you do sustainability all day every day people think you are the 'green police'.  Usually I fight the perception and live by the Funny or Die "Green Team" creed of Will Farrell and John Reilly (if you have not seen this before, you're welcome).  But this time, the eco case was so clear!  Pun intended. 

Anyways, he started defending the plastic waste and the taste....it took a few random conversations over a few months, but he made the transition.  And if he can, you can too!  Here's the basics of what I said to get you going: