Turning over a new leaf. . .

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." -Alan Cohen

While it might seem worrisome that I've gone from opening these entries with James Fenimoore Cooper quotes to those written by self-help gurus, Cohen's words articulate my feelings perfectly. After 6 weeks of working on the canvass I began to realize a few things. Firstly, that the canvass would leave me no time to figure out what I'm doing or what country I'm living in come September; second, that there was absolutely no way that I would have time to prepare my undergraduate work for publication; and thirdly, that I wasn't a very talented canvasser and wasn't setting a good example for my crew. 

My director and I worked on my canvassing skills, but alas it didn't help much. We determined that people could probably tell that gay rights aren't my raison d'etre (although I do support them whole-heartedly), and could see in my eyes my dreams of securing larger tracts of protected land, ending overfishing, continuing to push for a carbon-neutral economy etc. etc. 

So with that, I finished up Green Corps on June 10th, and took the next few days to catch up with friends in D.C. and explore the fantastic museums, monuments and galleries. D.C. is quite a lovely place. It doesn't make me swoon like Paris does, but the thoughtful planning and gorgeous architecture impresses me in the same way. Walking down the mall on a steamy Monday around noon, I spied half a baguette sitting in the middle of the yellow gravel path. This lonesome loaf took me back to my year in Europe, eating French bread with cheese and tomatoes on a bench overlooking the Seine. 

My friend Spencer outside the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum in D.C.

I knew my decision to leave was right as soon as I made it, and will still be in close touch with my Green Corps friends, both those done early as well and those still working. We've decided to put together a biannual e-newsletter to update each other on our lives, and I know we'll be seeing each other again whether it be for socials or collaborations in the environmental movement. 

I took the train from D.C. to Montreal to meet my parents on June 16th. At home, I lived the life of Riley for 10 days. I love my Canadian friends, and it feels fantastic to have such wonderful people to dance, swim, picnic and cook with. I wish I could bring them all with me when I go off on these adventures, and at least Skype makes that possible in the digital sense. 

From land o' lakes to land o' mountains. . . 

During my two weeks of vacation in D.C. and subsequently back home, I figured out the contents of my next few months. After interviewing for an internship in Colorado where Alex is for the summer, I nervously waited to hear the result after being offered a job leading a short canoe trip with my old outdoor center. Having that little job as a backup felt great, but I was ecstatic when I got the internship in Denver with the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies. And as quickly as I'd come home, I jetted off again to Colorado where I'm now living in Boulder. 

The U.S. has everything. This is something I came to understand a while ago during my Green Corps year. There are so many more people, and so many different types of environments, that you can pretty much get exactly what you want. Hate winter and live in Canada? Moving to Vancouver is your only option. And there, if you hate rain, you're in trouble. Here, if you want perfect weather, move to California! Want green rolling hills? Wisconsin! Want to live in hellish, resource-destroying suburbs? Have your pick of places, but I highly recommend Northern Virginia. 

Are you outdoorsy, subsequently ruggedly good-looking, and laid back? Well Boulder is the place for you! Walking down the street, I've never before thought, "hey they look like a lot of fun - I want to hang out with them," about every person I see. Signs everywhere reminding people how fantastic the planet is and that we should respect it, free yoga classes, and 14,000-foot peaks (with dreamy trails) just an hour or two away, and all I can think is: why can't everywhere be like this? Imagine, instead of North America being as it is, living on a continent where everyone knows that the environment and their own health are things that need to be respected. Holy cow - I can't even count how many local, national, and global tragedies we could be avoiding right now.

It does make me feel a tad guilty though. I could escape from the world in a place like this forever! But then . . who would be helping to turn everywhere else around?

Treading the line between research and organizing. . . 

I will be escaping this July from the rigors and frustrations of the environmental movement by slipping back over into the helpful-but-not-usually-game-changing realm of conservation biology. My project as an intern with AFWA is to compile invasive species legislation for all 50 states in an accessible guide that will allow state agencies to compare best practices and develop more effective policies for controlling the threat of invasive species. It feels great to immerse my brain in documents treading the line between biology and policy - it's right where I've always wanted to be - engaging in science with a very direct and applicable purpose. 

This project is also refreshing the skills I'll need to complete my grad school & scholarship apps, as well as design and carry out a Master's project in 2012. I'm having qualms about leaving the environmental movement for a few years for graduate school, but know it's right for me, and am confident that I can still engage with issues and spin my project so that it makes an impact as well. 

Before that, I'm returning to organizing this fall at the Earth Island Institute in Berkeley. I'll be putting my energy towards encouraging the next generation of environmentalists through their New Leaders Initiative. That's the plan anyway - the biggest challenge may be convincing U.S. border officials that I'm not interested in immigrating (not yet anyway)! 

I'll close with a quote I've been wanting to steal from my friend Clary Franko for a long time (she has it as her Gmail signature). For this month, I will be doing more of the latter (see quote below), and will be sure to have some great stories to tell of big mountains, icy lakes, rolling green hills and spectacular starry skies. The best part of it is that I get to have all of these adventures with someone who I still can't believe I was lucky enough to meet this year. 

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." - E.B. White

Alex & I on South Arapahoe (my first 13er).

On the Hill. . .

Hello all! And so begins a new adventure. One month ago, I started packing my things to leave North Dakota three days before my departure date. This is unusual for me; I usually put off packing until the last possible moment. It definitely meant that I was ready to leave Nodak and venture home, albeit briefly, to spend some much-needed time with my family.

Back East

My visit back in Kingston was short but very sweet. Seeing my siblings and parents so seldomly allows me to see how each of them is changing. They’re all changing in very good ways, but it’s a scary reminder of how quickly time passes. It also felt wonderful to catch up with so many great friends who are all doing wonderful things. This made me miss home, but also feel thankful to have such a great place to come back to.

Sunday April 17^th my parents drove me along the familiar route down to Syracuse. I hopped on a plane to New York City and spent the next four days learning to street canvass in the NYC suburbs. I stayed with my friend Sam’s parents in Teaneck, New Jersey, and they were a riot! They do community theater, and they told me stories of how when they first moved into their house as a young couple they didn’t have any furniture except for a piano, so the hardwood floor of their living room became main stage for their troop of musical theater friends. Sam's Dad played show tunes and jazz in the car, and their impressive use of pop-culture references left me clueless on several occasions.

Art and the Canvass

It’s been a while since I learned a skill so completely. When I was younger, I did this reasonably frequently, from learning to play the piano, flute, or guitar, to learning to paddle solo or do spinal rollovers in the pool. University courses focused much less on developing acute skills and much more on honing higher level thought processes and specific writing, reading and presentation styles.

So, I now feel like I’m back in a kayaking skills clinic, which is somewhat refreshing. Canvassing is a skill that you can improve drastically with a good trainer and lots of practice. Once you’ve got the basics, it requires you to artfully read people and respond to their motivations or concerns in a professional manner.  Whitewater paddling is actually a great analogy for canvassing; you want to get to the point where you can navigate through class 3 or class 4 rapids without really thinking about it, because your brain knows exactly how to respond to the river’s push and pull. Likewise, you need to have the basics down to be a good canvasser, but have enough experience to navigate each unique interaction effectively and not get thrown by unexpected obstacles. 

The conversations you get to have while canvassing can also be pretty neat. In the NY suburbs where I was fundraising on behalf of anti-hydrofracking legislation, I spoke to an elderly man who sold his land to gas companies several years ago and now can't drink his well water. I talked to another guy who was hiking the Appalachian Trail one chunk at a time (which happily reminded me of my boyfriend Alex, who has hiked the whole thing), and we also reminisced about great kayaking trips we'd been on. Here in Washington D.C., where I'm fundraising for the Human Rights Campaign (the nation's largest gay and lesbian civil rights group), I met two teens the other day whose friend had just come out and was having problems with their parents. They were eager to support an organization that is working on behalf of someone they love.

All in all, the positive aspects of canvassing outweigh the negatives. It's still hard work, and it's very repetitive, but I think the structure and discipline of the job is good for me. I'm also learning how to responsibly manage canvassing site plans, budgets, employees, and the several thousand dollars we raise each day, which can only be good things to have under my belt moving forward. With that said, this summer's going to be long, exhausting, and hard, but I don't regret doing it (yet). 

The Real World

I think that living in D.C. is helping to complete my new perspective on the United States, and in many ways on Canada as well. I didn't have a chance in Berkeley or Houston to travel very widely in the area, and so I only got a good sense of the people and communities in the places in which I worked. In most cases, these areas were middle to upper middle class and primarily white (although in Houston I did work quite a bit with the marginalized Hispanic communities along refinery row). In Fargo, goodness knows that you'd be hard pressed to find an abundance of diverse neighborhoods, and there, it was even hard to find yourself surrounded by a high level of affluence. It was mostly middle class, middle America on every block. 

Here in D.C. I'm getting exposure to the highest echelons of society, and also to some of the lowest. D.C. is infamous for its high crime rate outside of the city center, and it's impressive how visible the disparity is between neighborhoods. The makeup of people waiting for the metro changes drastically from one station to the next. Walking around eastern market today I had to chuckle to myself a few times. Canadians see preppy American college students in movies and on TV, but I don't know how many of us believe that people are actually that preppy in real life. Well I've found the real ones here in D.C. I can't really talk, because I love my boat shoes, but the number of apparently wealthy young professionals and students is quite impressive. 

On my bike ride home from work today I left the beautiful neoclassical architecture of Capitol Hill and within 10 minutes was riding along the Metro Branch Trail, gazing at the coal fired power plant to my left in the center of an obviously low-income neighborhood. And the disparity is not simply between the largely white upper middle class and the largely black lower class in the city, but there is also a large Hispanic population, especially as you go north towards Silver Spring, which is really interesting. I'd love to learn the history of each of these neighborhoods. 

I've gotten to experience more diversity here than anywhere else I've been this year, and it makes the potential impacts of the Republicans' massive cuts to social programs and education that much more real for me. And, despite the socioeconomic disparity here, there's something really nice about walking around Chinatown and seeing people of every color and social status. The great public transit in the city means that everyone can be mobile and go just about everywhere. It's a bit pricey, but I think it's still a great equalizer. 

And Off to Bed

Well, I should get to sleep. It does feel comforting in some ways to be back on the east coast, even if it's quite a bit further south than I'm used to being. Raccoons squabbling over garbage woke me up yesterday morning, and a cardinal flew into a tree in the garden this afternoon. The first few mosquitos have been making their way into my room when I leave the patio door open, and although it takes ages to hunt them down before I go to bed, hearing their annoying sound in my ear brings back great memories of east coast summers. 

Finishing another chapter . . .

"Well it's too late to turn back, here we go." 

- form Portland, by Middle Brother

I didn't know if I'd make it, but I'm on the cusp of my fourth and final quarter of this adventurous year. With one week left in North Dakota, life is busy and exciting. Although some challenges still lie ahead, the future looks incredibly bright.

It's amazing how two months can go by, and it seems like nothing has happened, but the fact that I was too busy to update this blog means that many things certainly did happen. I doubt there's a better moment to reflect on all of it than sipping a vanilla "Teecino" at my lime green desk on a Saturday night, after working on a wooden flute cover of the Fleet Foxes' Blue Spotted Tail.


National Pride 

Let's see - when I last wrote I was heading off to San Francisco for February training. This training was the best yet; we got to see how those at the top devise campaign strategies and messaging. We tried this ourselves in workshops, which were challenging. I could see how this type of thing becomes easier once you've been working on an issue for a while, and understand where all of the key players fit in and what their motivations are. Nowhere was this more apparent than in a discussion we had with the founder of Corporate Ethics International.

They ran a "ReThink Alberta" campaign, targeting the province's tourist industry to bring attention to the tar sands. They now want to expand the campaign to a "ReThink Canada" campaign in an effort to up the ante on the tar sands fight. We were asked to come up with effective ad campaign angles, and as the only Canadian in the room, it was fascinating to evaluate the ideas of my American friends. I relished sharing a Canadian perspective, and understood how rarely it's heard by the majority of Americans. This situation isn't unique to the Canadian-American exchange however; it's rare for most people to have the opportunity to hear and truly appreciate how one culture perceives its relationship with another, and it's certainly something that should happen more often.

I explained that Canadians care a great deal about what Americans think. From the economy, to war, to entertainment, it's no secret that Canadian decision makers and the public look to the U.S. constantly before they make decisions. As a mouse living next to a gorilla, it is very much a necessity. I shared that a smear campaign attacking the "greenness" of Canada would probably be extremely effective. If it was widespread enough, it would certainly make national news and irk a great many Canadians. I think it's fair to say that our expansive natural wilderness is a notable point of pride for most Canadians, and that we have this idea that we are good stewards of the land (however false that may be). It will be interesting to see what Corporate Ethics International decides to do, and how effective it is. I know that personally, when I was handed an NRDC/Sierra Club tar sands research report in Houston featuring a black maple leaf dripping in oil, I just about cried. I suppose it's the same feeling many Americans have when they see their flag being burned in the streets of Kabul. Canadians can ponder what their national identity is, but threatening it is really the best way to show that it's there.


Little Campaign on the Prairie


Here in Fargo my campaign has been coming along slowly but surely. We've held two media events, and I had TV out to both of them which was fun. The link to the first news segment can be found below, but I won't be posting the second, as it involves me being interviewed in a cow costume. It's not that I'm embarrassed about being in the suit itself, I'm more simply opposed to using cheap gimmicks like that to attract media attention, even though it works. I suppose I wish we lived in a world where the media covered things because they are actually important to people's lives - not because they're sensational. But, as a seasoned media guru in San Francisco told us: "You can either work with the system and use it to your advantage, or your voice won't be heard. Your choice."

TV hit: http://www.wday.com/event/article/id/44291 

We had our second meeting with Senator Conrad's staff, and although they couldn't assure us that Conrad will cosponsor the Livestock Marketing Fairness Act, they said that "we don't expect that his support will change," which is encouraging. We've collected over 700 petitions statewide (over 1/1,000th of the state's population!), and now have almost 40 organizations and businesses signed on to our coalition letter to the Senators. I'd say it's been a great success, and we're finishing things off with an activist training this Saturday, a film screening of Fresh, and a small goodbye party. The people I've worked with here are some of the most sincere and kind people I've ever met, and I'll miss them. I'll also have to make sure I pick up Westhope: Life as a Former Farm Boy, written by one of my volunteers Dean Hulse. I know that when I read it, I'll wish I read it sooner, because it contains all of his passion for preserving rural American communities and creating a more sustainable food system.


The Road Out


From here I'll be heading home for a much-needed visit with my family. It will be a whirlwind of dinners, coffees with friends at Queen's, and completing my Canadian taxes, but hopefully it will recharge me for my subsequent week of training in New York City. NYC will be followed by a week of training in Boston, and finally moving to Philadelphia, where I'll be working for the summer. I'll be raising funds for the Human Rights Campaign - specifically for LGBTQ rights - which is something I can certainly get behind. I feel more strongly about freedom to marry than some environmental issues, so I'm hoping that helps to carry me through.

I've been gone from the east coast a long time now, and although I don't miss it, going back will be good for me. I think it will help me settle on where I want to end up in this world, although I'm in no mood to settle just yet.

Breaking out of the deep freeze. . .

My lapses in posting are worsening, and I apologize. I owe it to myself to write more often too because these posts are excellent reflective exercises. It's too bad that I haven't been keeping up with them recently, because I think they could help me get through this particularly tough part of the year.

North Dakota's a very friendly, comfortable place to live - with regards to the people. I don't mind winter so much, but the -20 degree Celsius (and below) temperatures I've been living in for the past month are certainly starting to wear on me. Back home in Ontario, it would get this cold for a few days each winter, but it would never last.

Here, I've been wearing full long underwear to bed through all of January, with no end in site. The cold slows you down, zaps your motivation to work, and fuels (for me at least) cravings for any and all baked goods. I'm exhibiting all of the behaviors of an animal entering hibernation. Though I take a multivitamin, I can also feel the impacts of limited sun exposure. I doubt I'm deficient in Vitamin D, but the cheery neural pathways in my brain that are stimulated by sunlight haven't been firing in a while.

A taste of North Dakota's iconic landscape. 

Anyway, I could complain about the dead of winter for ages, but the weather wouldn't change. It does make organizing particularly challenging though, because people's time becomes that much more restricted. Driving anywhere takes longer, houses experience water problems and heat problems, and the cold immobilizes many people, keeping them huddled under blankets in front of the TV.


It's about the people. . . 

With that said, my campaign isn't going as well as it could, and I think that's as much my fault as anything else. I've been having issues staying motivated. Partly it's the weather, and partly it's loneliness. My volunteers are wonderful, but I must admit that it's tough working alone and lacking really good friends and family to talk with face to face. The campaign itself also presents some problems. While I think it has the right goals and strategy, the its urgency is hard to pinpoint and develop, as the bill we're working on will not be introduced until May. It's my job to develop a community group that will continue this work after I leave, and that is what I have to become more invested in doing. I tend to be very self-reliant, but here, as with all classic organizing, it is my job to get behind others and push.

Some of the great community members I've brought together so far; my job is to keep developing them as leaders. 

Skiing with Berkeley friends at Heavenly with Lake Tahoe in the background. 

I head to San Francisco for training in a week and a half, and so I've just got to perk up a bit until then. I'll likely be heading to Lake Tahoe again for the President's Day long weekend. My brief trip two weeks ago was fantastic; my ski mates challenged me more than ever before, and I conquered some pretty gnarly black and double black diamonds because of it. I have a growing love for the mountains, and foresee myself living near the Rockies at some point in the not-so-distant future.

North Dakota - I love your people - but the barren landscape is hard to handle for a girl from the land of lakes, ancient rocky shores and thick forests. I'm glad to have lived here, but I doubt I'll ever call the prairies home.

I hope that winter is being a bit kinder to those of you at home. We'll have to see what Wiarton Willy says tomorrow!

Discovering the spirit. . .

"Discovering the Spirit" is emblazoned on the license plates of cars from North Dakota. After being here in Fargo less than a week, I can attest to the fact that these folks have ample spirit. Even at 30 below, they're snow-blowing each other's driveways in exchange for homemade cookies, reminiscing about how they saved the town from flooding last summer by sandbagging en masse, and offering strangers rides home in wicked winter weather.

I didn't accept the ride home; even in such a down-to-earth place I remember my childhood lessons. I must admit that I wasn't ecstatic when I heard I would be working in Fargo until April. But, I did some research and quickly learned that it is very similar to my hometown of Kingston, Ontario. It's true; I feel very much at home here. My housemates, Jen and Liz, remind me of my girlfriends from Sydenham High.

My office is in one of the tallest and most historic downtown buildings, the Black Building, built in 1912. It has fantastic mail chutes and frosted class doors with gold numbering. I'm working out of the National Audubon Society's office on the 5th floor. Surrounded by stuffed birds, bird calendars, and replica bird nests, I feel very close to my parents (the ornithologists). Across the street is a yoga studio, outdoors store, and a thrift shop. Perfection!

Giving cows a fair price

My work here is with Food & Water Watch, a DC-based non-profit that is primarily a consumer group. This therefore, technically, isn't an environmental campaign at all. It's interesting for me because I've never worked so closely on issues of agricultural economics, so I'm learning a lot.

The backstory here is that the meat processing industry, like all components of the food industry, has become highly consolidated in the last century. Four big companies now dominate the processing industry, and when it comes to beef, they have a monopoly on the market. These companies both own their own cattle and buy from independent producers (small ranchers etc.). When the price of beef is high, they slaughter their own, which floods the market with the independents' cattle, driving the price down. The big companies then buy cattle from the little guys at this reduced, below-market-value price.

This means that independent ranchers are having difficulty making a living, and America's rural communities are consequently crumbling. I've been told that we have stricter regulation on livestock markets in Canada to prevent this type of monopoly, but I'm afraid I know very little about it.

Here in the U.S., the Livestock Marketing Fairness Bill has been introduced in Congress several times to address these issues and has never gotten out of committee (most bills never do). It's our job to get North Dakota Senators Kent Conrad (D) (also a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee) and John Hoeven (R) to co-sign the bill this year. We don't care if it gets out of committee, we just want it to be introduced so that it serves as a "marker bill" for the 2012 Farm Bill, into which, ideally, its language will be integrated.

Toughening up

My jurisdiction for this campaign is Fargo and Grand Forks, two hours north, while my colleague Bryce has got Bismarck (the capital) and Minot. Although envious of my ten friends partying/working in DC on Powershift, I'm happy to have so much ownership over this campaign and to be working with such kind people. I also think that our campaign's issue and messaging is perfect, and that it's something the community will really rally behind.

I just have to toughen up to stay chipper in this weather. My thermometer says -22C outside right now, or -7F. In Texas or California I didn't have to worry about clearing off my car or shoveling my driveway. Perhaps I'll make some brownies and offer them to the boys with the snowblower next door.

American Thanksgiving at 85 degrees. . .

Snowbird

My perception of the seasons has been played with over the past 7 months. From the day I began fieldwork in California last May, I’ve been blessed with sunshine and temperatures above 20 degrees almost everyday. Here in Houston it’s been 85 (that’s about 30 for us Canucks) for the past week, and American Thanksgiving today felt pretty funny as I tucked into stuffing and sweet potatoes in an air-conditioned dining room.

I keep saying that I miss Canadian winters, but I must admit that living the life of a snowbird down here has been nice. It makes you a bit lazy though – I have to make sure that I don’t go soft living down here. It’s supposed to go down to freezing tonight (I know – 85 to 32 in one day? That’s Houston weather for ya), so things should feel slightly more normal soon. Denver will certainly be a shock at any rate, but I can hardly wait for snow.

Houston almost feels tropical. The humidity is ever-present, and is only dissipated by the strong winds accompanying fast-moving fronts. The humidity exacerbates the air quality issues significantly. On the day of our press conference last week, the city was swimming in a pea soup of smog. As we drove in along the freeway we could only make out the tops of the office buildings. It was incredibly fitting for our press conference, in which Houston City Council Member Jolanda Jones called on the Council and the Mayor to request a supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS) from the Department of State for the Keystone XL pipeline.

Bryce and I were very proud of this accomplishment. We also got a media hit on a local news channel and NPR, which can be heard here: http://app1.kuhf.org/houston_public_radio-news-display.php?articles_id=1290208335  

In the short 3 weeks we’ve been here, we’ve also had almost 20 local organizations, physicians and academics sign on to our formal letter to Mayor Parker, collected over 500 petition signatures from community members, and built a small team that will continue this work once we leave in a week’s time. With an issue like this pipeline, we new from the beginning that it would be hard to make a splash in Houston, the energy capital of the world. The fact that no major news stations would pick up our story is testament to that fact. The industry owns this city, and it will take more than the efforts of our small group to change that. Houston is THE oil town, and will likely stay as it is, jumbo-sized and car-centric, until oil is not THE thing anymore – a transition many decades down the road.

Life Choices 

It’s fascinating living in a society so different from what I envision as ideal. The sense of community created by walkable streets and small businesses has been sacrificed here for the great American ideal of independence. You can live in perfect anonymity here, and drive to buy any worldly good you should desire. While I find the former existence much more appealing, the reality is that many find the latter extremely comfortable. While I do not think that the latter is sustainable or even healthy, there is a large contingent of society who sees it as the ideal way of life and will work hard to uphold it. This saddens me greatly. Although Houston is over 1,000 km from where I grew up, it feels incredibly familiar. The developments outside of my apartment could be the developments in Kingston’s West End. I suppose this is the comfort that people relish. The megahighways and megamalls of Houston have been exported across the world. It is a lifestyle so anthropocentric, so over-comfortable, and so sterile and safe, that it jeopardizes the ability of our planet to sustain life. When you’re inside it, you have blinders on, and even I’ve begun thinking that the suburban concrete jungle isn’t so bad. But then I catch myself, and remember all that I’ve learned and seen. I know that I can’t live like this when I have knowledge of the climate refugees, the water refugees, and the refugees of oil-fueled wars that are multiplying in numbers outside the insular walls of the United States.

With all of this said, I can now appreciate why suburban magadevelopment is economically favorable, and I do not immediately judge those who support and enjoy it, but I would hope that any worldly person can see its follies. I do fear however that there are not enough of us out there. Hence this somber quote I found in The Last of the Mohicans:

“Mine ear is open, and my heart prepared:

The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold:

Say, is my Kingdom lost?” 

-Shakespeare (Richard II)

Today, on American Thanksgiving, I am thankful to everything and everyone that has provided me with a broad perspective, as well as those who are broadening my perspective still further. This is a gift I hope to pay forward many times over. 

My 3rd coast in as many months. . .

We did it. We beat Texas oil barons and protected one of the strongest pieces of climate change legislation in the world. More Californians cast a vote for NO on 23 than voted on any other single proposition or candidate in the state.

During our Get Out the Vote (GOTV) push, my volunteers and I surpassed 10,000 voter contacts, and together with my fellow organizers we contacted over 110,000 voters in California. I would love to quantify how many percentage points our efforts over the last two months garnered, but I think it's substantial. CREDO's "Stop Texas Oil" messaging and imagery were adopted by countless other groups, and became the most recognized of the campaign.

Oh the irony. . . 

I was an outside agitator in California working to thwart Texas oil companies. I'm now an outside agitator in Texas working to thwart Canadian oil companies. I must admit that I didn't see this coming, but I'm very excited about it.

I was not so excited to leave Berkeley and come to Houston however. I had created a lovely little life for myself back in California and was just beginning to really enjoy it. The sad irony of it is that while I had no weekends off while there, here in Texas I have my evenings and weekends to myself like a normal person, but no one to share them with. Alas, such is the life of an intern.

My parents took me to Yosemite this past weekend which was absolutely fantastic and really helped me wind down. The short trip sparked my desire to take a lot of time off at some point and adventure through the Sierras.

Evening in Yosemite.

Morning in Houston.  

I couldn't resist juxtaposing these two landscapes, both of which I viewed within the past 72 hours. I feel incredibly lucky to have visited both locations; the former being responsible for inspiring the modern environmental movement, and the latter being the heart of the industry that is drastically altering our planet's chemistry. The latter is such an economic powerhouse that it is lucrative for TransCanada, a Canadian tar sands company, to ship crude oil from Fort McMurray to Houston to be refined. This is what I am now trying to prevent - the contruction of the Keystone pipeline extension, known as the Keystone XL. It will pump 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) of tar sands oil to Gulf refineries, which will then be shipped primarily to the east coast and Asia. Effectively, it will open the international market to tar sands oil, and improve America's energy security. 

Environmental justice and Texan swears

So, how do you stop a pipeline from being built towards the energy capital of the world? In all likelihood, we won't, but it would be cowardly not to try. It would also be unfair to the marginalized Latino communities that live along the Shipping Channel in Houston, who live in houses shadowed by smokestacks, and who experience significantly higher rates of cancer, heart disease, and asthma than those living in similar communities with higher air quality. We were given a "toxic tour" of refinery row today by Juan Parras, who has been fighting the environmental justice issues in his community for years. He's off to DC tomorrow to meet with the EPA's Lisa Jackson. He said that the industry execs wonder why they won't just leave, and as he pointed out a 1950s-era bungalow surrounded by refinery fences on three sides, he said, "because we were here first - if this were a caucasian community, there's no way the city would let this kind of development happen." 

I've read and heard a lot about the environmental justice issues in refinery towns, and it's incredibly interesting to see it and speak to residents first hand. Obviously stopping the pipeline is primarily about stopping the global proliferation of tar sands oil use, but here in Texas the public health angle is the only angle that holds any sway with politicians. The words "environment" and "climate change" are practically swears down here, but Houston has the worst air quality of any city in the U.S., and violates the EPA's minimum standards for several criteria pollutants. Most recently, communities along the Shipping Channel were designated as non-attainment areas by the EPA for failing to meet EPA standards for ground-level ozone. Few politicians can say no to children with respiratory diseases, or pregnant mothers breathing in lead-laden air, so this is the way we must twist their arm.

Our role is to convince the Mayor Parker of Houston that the public health issue is significant enough to warrant a supplemental environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the pipeline extension. Our argument is that it would bring the most toxin-laden oil in the world to Houston refineries, and that further scrutiny of the plan is required to protect the health of Houston citizens. If a supplemental EIA is done, it will likely push construction back past the 2013 expiration date of TransCanada's permits and thus halt the pipeline. There are several other companies poised to build the connection should this one fall through, but as I eluded to before, admitting defeat means that you do not truly believe in the cause you are fighting for. If my country's ever going to intelligently handle tar sands development, the unbridled, unregulated petrochemical industry in the gulf needs to be wrangled. 

Mallrats

To me, Houston feels like a giant mall that you have to drive through. There aren't even sidewalks most places. You drive your car to giant restaurants, giant stores, giant hospitals, and giant refinery complexes. I'm living in an extended stay hotel, and so this very much feels like a 4 week business trip. It's somewhat relaxing, although I anticipate an intense case of cabin fever soon. There is quite literally nowhere to run here in the Galleria on account of the freeways, and I would have to drive to the closest park. I spent this evening having dinner with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign director and her partner, dogs, cats, and 2-year old (who was adorable and brilliant; he's learning English and Spanish and says everything in the former except for yes, which is always si instead); they promised me that there are some enjoyable parts to the city, and that they will show me around soon enough. As much as I'm out of my element, I am very glad that I am here. My perspective is ever-expanding.