ThinkPint2

My birthday was quickly approaching. I decided the best gift I could give myself is another contribution to Our Children’s Trust, the organization fighting the legal battles for the rights of our next generations to have the air we have, not the air that is predicted if we keep pumping CO2 and methane into the air. I learned of the Flood Wall Street event which was to take place the day after the Peoples’ Climate March, flooding Wall Street in blue and protesting what I was not quite sure. It was billed to be more radical and disruptive than the Peoples’ Climate March which was getting support from the likes of Al Gore and Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General of the U.N. With support like that, it hardly made the March look radical, but certainly important.

On September 17, 2014, Eugene broke the record of number of days over 90 degrees and the forecast was for more warm. And I was warm in many ways, not the least of which was climate and the importance of doing something.

On September 18, I gave Scholar Duck to two young friends, both 21. They posted Grant Woods style with him and the Ripley pitchfork from our farm in Illinois. Later that day I went to the Democratic Fund Raiser with my 350 t-shirt and Environmental Duck (Scholar Duck’s first cousin, ED) in tow asking to meet any legislator interested in carbon price and tax. I forgot my checkbook so perhaps my interest was not noted, although two people did know what the t-shirt stood for, and that was a start.

On September 19 I learned Swedish friend, Jan, was to be in NYC at the same time as the Peoples’ Climate March, but there for an unrelated reason. I was informing him of everything that was to take place in NYC while he was there.

On that same day Bill Moyers had Kelsey Juliana, who is from Eugene, on his TV program which I watched every week. The description was, “Kelsey Juliana was 15 when she, and 11-year-old Olivia Chernaik, filed a lawsuit against the governor of their state of Oregon, claiming that the state government had “violated their duties” to protect the water, land and atmosphere. The first judge said his court didn’t have jurisdiction to resolve the issue, but the Oregon Court of Appeals found merit in the case and told the lower court to try again.” One could not help but be proud as punch when you watched the show, at least that’s how I felt.

The NYC-bound young friends posted a picture of Scholar Duck driving to the airport and then boarding. I was their media team, and wrote in my diary. This. Is. Fun. September 20th started by posting a picture of Scholar Duck flying through the NYC skyline with the Statue of Liberty in the foreground. Classic, made by my tech guru. I picked up a cake I had ordered in the image of a 350 button, and did not have a clue how I was going to use it. But I knew I wanted it on hand for the coming days.

On September 21 I started watching the Peoples’ Climate March live at 7:30 streaming via Democracy Now with 3 hours of coverage. My two young friends were sending me pictures and I was reposting on facebook and friends were noting our presence. I went to the Eugene complimentary event, it was a hot day so I listened to some speeches but did not march.

Next stop was Barnes & Noble to pick up a copy of This Changes Everything by Klein, which it had the build up of being ‘the’ book for this movement. Back to the latter part of the Eugene event at Cosmic Pizza and by then the national media was reporting 310,000 people were in NYC. Final counts later made that 400,000; or as my young friends liked to point out to me, 400,001 with Scholar Duck!

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My daily efforts of posting to the local 350 Eugene group were receiving some good head nods. I was glad I was finding avenues to share what I was learning. September 23 was the UN Climate Summit which was not much of a viewing event, but I did some and perhaps more importantly for me, I started reading This Changes Everything.

My 70th birthday was mainly spent responding to people who were doing nice things for me and it was a fine day. I longed for the decade plus that Jack and I went to Crater Lake, alone, no wifi, no phones, and I started each new year at a place and with the person I most wanted to be with for day. Perfect.

Now I had reached an age neither my mother, father, or brother achieved, what to do with this gift of time. Right now my answer was pretty clear, keep doing what I have been doing this last year. It was important, I deemed.

By September 27 my two young friends and Scholar Duck were back from NYC. I took the 350 cake down for us to share, Jonathan turning 22 the day before I turned 70. Even though the cake was a week old it was fine, just fine. When people asked me how was it to turn 70, I said, “liberating.” And it was, mainly because I felt I had an extra gift of time and had a purpose that seemed important, at least to me.

The following days I continued reading This Changes Everything and YouTube climate videos, several recorded during the events of Climate Week in NYC.

The month changed into a new one and I was still reading This Changes Everything. Normally I can get through a book quickly, but not this one. Lots of information to digest. I also watched several videos of the author as she was going around the country on a book tour. She made sense.

Looking forward I did not expect I would suddenly get more energy. I was clearly on top of climate literature as it came out, reading at least 5-10 articles a day. They ranged from the climate aspect to economic to political. I was a climate nerd who did not have an audience. It seemed to me that This Changes Everything could change the debate. I was pleased it was rising in the NYT best sellers list so shortly after its release.

I sensed we were in a time like the early 60’s. Many movements. Different issues. Then in the mid 60’s the movements began to converge. I saw the same thing might happen again. Labor issues; wage issues; indigenous people issues; climate issues; gun issues; how campaigns are funded….I foresaw a time we would work on all these issues at the same time, all starting with grass roots efforts who begin to realize they will get what they want when others do as well. Dreaming? I did not know, but I know it’s possible. The pinnacle is, of course, the climate. If we don’t get that one right, the rest doesn’t make much difference.

My YouTube viewing ranged from former energy secretary Steven Chu to Winona LaDuke “an American Indian activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, as well as sustainable development.” I was more and more clear indigenous people have been working on these issues for a long time and had been good stewards of the land even longer. By this time my YouTube recommended list was nearing 200 entries and I had watched at least four times this many to get to a ‘two thumbs up’ list.

On October 10 the Pacific Islanders reached Australia and were ready to stop coal exports. Through all the ‘likes’ I had on facebook I was on top of almost every movement, which included: chain ourselves to equipment, stop them coming down the river, tie ourselves to the railroad tracks and other efforts to stop fossil fuels. Many, many things were happening but little was getting reported in the main stream media. But again I felt a true movement was emerging.

I began to focus on the main efforts I wanted to make for the fall and they were to understand the carbon pricing issue and specifically how that can be brought to Oregon. I watched on YouTube what Massachusetts was trying to do and hoped someone here was trying to do the same thing. I begin to plan my own strategy for engagement on the issue.

On October 15, 2014, my homeowner’s association passed guidelines for solar panel installation. It had taken a few months to get to this point. The next day I began looking for a solar panel installer.

Five months later I had 16 solar panels.

In trying to get back to Greta’s story set in 2064 I thought of a different way to engage readers, perhaps a series of blog posts. I was contemplating a different approach and here’s how I wrote it to my great niece.

“I’m thinking of combining my story of going from ‘Farm Girl to Climate Elder: Full Circle’ with the fictional story of Greta. I wanted to leave the farm and now I see they had the sustainable life and it’s taken me full circle to get there. How much blame I’ll give my generation, I don’t know, but however we get to seeing the light, there is a story there. And what I can tell you, I’ve gotten very few to see the light as I see it in the last year, which just goes to show that your grandmother is right when she says, don’t take yourself too seriously, no one else does. BUT I’m trying. It could be a series of essays rather than a book.”

And here we are five years later doing same.