Thankful

In honor of the holiday, I thought it would be a good idea to come up with a list of everything I'm thankful for as an environmentalist, sustainability activist, and nature lover. It's pretty easy to get negative when working on the never-ending issues that plague our planet and our culture, so I'm going to step back and look at all the wonderful things to appreciate.

I am thankful for...

the victory over the Keystone XL Pipeline in November 2011 (even if it is temporary)

the fact that renewable energy is growing every single year, and that the green economy is one of the only sectors of the economy experiencing remarkable growth

incredible people, and organizations, who are working around the clock doing incredible things. [350.org, Bill McKibben, the CSSC, Van Jones, Solar Mosaic, Focus the Nation, Alice Waters, the Sierra Club, the Energy Action Coalition, just to name a few]

the rising of a new, energetic, and powerful movement - Occupy, and the interconnectedness and solidarity that Occupy has created among disparate movements

climate scientists who are both finding extensive data and fighting to have their scientific opinion honored and respected (like James Hansen!)

the redwood grove in the Berkeley hills, and for that matter, redwoods everywhere. they take in carbon, they give us oxygen, and they give me beauty, wonder, and spiritual peace

the fact that fracking for natural gas in Delaware has been postponed

youth activists all over the country who are fighting for our generation and our future

The Green Initiative Fund, which gives out hundreds of thousands of dollars to student projects working to make campuses more sustainable

national parks, state parks, national forests, national monuments, national marine sanctuaries - basically places to play!

UC Berkeley and the incredible opportunities that it offers me in academics and leadership

the ocean (and its coral reefs, and kelp forests, and tidal zones, and deep open waters)

inspiring and passionate professors spreading knowledge, wisdom, and insight, and even showing up at Occupy protests because they truly care

the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act, the Clean Water Act... we live in a country that actually does give a damn, despite what we often think... and we're cleaner than most!

technology and the internet, without which, we could never have the international or even national interconnectedness that we do today in our movements and struggles

organic and sustainable farms, and organic and sustainable farmers

California's new cap and trade legislation

people under the radar everywhere who bike instead of drive, who grow their own food, who live zero-waste lifestyles, who compost, who dumpster dive, who practice permaculture, who put on sweaters instead of turning up the heat

delicious tap water in Berkeley, making bottled water useless (and hopefully gone soon, thanks to Take Back the Tap!)

the natural beauty everywhere I look that motivates me, refreshes me, inspires me every day

Whew, that's 20! Making that list made me feel pretty good, I have to say. What are you thankful for this November?

Keystone XL: A Symbol for the Modern Environmental Movement

Victories in the environmental and climate movement have been hard to come by lately. As the word "climate" has become increasingly more difficult to say in the political discussion, as the EPA struggles to hold onto its power, as fossil fuels continue to reign supreme, it's been hard to see how things are ever going to change at the rapid pace that the climate is changing.

But yesterday, President Obama announced he would delay his decision regarding the Keystone XL Pipeline until after the 2012 election. This decision came just four days after a massive protest in DC, where 12,000 people encircled the White House under the firm belief that if Obama approves the pipeline, there will be devastating consequences for the climate, indigenous peoples, water quality, boreal forests, the renewable energy economy, and more. These heroes encircled the White House more than four times. 

http://takethesquare.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/TarSandsAction-9-1-11-Group-2-banner-crop.jpg

Yesterday evening, I attended a timely panel at UC Berkeley hosted by the Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative (BERC) and the Environmental Law Society, regarding the pipeline. The panel featured Jamie Henn, of 350.org; Dr. Paul Henshaw, UC Berkeley Professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences; Cassie Doyle, Consul-General of Canada in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, and Sarah Burt, of Earthjustice.

The hour and a half of discussion brought some really important and pertinent questions to the table. Is the pipeline a better alterative to bringing politically and physically messy oil from overseas via tankers? Is modern pipeline technology safe enough to make this a good idea? What will it do for gas prices? Jobs? Will building this pipeline further inhibit clean energy companies like wind farms and solar firms to break into the market? What would the pipeline say about our national attitude toward climate change? I urge you to explore all of these questions yourself by researching the facts and evaluating your priorities.

While many interesting perspectives were brought up over the course of the discussion, I absolutely stand by original stance - that this pipeline cannot be justified, and should not be built under any circumstances. The tar sands in Alberta make up the third largest oil reserve in the world. As Jamie Henn reminded us, James Hansen (top climate scientist from NASA) has stated that if we were to utilize the oil from that tar sands reserve, it would be essentially game over for the climate. While Dr. Henshaw reminded us that there are new technologies like horizontal and dual-well systems, nothing can overcome the implications for the global climate. Cassie Doyle reminded us that Canada's energy profile is cleaner and more efficient than ours in the United States - and that's precisely the problem. The US has to end its addiction to oil. 

The costs of this pipeline to the environment, climate, and indigenous livelihoods are just too great. And that's why I am so ecstatic about Obama's announcement yesterday - even though it's not a "no," it's a "I acknowledge the opposition and I think you're right - this needs more review." It gives us even more time to prove that the people of the United States do not want this.

So why did this fight win? How did it build so much momentum? Why did this fight come to the forefront of the movement? 

Over the past five years or so, the "environmental" movement has fractured and changed shape. Due to the evolution of climate politics, there are often splits between environmental conservationists and climate activists ("climate hawks.") Wind turbines vs. migratory bird and bat well-being. Hydropower vs. healthy rivers. Nuclear energy and the many facets of that debate.

But this issue, the Keystone XL issue, unites these fronts. Whether you're an environmentalist or a climate hawk, a John Muir preservationist or a Gifford Pinchot utilitarian, you have a place in this movement. The Keystone XL brought together people who care about renewables, people who care about forests, people who care about human rights, people who care about democracy and hate corporations, people who care about the climate, and people who just don't like pipelines. That togetherness was desperately needed in the environmental movement, and I'm so happy to see that it has arrived in full force - 12,000+ strong.

We Are Nature: CSSC Fall 2011 Convergence

Social biomimicry. 

Radicles.

Permaculture. 

Ubuntu. 

These are words that stuck with me after the California Student Sustainability Coalition's Fall 2011 Convergence at CSU Chico this past weekend.

Morgoth Gamboa got my adrenaline pumping as he kicked off the weekend with energy, passion, and a way of thinking that was completely new to me. He walked us through the concept of "social biomimicry"- how we can model our activism, communities, and social systems using biology and nature. Just as a baby plant takes in resources and energy, stretches its roots downward and outward in order to grow tall, inhales the good and exhales the bad - so can we as sustainability activists.


The California Student Sustainability Coalition is roots. It's interconnected fungi beneath the soil, creating symbiotic relationships between all of the interwoven life in its realm (that's us!). It's sunlight in the form of new perspectives, voices, insight, passion. It's the ecosystem that contains all of us: "radicles," just waiting to break through the surface to grow, grow, grow - and give back.


By this, I mean that the CSSC is a network of sustainability-minded students from across the state of California, providing a space to communicate, collaborate, and help our campus projects and campaigns grow and develop.


We are a permaculture. Or, at least, we strive to be. If we are conscious of ecological principles, and act out of this consciousness, we can transform our planet and our social system so that they last. When we get rid of the concept of "waste," when we live within earth's limits, when we appreciate one another and grow from our interactions, when we comprehend the intrinsic connections between life, matter, and mind- then, we can begin to approach something like "sustainability." Then, we move toward a permanent culture that sustains itself with intrinsic motivation, mutualistic relationships, and the plain-old happiness that comes from being together- happiness I know I felt this past weekend at the convergence.


In my Environmental Studies class last year, we spent a little time studying wilderness philosophy. Wallace Stegner's Wilderness Letter stuck in my mind ever since... particularly one quote:


"We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope." (read the full letter here)


That quote always spoke to me, but it has taken on new meaning now. "Wild country," or wilderness that exists on its own terms, allowed to grow and thrive as biology mandates, is our classroom. It's "a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures" because the relationships, complex systems, and intrinsic beauty within that culture of wilderness are what we need to study in order to model our communities and restore and sustain "sanity." Then, we can begin to create a "geography of hope" - rooted in a sense of place, we can grow and transform into the kind of culture and the kind of planet we've always dreamt could exist. When I look at where all the convergence attendees came from on the map of California, I see a geography of hope.


I can close my eyes and imagine the CSSC Convergence, with all its elements, from workshops to late night jam sessions to a field full of wet tents, as a garden. Each part plays a role, everyone occupies a niche, every nutrient is used and recycled, and the result is something beautiful. And for that matter, sustainable - because we'll all be back in the spring, and the fall after that, and the spring after that! 


As in a lichen, where the algae exists because the fungus exists, as in a forest, where one live oak exists because another one does, I exist because you, you beautiful sustainabilibuddy, exist: Ubuntu.