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.

Now this feels like California. . .

"Sometimes it doesn't matter if you turned your paper in late. Sometimes the next two weeks matter more than any paper you've ever written." 

-Van Jones, speaking to UC Berkeley students yesterday

Sixteen days left until the election. That's 384 hours to educate as many Californians as possible about why it's in their own self interest to vote NO on Prop 23.

I was losing a bit of motivation at the beginning of this week and experiencing the burnout that repeatedly hits every organizer. This week was thus the perfect time for October training, when everyone in Green Corps comes together from across the country to take a deep breath, debrief, recalculate, and hang out. It felt great to share all of our experiences thus far and start to truly understand what this year's all about. We held our training in the conference room of the beautiful Sierra Club Headquarters in San Francisco. 

They said it would happen - but we really are becoming a 30-person family. We cooked a big group dinner of daal, salad and apple crisp at Henry's groovy art deco home last night and happily sprawled out on his carpet and couches.

Those on the east coast have been working on an entirely different style of campaign, which unfortunately wasn't very well planned by the NGO hosting them. The upshot is that they've learned a lot about higher-level planning and strategy development, and have had an opportunity to be creative while we have not. Our campaign is all about the numbers of course.

Living in a dream

My day to day activities of contacting voters and training volunteers to contact voters are somewhat monotonous, and I am missing the intellectual exercises of analysis and synthesis. With that said, I wouldn't trade these two months for anything. Every day I have to take a reality check, because my life is becoming more surreal by the day. 

You may remember from previous entries how I had recruited a retired 60s hippy folk singer whose mother had written "Little Boxes," and that she had written a cute song for our rallies. Well, the song has now been recorded by a studio in Oakland, with Grammy-winner Laurie Lewis on lead vocals! Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyjYY82uOIM 

I'm not really sure how to handle how proud I feel; I will definitely have a lot of self-reflection to do after this campaign.

That was probably my highlight of this week, however it has some stiff competition. Last Sunday was 10.10.10, the international day of action on climate change by Bill McKibben's 350.org. Over 30 "work parties" were held in Berkeley, with people installing solar panels, planting community gardens, and launching 1000 new cyclists to take real action on climate change. I was in charge of coordinating the aerial 350 photo; in places all across the world, people spell out 350 - the atmospheric parts per million concentration of carbon dioxide we must achieve to reverse catastrophic climate change. My graphic design intern Devon is also a great photographer, and I secured an apartment building roof for us to be on top of to take the picture. We laid out the shape before-hand, and then I radioed with Claire to get everyone in position. We even spelled "NO on 23" in lawn signs; it was so cool! Another very proud moment.

Berkeley residents show their commitment to fighting climate change on 10.10.10.

From there things got even better. On Wednesday we all went to the CREDO office in San Francisco to have a huge phonebank and test out the predictive dialing system. In 2 hours, we contacted over 1700 voters! It felt amazing, and even more-so because the CREDO office is high up in the federal reserve building smack in the middle of downtown San Francisco. It has floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the city. 

The CREDO staff are really cool, as I think I've said before, but watching the CEO play ping-pong with my classmates really hammered that one home. Their political department is full of hilarious full sized cutouts of politicians, from the Governator to Sarah Palin (with a magic marker mustache . . . it's no mystery what side of the political spectrum these guys are on!).

On Thursday we had the opportunity to volunteer at the Rainforest Action Network's (RAN) 25th Birthday party and fundraiser. It's called REVEL, and is known by those in the environmental community as one of the best annual fundraisers in the country. I was really interested to see what big donor events like this were like, and RAN certainly did not disappoint. 

As a volunteer, my job was to stand by the elevators on the ground floor with my friend Sam and usher party-goers up to the 4th floor where the event was. I only had to do this for and hour and a half, and got to enjoy the min. $250-ticket party for free. I've never been to a party like this. There was an open bar, an impressive silent auction, and when I walked in Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was standing in front of me. He was being honored at the event, along with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, and singer Bonnie Raitt. Bobby Weir of The Grateful Dead even played. A few of my friends worked up the courage to talk to these big-wigs, but I was content to soak it all in. After all, I didn't even know who Bonnie Raitt was until someone looked at me exasperatedly and began singing "Something To Talk About" and I clued in. Her red hair is quite impressive; apparently she's always been quite the environmental activist.

RFK Jr. practices environmental law and has been an awesome advocate for clean energy in DC. Ironically he opposed the Cape Wind project and has come under a lot of fire for it; I guess even the Kennedys can exhibit NIMBYism. His speech was good, and also raised the hairs on the back of my neck because despite his vocal waver he sounds exactly like JFK and RFK.

Green Corps volunteers at REVEL.

RFK Jr. addresses the party-goers. 

The gorgeous venue at the Metreon in SF. You can just see Michael, the ping-pong-playing CEO of CREDO above the #6 card on the middle table. 

Check out RAN's Flickr stream for more pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainforestactionnetwork/ 

Art imitates life

Just yesterday it came out that James Cameron is donating $1 million to the NO on Prop 23 campaign. This is awesome. The theme of Avatar was pretty obvious, and where the influence of his artistry wanes in the real world he's backing it up with real support. Check out the LA Times article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/10/james-cameron-avatar-environmental-prop-23.html

Donations to the NO on 23 campaign now top $20 million, almost doubling what's been put in on the Yes side. This is really encouraging, and a Reuters/IPSOS poll from the beginning of October has us up to 49% NO, 37% YES and 14% undecided.

I am hopeful, but it is far too early to count our chickens and we have to put everything possible into these last two weeks. Wish us luck.

Mini-post: Van Jones and the art of inspiration. . .

Tonight we held an amazing mass-phonebank led by Van Jones, a visionary leader in the civil rights and green collar jobs movement. Over 150 people turned out to hear Van speak and phonebank voters; it was an incredible feeling seeing so many folks exhilarated about winning this thing.

The Berkeley and Palo Alto NO on 23 organizers and Lucy (left) my supervisor, as well as my adorable boss Cindy Kang (right) with Van Jones.

Coincidentally Van's sister is also named Angela. As we shook hands, he asked me if we'd met before, and I replied definitely not given that I'm Canadian! He seems very genuine. Even though nonsensical Republican accusations led to his resignation from his post as Obama's green jobs advisor, I don't think U.S. politics has seen the last of this bright man.

For anyone who cares about where this world's going, Van Jones is a must-see. Fast forward to 9:30 for the good stuff; right now the U.S. could fall or fly:

http://fora.tv/2009/02/02/Van_Jones_The_Green_New_Deal#fullprogram

Celebrities [to me] and Prop 23 on TV . . .

"Does anyone really believe that these companies, out of their black-oil hearts, are really spending millions and millions of dollars to protect jobs? It's not about jobs at all. It's about their ability to pollute and thus protect their profits." -Arnold Schwarzenegger in a radio interview about Prop 23 yesterday.

Coming from a republican, the Governator's words mean a lot. AB32, California's Global Warming Solutions Act, was his baby after all. I think his progressive ideas about the future of energy production stem from his European upbringing, and it will be sad to see him go this November.

Surprisingly, the Republican that could take his place is now also supporting NO on 23. "Megabucks" Whitman (as the tabloids call her, and rightly so) announced her position on Prop 23 last Thursday after Democratic candidate Jerry Brown criticized her for not taking a stand. It's a mixed blessing.

We're hoping that her announcement will draw more NO votes from California republicans, but it's quite apparent that she did it as a political ploy. Coming out "yes" on 23 would have labeled her totally anti-environment, which is a death sentence in California politics. If Prop 23 fails and she becomes governor however, she has said that she will still suspend AB32 for at least a year because she thinks AB32 "is not perfect." I would say that no comprehensive law addressing climate change will ever be perfect, and that this is simply another political ploy to please her conservative supporters. She wants to have her cake and eat it too, and after spending over $119 million dollars of her own money on her campaign it will be interesting to see if she gets to in the end. She and Jerry are roughly split in the polls right now.

There are mixed polling results on Prop 23 right now, all of which indicate that we still have a lot of work to do. One poll shows the yes side winning by a small margin, one shows roughly a 50/50 split, and the most promising shows us winning with 45%, yes with 34%, and 21% of folks undecided. The media here has been very kind to us though, with the LA Times, Sacramento Bee and San Francisco Chronicle all endorsing the NO on Prop 23 side this past week.

Here's a great (and long!) radio report too from our last rally, where we had an amazing 70 people turn out (go to 10:18): http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/64235 It features my co-organizer Claire this time, and a bunch of our great volunteers.

The women singing at the beginning are volunteers that I recruited! One of them is Nancy Schimmel, who's the daughter of Malvina Reynolds. Malvina Reynolds was a famous folk singer who wrote the song "Little Boxes" in 1962, which is a satire of the suburban American life. Mum and Dad (and others of that generation) may remember it from your childhood! For those of my generation, it's the theme song from the Showcase TV show Weeds. So yes, Nancy Schimmel comes from a great family of folk singers, and she's written a great (and very cute) song for our campaign with the help of her friend Bonnie Lockhart. Here's a good-quality video of the song but unfortunately it's not the whole thing, so the second (which I may have posted before) is a grainy video from a smaller rally with more lyrics:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=632403221714&ref=mf

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7CrRNuIx_8

The Ad Battle Begins

In my opinion this is really coming down to a vote-off between the informed and the uninformed. Anyone who remotely believes that climate change exists and knows that Prop 23's "suspension" effectively kills AB32 will vote No. The problem is the millions of Californians don't know that unemployment will never fall to 5.5% for a full year in the near or distant future, and thus see Prop 23 as perhaps a positive precautionary measure. The oil companies are preying upon this ignorance, as seen in their newest TV ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUXoqnb4SlU

The NO on 23 campaign has countered with their own ads:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpbYmOVFdSo&feature=player_embedded

 I must admit that I cringed a little bit when I saw them. They're ok, but they really need to have a person in them like the Yes ads do. I feel like people would relate more to a "typical Californian" than a disembodied voice; hopefully our No side has some better ads in their back pocket that they're waiting to release.

Celebrities (to the young science and environment folks)

I went to a party for the Union of Concerned Scientist's NO on 23 campaign at the Chabot Space Center last Thursday. The space center is really cool; it's a science center and observatory perched amongst the redwoods on a hill overlooking the entire bay. The keynote speaker was a scientist who headed the cleanup of the Exon Valdez disaster, and is now a climate scientist who does educational lectures across the country. His names escapes me regrettably, but he was very good. I especially liked his simplistic metaphor of climate change as a kettle on a stove; if you don't turn off the stove, the water will keep getting hotter. The grim thing about it is that we're inside the kettle, and therefore need to work hard to turn the stove off and can't walk away from the problem.

It's too bad climate change isn't as simple as us being inside a giant kettle. I feel like if that were the case, we would have long silenced those who thought turning off the stove was a silly idea :p

Anyway, the party was all very nice but I was 300 miles away from another UCS party happening in LA that my teammate Alex attended, where he got to meet none other than Bill Nye the Science Guy! I was pretty jealous. . . but I still feel very lucky to now be one degree of separation away from the man who taught me basic science as a child via TV Ontario. Bill Nye's actually opening "Bill Nye's Climate Lab" - an interactive exhibit about climate change for kids - at the Chabot Space Center where I was at the party. I would love to go to the gala opening to actually meet him, but tickets are $500 a pop so that's definitely out of the question!

In other celebrity news Claire and I have been tasked with hosting Van Jones this Sunday night at a venue here in Berkeley. Van Jones is the founder of Green for All, an environmental justice organization that advocates for green jobs for people of colour and low socioeconomic status. He's also the author of The Green Collar Economy, and advises Obama on green jobs. He's going to speak to 100 or so people about Prop 23 and then get them all phonebanking voters! It's going to be a great event - I'm excited to meet him and even more excited to see that many people getting involved at once.

Life in the Bay


Well that about sums up my campaign updates for now! I can't believe there's only 5 weeks left until the election . . . we're working even harder than before to inform as many voters as possible. We're now solely focusing on phonebanking voters and having them sign pledges to vote No.

I have had a bit of time to enjoy living in this absolutely groovy place though! A week ago I went to a great bar in San Francisco called the "Elbo Room," where they have dance parties to 50s and 60s motown! It took a while to get used to dancing to it, but once we did we danced our feet off for three hours - it was fantastic! It's music you can actually dance to.

Last Saturday night I saw my favorite band, Vampire Weekend, here at the amphitheater on UC Berkeley's campus. They were amazing! I know they play hundreds of shows a year, but they looked like they were having a great time and kept the special effects to a minimum while letting their awesome live music do the talking. I got to be right down in front too - it was pretty surreal seeing the people who've made music that has made me incredibly happy over the last three years make it in person.

Even more surreal was the fact that when I announced where I was going to my host parents before the concert, they said, "Wait, Vampire Weekend? Don't we know one of the kids in that band?"

Turns out when Larry lived in New York, he was best friends with Ezra Koenig's (the lead singer's) mother! He gave Ezra a present for his 3rd birthday. I'm now one degree of separation away from my favorite band; people in Berkeley really are some of the grooviest around.

I've also had a chance to enjoy some of downtown San Francisco. I joined Aunt Florine there Saturday afternoon while she was there with her girlfriends. It was so nice to see her! It made me miss the family very much. I'm very excited for Mum & Dad to come down in November, and wish I could share my experiences here with all my friends and family in person.

View of San Francisco and the Bay from the top of Lombard Street, with the famous Coit Tower at right.

Sign-off

The Bay Area is a lot of fun, and a great place to be for someone at my stage in life, but I must admit that it's not all wonderful. I could never live here long-term. There are 9 million people packed in around the Bay and thus there are people and cars everywhere, and it's so dry and sunny all the time that the seasons blurr together and time passes at lightning speed. As I've found, it attracts some of the most interesting and ambitious people, but like Vancouver it also attracts many people who have slipped through the cracks of society. When many of volunteers find out that I'm Canadian, they say "Oh you come from such a beautiful country!"

I don't think I've ever taken my home for granted, but I appreciate it all the more now and agree with my volunteers; it truly is a beautiful and special place. Before I come back I have this campaign to win, then recruitment for Green Corps at Stanford, and then I'm off to a new placement for the month before Christmas! I'll be finding out where this is in the next few weeks, and I'm up for anything after having the opportunity to live here in Berkeley.

Thanks again to everyone who's been reading this over the past two months, it means a lot. I hope I've been able to shed some light on the rather insane world of American politics and culture, or that you've at least found these posts entertaining. I love hearing about life at home and miss you all very much, so please write a letter or send me an email whenever the mood strikes :) I hope all your work, school, and festivities have been rewarding and fun thus far.

Turning up the heat. . .

The beautiful Zoology building at UC Berkeley - after this week, it is my firm belief that the world would be much better off if everyone had a science degree.

Sorry it's been a little while everyone; I fear my posts will become more widely spaced now that things are really picking up. Although the quantity of posts will be lower, my hope is that the quality of each will be better as things get more exciting with each passing week. I should post a disclaimer though: this particular entry is a garbled mix of political and cultural observations. I've had lots of great thoughts today, but I've struggled to make them cohesive at this late hour.

The Front Page

This campaign is becoming a real nail-biter. . . which, for those who know me well, spells disaster for the appearance of my hands. Proposition 23 made the front page of the New York Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17pollute.html

I think it's a great article, and it's already received over 200 comments. One of the most interesting came from a man here in San Francisco:

California faces a dilemma: Should it behave like an advanced first world nation, which it is, or should it join the third worldish, retrograde culture of the rest of the US, an emerging third world nation? While Stanford and Berkeley jointly are host to over 50 Nobel Prize winners (an astonishing contradiction in a nation where most people can’t find England on the map), the rest of the US ponders whether global warming exists or evolution has any validity (while at the same time benefiting from the advances in medicine that would not have been possible without a fundamental understanding of evolution). Unless northern California, Oregon and Washington state secede and become independent, they will be dragged down into misery by the rest of the US, whose culture, outside a few islands of enlightenment on the east coast, differs little from that of the most retrograde Islamic countries of the Middle East.


- Dominga Travella, San Francisco

This is perhaps a little melodramatic, but he makes several points that aren't too far off the mark.

Tea Parties and Retrograde Motion

The left and right of the U.S. political spectrum become more distant from one another by the day. The country still leads the world in innovation because of the masses of money available for research and development, however this money is still sourced from a pocket of American society where capitalism and fundamental religious beliefs are inextricably linked. In this poor economic climate, these right-wing, old money communities have the power to rally strongly and thus the Tea Party Movement is stronger than ever before.

Case and point: Christine O'Donnell just won the Republican primary election for the open Delaware senate seat. She wasn't expected to, but Tea Partiers rallied hard and won. Ms. O'Donnell didn't complete her undergraduate degree in the early 1990s because she defaulted on her tuition payments, which her University sued her for and won. Following that, she became the president of a religious organization that advocated against masturbation, biblically equating it with adultery. She has argued that the sexual revolution of the 1960s led to the AIDS epidemic, and that a literal interpretation of The Bible's Book of Genesis should be taught in schools.

I would hope that we have no one in the House of Commons with this background, however I'm not so up-to-date on my Canadian politics! The bottom line is that fundamentalism is gaining ground in Republican circles down here, and it is a very, very scary thing.

I had an adorable older lady come into the office the other day to pick up a yard sign, and she said, "It's a pity we have to work so hard to keep things from getting worse, when there's so many other things that we need to fix already." Coming from a woman who has lived through World War II, the civil rights movement, and the digital revolution, this comment really resonated with me. Change can happen, but it is slow, and often times things get much worse before they get better.

Talking to Americans


In that vein, being down here has gotten me really excited to go back to Canada and create change there where things aren't nearly so messy. From Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans, I had the inkling that our country registers pretty low on the horizon of the average Yank, but I've been slightly horrified to discover the extent to which this is true. My supervisor - an educated, aware 27-year-old - had no idea what Canada's political situation was, let alone who our prime minister is. The more unsettling thing is that this ignorance not only applies to us, their northern neighbor and biggest trading partner, but to every other country in the world. The most I've discussed global issues in the past two months has been with my visiting Canadian friends.

We had twenty people come in to the office this evening for an information session about the campaign and to phonebank with us. They were all shocked to learn that AB32, the global warming law threatened by Prop 23, is the most aggressive law of its kind in the world.

As part of the information session, Claire and I shared our "personal stories" as they're called by organizers; these are just little anecdotes about why we're doing this work. You'll see politicians use these all the time to connect with their audience and show that they're real people, and by golly they work! Mine starts like this: "I come from a country that won't take any serious steps towards addressing climate change until the U.S. does, and this is the reality in many other countries around the world."

At this, the Californians sitting around me looked at me with wide eyes. A few nodded in agreement, but most said, "Really? Well why are you taking a lead from us, things are so screwed up down here!" or "Oh that's so depressing!" The reality is that most Californians don't understand the power that their state has both within their country and the world. Most of them are just regular people living regular lives, with too little time or energy to be active in political and environmental realms. This has certainly been a sobering realization, and has shrunken my world view immensely. Although it will be challenging, perhaps through this campaign some Californian's will become more aware of their role as global leaders.

Talking Business

In a pleasant surprise, the oil industry has come out somewhat divided on Proposition 23. Although many companies are supporting it with millions of dollars, Shell is actually opposing the Prop. As I recall from a giant advertisement in the Queen's University athletics center depicting a futuristic city full of alternative energy sources, Shell is working to rebrand themselves as environmentally conscious and progressive much as BP was endeavoring to do with their Beyond Petroleum ad campaign. Chevron has also decided to remain neutral on the issue, likely because they've already gotten lots of bad press in the last few years in California over pollution law violations.

This divide is exciting; it's exposing those corporations who are truly invested in maintaining the status quo to secure profits. It's all laid bare in this "leaked email" from the National Petroleum Refiners Association to its members:

http://www.camajorityreport.com/index.php?module=articles&func=display&aid=4512&ptid=9

As a science student I am a perennial skeptic, and don't know if this is real or not. Several lines are utterly ridiculous and pretty funny, such as:

"We’ve raised about $6 million so far, but unfortunately in California’s expensive media market this is not enough to win the fight against environmental zealots led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who seems hell-bent on becoming the real-life Terminator of our industry."


If this is real, I find it mind-boggling that these are the billionaires controlling U.S. politics. But, going back to Ms. O'Donnell's win, I guess these people are alive and kicking out there. I have yet to figure out how to interact with them when I meet them, as I'm sure I will at some point this year.


That will be a life-changing experience in itself.


Sign-Off


If my observations or rambling commentary bored anyone this entry I apologize! Stay tuned for the next post, it's guaranteed to be more exciting. I'm attending a big party at the Chabot Space Center next Thursday for the Union of Concerned Scientist's campaign against Prop 23, and we're holding a massive rally at the Berkeley Valero station next weekend where two local government candidates will be our featured speakers. We're expecting TV news stations to cover it which is exciting. 


I better work on my TV smile. . . the last time I was on camera was for a high school quiz show.


Happy back to school and back to work; the weather's wonderful here but I do miss those chilly autumn breezes - they always signaled months of great potential. 

Sound bites and late nights . . .

"Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stone, and good in everything." 

                                                                                -William Shakespeare 

That quote isn't particularly pertinent to the contents of this entry, but I had to put it down because I believe that it's my favorite quote to date. I found it at the beginning of "Swampwalker's Journal: A Wetlands Year," by David M. Carroll, which I picked up at a book giveaway. Nerdy, I know, but the biologist in me is still very much alive. It won the John Burrough's Medal and seems like it will be a wonderfully serene read. It's a pity I'll have to shelve it until November.

Racing Time

Although tall, the waterfall I likened this campaign to in the last entry flows extremely quickly. My work is like trying to construct some sort of device on the way down in order to make sure that you aren't dashed across the rocks, ending your journey. You're endeavoring to land safely and float on down the river to new victories. That's a bit dramatic - but like the bottom of the waterfall there is no question that November 2nd will come, and so every moment until then is extremely precious.

My precious time this week was spent calling people. In 20 hours of my week I contacted over 100 people, and had almost 90 pledge to vote no on Prop 23. Of those people, two came out to phonebank with me, and about fifteen made it to our rally on Saturday. With Claire my partner in crime doing the same, we had over 30 people at our kickoff rally, which was a great success. After learning about how this whole grassroots organizing thing is supposed to work, it was wonderful to see it work in reality. Our job now is to set some of these volunteers up as leaders, so that they can activate their own groups of people and thereby amplify the message exponentially.

The Berkeley campaign's kickoff rally crew!

We have great support from our employers, which has been awesome. We were invited to have beers on CREDO's tab along the water on Friday, and got to meet the whole team as well as the president, Michael. He's the kindest (and I think only) CEO I've ever met; he went to Spencer and John's (fellow organizers) rally on Saturday in Palo Alto and is going to make his way round to each of ours over the coming weeks.

CREDO also set us up with ten Blackberry phones per office for our volunteers to phonebank with. While we can't help feel spiffy with all of them, teaching my first retired volunteer how to use one was a bit of a challenge! We now have some great signs, buttons and bumper stickers for the campaign as well, which cover the walls of our rudimentary office. It's small and a bit dilapidated, but I found a print of a Group of Seven painting at Goodwill which has improved things a bit. One of the Environment California staff Lindsey from our office keeps her two little turtles in there too; their terrarium is a bit too small for them, but they are terribly cute and seem happy as far as I can tell.

Oh right, and check out how legit our website is! You can see the shining faces of my fellow organizers: http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/stop_texas_oil/contact.html

Air Time

One of the big lessons for me this week was about the media. I managed to secure some airtime on a local radio station and a reporter came down to our rally on Saturday to take quotes from people. She asked me lots of questions, and I gabbed on and on. Being on the radio for the first time is exciting, until you listen to the clip yourself.

I found that hearing yourself on the radio is a bit like getting a new haircut. When you first see (or hear) yourself, you think "Uggh. . is that really me?" Bet then, after looking in the mirror (or listening to the recording) a few times you realize that it's perhaps not as bad as you thought. I learned so much from those little bits of airtime though, such as: never say "like" - you sound rediculous, talk slower than you think is normal because you'll always quicken your pace, don't yell into the mic - it can pick up a conversational tone perfectly well, and finally, make sure to pronounce your own name clearly to the host prior to the show. Listen to the clips if you want - one from Andra Borg and one from Angela Boag - they're entertaining one way or the other :p Next to the link are the minutes that my story's on.

Saturday Morning Talkies

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/63750

Minutes 8:20 - 11:40

Evening News

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/63759

Minutes 18:55 - 22:10

These are all things I'll work on for next time. The most important thing I learned however is that you must make sure that you stick to your message when you talk to the media. My science degree taught me to answer questions as honestly and thoroughly as possible, but here in the world of biased and sensationalized media, what you don't say is just as important as what you do say.

I was taken aside by my bosses after we listened to it and they congratulated me on getting media coverage, but said that they should have given us better media training. They don't want us discussing the nuances of the jobs arguments - as I did in both these pieces - because it gives the opposition's talking points more coverage. They stressed that we are solely to focus on the issues of global warming, corporate influence in politics, and on the more general fact that California is currently well positioned as a leader in the green economy. 

This sat uneasily with me at first, as I strongly believe that to be constructive the whole truth of an issue must be discussed in a balanced way. I maintain this belief, but my superiors have been organizing for years now and certainly know the lay of the land better than I do. We're in the midst of coming up with media talking points for ourselves and our volunteers to ensure that the best things get said in the airtime that we have.


Taking Time


I should say that although I'm working more than I ever have in my life, I still have the time to make my lunches, do my laundry, go on a run every so often, and write these entries. The Bay Area has no shortage of entertainment on Saturday nights either. Last weekend I went to "Booty," an apparently famous pirate-themed club in the Mission district. It specializes in mash-ups (songs that go well together smushed into one, for those who don't know i.e. parents), and on this, the evening of Michael Jackson's Birthday, a live band was combining MJ's hits with every groovy song in the world. It was great.

Hanging out in San Fran with (L-->R) my supervisor Lucy, classmate John, office partner Claire, and classmate Spencer (working with John in Palo Alto).

The event I'm most excited for is coming up September 25th. My friend Christa told me that my favorite band had just been in Vancouver, while I thought they were touring in Europe all summer and fall. I jumped on their website and lo and behold, Vampire Weekend is coming to Berkeley's Greek Theatre. I've never been so happy to spend $50 on a ticket for something in all my life.

Sign-off


For the very first time in 18 years I'm not going back to school this week. I thought it would feel weird, but it doesn't; I was definitely ready to graduate. To be fair, my internship is a bit school-ish (we get taught theory and skills, marked, and debriefed), but I've already learned a great deal about the "working world." Walking Berkeley's incredible campus makes me miss the academic life a bit, but also makes me really excited. I know I'm not done with ivory towers, and when I go back the world outside of them will be a whole lot less mysterious to me.

Asking people for money. . .

"Donors don't give to institutions. They invest in ideas and people in whom they believe." - G.T. Smith

As children in the Western world we are taught that it is rude to talk about money. While many of us examine and change the way we think about race, religion, sex, and parenthood as we become adults, a tendency exists for people to retain their parents' attitudes towards money.

This makes sense. Money is both the great equalizer and the great divider. It supposedly measures the significance of your life's work. It can become food, water, shelter, and luxury.

For all these reasons I was quite apprehensive about asking people for money. After knocking on my first four or five doors however, I soon realized what fundraising is really about. It's like a treasure hunt. You're not trying to force money out of everyone you talk to, you're searching door to door for the people who already believe in you and your work and who understand that money is needed to fuel that work.

Face to Face


Our contract with Credo Mobile for the Prop 23 campaign doesn't start until this Monday, so Green Corps needed to find something useful for us to do as we waited for our teammates who were driving across the country. We subsequently got our first lesson in fundraising by working for the Fund for the Public Interest. The Fund is the organization that raises money for the Public Interest Network and all of their subsidiaries, like Environment America and Green Corps. We went canvassing for Environment California, the biggest environmental NGO in the state. We were asking people to join as members, or give one-time contributions to support Environment California's work on the "Ban the Bag" campaign. Monday the senate will vote to ban plastic bags in California, and so we were out to muster funding for the last stages of media work around the issue.

Canvassing is challenging, and not just because you have to get over your initial fears of asking for money. Your job is to walk door to door and deliver a memorized "rap" about the campaign to people, which is designed to get your message and question across in the most succinct and least painful way possible. You do this from 3:45 pm - 8:45 pm, the hours that people are most likely to be home and awake. Walking for five hours certainly wakes up your legs, especially when your "turf" as it's called is in the hilly suburbs outside of San Francisco.

The other challenging part is dealing with rejection. The statistic is that for every 40 people you talk to, 5 will give you money. In my experience, 25/35 people who reject you will do so in a very polite way, i.e. open the door, listen for a bit, and then say "I support what you're doing but I never give money at the door/I already give to several charities." Four will reject you without opening the door by saying no from the other side, another three will be a little nasty to you, and three will argue with you about why the way you're handling environmental problems is wrong and why their way is right.

It's a fascinating way to see society - although some neighborhoods harbor different attitudes than others, most are near-perfect cross-sections of the public. Most are cooperative, some are fearful, some are negative and others are questioning.

I most enjoy the questioning people. Although we're taught to say thanks and leave as soon as we realize they're not with us (in order to save time and continue the treasure hunt), I enjoy hearing from them. For instance yesterday, I had a man explain to me how he believed that the free market would take care of environmental problems eventually. I believe this to be true, but I frankly don't want to wait until all of the terrible things happen that will then spur people into action. Another man told me that this money should be going to research, and that science is the answer. While I believe that science is a quintessential part of sustainable development, in my own experience I've come to realize that the solutions are already available for the most glaring environmental problems.

It will be interesting to see how I think of all this at the end of the year. Perhaps I will become disenchanted with grassroots organizing as well, and realize that all of these things must work together to make things happen. I'm really excited to see what I learn.

Living in Berkeley


A year ago I certainly wouldn't have guessed that I'd be living in Berkeley, California, one of the most fabled centers of progressive thought, academia, and fringe cultures. Walking down the streets you feel like everything's psychedelically rainbow coloured, and not just because there's colourful paintings and buildings all around. The people themselves are colourful. There's the very poorest to the very richest, the smartest to the most simple, a random jazz band playing on one corner, and a glass-walled yoga studio on the next with people bent into lots of different shapes.

My house is very colourful as well. It's green on the outside and orange, blue, purple and hardwood on the inside. There's a couple of psychologists in the apartment downstairs with a toddler and a new baby, and here with Larry and Netsy there's me, two temporary friends of their daughter, and a Sri Lankan student coming to stay tomorrow. Larry grew up in New York and he's got a great accent - straight outta da movies. He's a family therapist. Netsy's gutsy and smart; I'm not quite sure what she is but she researches policies on social issues like worker's and women's rights at UC Berkeley. I'm living in their daughter Sari's room who I just met today; she's working with people in transitional housing in the roughest neighborhood of San Francisco, and her sister Molly has just graduated and is working in New York. They're Jewish, and when they're together you have to work hard to get a word in edgewise because they're loud and want to know everything about everybody's loves - it's a wonderful surrogate family to be a part of. They get the work that I'm doing entirely.

Sign-Off


Soon I dive into this huge and urgent campaign. It kind of feels like I'm in a rubber raft headed for a water fall. I know it's there, but instead of being nervous I'm mostly excited, and I'm ready to just let whatever happens happen. I still have to catch myself sometimes, zoom out, and feel proud of how big a deal this campaign is. I'm working to protect not only the strongest climate change legislation in the U.S., but the world. No pressure eh?

Well, guess I've just got to put my head down and see what happens when I get to the bottom.

If you're going to San Francisco. . .

At the beginning of my training here in Boston, time was passing at a refreshingly slow rate. I didn't know my peers, the city, or really what I was learning here; all of these new experiences contributed to long, slightly-overwhelming days. However this week, just like the last week of summer camp, I've grown to love the people around me, be entirely comfortable with the city, and have a much better understanding of my job. This means that time is once again passing unnervingly quickly, and my departure to Berkeley on Sunday morning is fast approaching.

                                           Some of the Green Corps '11 Class kicking back

My First Task: Beat Big Oil

Yep - I'll be heading back to the golden state for my first placement. As I learned more about Prop 23, I realized that this is the chance of a lifetime to work on a campaign that will have significant implications for climate legislation in the U.S. and therefore the world.

Proposition 23 is a ballot initiative funded by two Texas oil companies, Valero and Tesoro. Both companies have oil refineries in California, which are among the top ten emitters of carbon dioxide in the state. In 2006 the California state government passed a clean air law, AB32, the "Global Warming Solutions Act," that requires industry to reduce emissions that threaten public health and contribute to global climate change. This legislation was the most progressive legislation in the country at the time, and in the wake of the federal climate bill failing in the senate this spring, it still stands as the country's strongest climate legislation.

Prop 23 would suspend AB32 until California's economy improves following the recession. Unemployment in California is currently at a grim 12%, and Prop 23 proposes to suspend AB32 until unemployment falls below 5%. On the surface this seems like a good idea, if AB32 is indeed standing in the way of new industry jobs. The caveat is that the unemployment rate rarely falls below 5% in California, and is not projected to do so in the foreseeable future. Therefore, Prop 23 would effectively kill AB32. The clean energy sector, which AB32 encourages and supports, has grown ten times faster than any other sector in California since 2005, and has created jobs in manufacturing and construction where others have been lost to the recession. At the most basic level, this campaign pits shortsighted special interests against long-term sustainable development - the very problem facing communities the world over.

I'll be working in Berkeley and the Bay area to educate the public about the issue, and organize a portion of "Get Out the Vote" (the program started during Obama's campaign to raise voter turnout). Voter turnout during presidential elections can be as low as 30%, and is even worse during midterm elections. The Bay area is very liberal, and harbors huge support for climate legislation, so it's my job to mobilize that support and get people to the ballot box. I'll also be recruiting for Green Corps at UC Berkeley which will be a blast; I'll get to relive my university days vicariously through my volunteers.

Credo Mobile, a California cell phone company, is funding the campaign. They're a company that allots a portion of their budget to socially responsible actions. Cindy Kang, the Director of Green Corps, said they had a tough time deciding whether to partner with a company, because they've historically only worked with non-profits. They decided to do it in this case because the stakes are so high and we're up against so much money. This made sense to me. While I think that environmental groups have to be very careful about which businesses they work with, I think it's counterproductive to draw a line in the sand between the corporate and non-profit worlds. If more partnerships like this one were made, it would strengthen the legitimacy of environmental groups and make them competitive against big coal, big oil, and big agriculture.

Thoughts of Home

Speaking of the big three, my favorite speaker in this last week of training was Lorelei Scarboro. Lorelei was born and bred in West Virginia. Growing up she ate fish from the rivers and whatever her Daddy brought home from hunting in the woods. Her father was a coal miner, as was her grandfather, and as was her husband, who died of black lung disease. Lorelei is now 55, and stayed at home her whole life raising three kids. Her husband worked underground, and it was only a decade ago when Lorelei first became aware of a new type of mining deemed "Mountain Top Mining," or "MTM" by the coal companies. It is better known to the public as "Mountain Top Removal," or "MTR," which is a much more accurate name for the practice.

                                           An MTR site in West Virginia

Mountain top removal mining is done by first clear-cutting the forest, and then literally blowing the tops off of mountains with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. This creates flat moonscapes identical to those seen in the tar sands. 500 mountains in Appalachia have been flattened this way thus far, destroying thousands of acres of montane habitat. The health of those living in coal country is also significantly affected. The blasting carries coal dust and silica down the mountainsides, and heavy metals running off the sites find their way into community wells. In Prenter Holler, a small Appalachian town of 200, over 90% of adults have had their gallbladders removed due to cancer. For a news clip, see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6C5sUTIbbY Lorelei told us all of this in an endearing southern drawl that reminded me of Arlo Guthrie.

She has spent the last three years campaigning for a moratorium to be placed on MTR, and has met with dozens of senators and EPA officials. She's a champion of transition jobs. Her son-in-law works at an MTR site to support Lorelei's daughter and grandchildren, but would work somewhere else in a heartbeat if he had the choice. Lorelei is advocating for the government to fund habitat restoration projects at thousands of old mines, and is working with international clean energy companies to exploit the wind energy potential of the mountains.

All of this reminded me of the Tar Sands issue in Canada. There, the scale of development dwarfs these MTR projects, however it's taking place so far north that it is largely out of the public eye. It's incredible to think that here in the U.S. people are literally dying due to resource extraction practices, and despite being vocal about it, these practices are still being permitted by the government. I subsequently have no hope for the Tar Sands being shut down in Canada any time soon.

Despite this, one must do what one knows to be right, and so I will work in California to uphold climate change legislation that will hopefully, ever-so-slightly, move the world's biggest economy one baby-step closer to kicking the fossil fuel habit. It will be a long, frustrating, and rewarding road.

Over the border and into organizing . . .

"Young people come of age with a critical eye and a hopeful heart. It's that combination of critical eye and hopeful heart that brings change." - Marshall Ganz

Driving through Rockport and the other small seaside towns of Massachusetts with my parents, I had Vampire Weekend's "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" in my head. Around me were colourful wooden houses like the one in the music video, and with their multiple stories and three-car garages they showed me what old New England money really means. I knew there was a lot of money in the United States, but to see so much affluence within and outside of Boston hit the point home. I imagined what I saw replicated (with different architecture of course) in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, and the countless other American metropolises. I knew then that I truly was in the belly of the beast - the beast being our global economy.

After saying my goodbyes to my parents, I rolled my suitcase into Fisher College on Beacon Street and immediately found the registration room for Green Corps. After doing some quick introductions with the others in the room I sat down and tried to focus on tax forms which was incredibly difficult. My mind was whirring with big thoughts: new place, new people, first real job.

Words from the Veterans

After meeting everyone formally that night and being surprised that there are only 21 of us in the class this year, we dove right into training the next day. I've never had classes like this before. On the second day, we got a first-hand account of what life is like in the "direct action" camp of environmentalism from a bigwig: U.S. Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford. It was really neat to meet the man at the top of an organization that you hear so much (good, bad, and ugly) about, and be able ask him what he thought of his group's image. For the record, he supports his group's radical image, but stresses that their radical tactics are only warranted if they are effective. He noted that every campaign Greenpeace runs is based on a scientifically sound bottom line, and posited that "we have all the answers, we just haven't got the power." I've found that this is the sentiment tying everyone together in the environmental organizing community.

My favorite guest speaker thus far has been John Rogers, a Senior Energy Analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Their group, which was founded in 1969 by nuclear physics grad students at MIT, works at the intersection of science and policy in order to ensure that technology is used responsibly. They have developed a Clean Energy Road Map for the next 50 years, illustrating how we can reach our GHG reduction targets to reduce the impacts of climate change. Their goal for the U.S? The 2030 energy mix they envision = 48% wind, 23% biomass, 8% solar, 10% hydro, and 11% fossil fuels (as they are phased out). They have also identified the policy tools necessary to achieve these changes, and are favoring a cap & trade strategy over tax restructuring. In his book Plan B 4.0, Lester Brown (World Watch Institute) argues for the latter based on the fact that this avoids fluctuations in carbon prices which can scare off investors. I don't understand enough economics to know who to believe - it's another thing to add to my "to learn" list.

Another bigwig we've heard from is Lois Gibbs, the passionate stay-at-home mother from Love Canal who many say is the founder of the modern environmental movement. Her story was incredibly moving; if you aren't aware of the saga, I suggest you Wikipedia Lois or hunt down the movie made about the case. To the budding organizers in the audience she said: "People out there want to do something; they just don't know what to do," and, in a tongue-in-cheek but forthright way, "Mothers and babies are the perfect tool to use against politicians - it's political suicide to ignore them!" Indeed, to win the Love Canal campaign she arranged for a handful of the community's cutest toddlers to toddle in and stand below the NY Governor's podium. I'm not planning to recruit babies for any of my campaigns this year, but I will have to come up with some smart and creative ways of getting politicians to listen and act.

The Art & Science of Organizing

When we're not listening to guest speakers, we're learning the nuts and bolts of organizing. I had no idea it was such a science. To get a certain number of new members to join the group, or a certain number of people out to a press conference, you must meet and ask a certain number of people at the right time. We're being taught how to design campaign plans so that we can set goals and reach them along the way, but it's all a lot more to do with numbers of people than I anticipated. It makes total sense though: the business world operates based on dollar figures. Money (which reflects individual power), is one change agent, and people are the other. Therefore, those in the world of social change balance their books with membership and attendance rates.

While learning all this, the Green Corps central staff has made sure that we gel as a group which means socials every night. It's wonderful spending every day with intelligent, friendly, and progressive people; I feel pretty spoiled. Boston also has incredibly cool things to do: we went to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, and to Walden Pond to see where Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson began the environmental movement in the 19th century.

                                           Red Sox vs. Indians

Getting my Hands Dirty in Vermont

I worked on a campaign with the Toxics Action Center for three days beautiful Vermont. I wasn't ecstatic about the campaign - in retrospect the science was pretty shaky on the side of the protesters. This emphasized to me that we organizers should be working on campaigns we know have just cause in order to maintain and build credibility, as well as not waste our time and energy (as well as that of the public on which we rely).

                                           The Green Mountain State

Despite this, the people on the campaign were wonderful. We stayed with an elderly but young-at-heart woman named Annagret. She lives in a beautiful A-frame nordic-style house. On the main wall of the living room hangs a tremendous blue and white oil painting, done by an artist she befriended while swimming in nearby Lake Caspian. Annagret has an audible but non-impeding German accent that makes all of the fascinating things she says sound just that much more interesting. She has an 18th-century dowry chest sitting in her basement that she had shipped over from Austria when one could still afford to do such a thing.

She had just finished insulating her basement to improve energy efficiency, and heats her house with a wood stove and heat pump. Her wood is stacked in the cellar in piles of two pieces, with each tier perpendicular to the next to encourage air circulation and discourage mould. She said her basement gets a little damp on account of the worm farm she constructed in an adjoining room. She uses this to feed her phenomenal garden, which was sporting lilies to rival those on Garden Island when I arrived.

The first night we were there fork lighting ripped through the skies and rain poured down as we drove to her house. Rural Vermont reminded me so much of home, probably because it's only two hours south of the border. The next day she took us to Hardwick and introduced us to everyone in town: the co-op owners, the progressive agriculture group, the elderly church-goers, and a contractor who has restored all of the buildings in town over the years while simultaneously growing a long blonde mustache and white beard down to his belt buckle. Many people we met were very upset about the issue we were campaigning about, while others were cagey and visibly upset because they didn't approve of what we were doing. That was definitely a good thing to experience, as I'm sure it's not the first time it will happen in this line of work.

Sign-Off

Thanks for reading this first entry. I would love any questions or comments you have; they'll help focus my writing and perhaps make it more than just an easy way to keep in touch with you all! *If you're puzzled about the blog's name, it came about because every derivation of social/environmental change agent was taken, so I decided to make up my own word to describe what I think this work is training me to be. I don't know where it will take me, but I do know that I already feel much more useful in the face of global problems, and know that I can do something about them for the rest of my life.

I find out this weekend where I'll be going for the next four months and what I'll be working on. The options are: Passing California's Climate Bill, Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, and Food & Water Watch's campaign to ban arsenic from chicken feed. I'd love to work on numero dos - phasing out coal-fired power plants on college campuses - but it's a choice that's only partially under my control.

We shall wait and see.