It has been over a year since my last blog post. Yesterday, I graduated Green Corps in what has surely concluded one of if not the most difficult year of my life. The challenges I've faced on a professional and personal level have pushed me more than I thought possible. I am a new person, someone who I am not ashamed to admit to having dreamed about becoming. I am skilled, confident and ready to take on whatever challenge lays out before me. I am sociable, outgoing, adventurous and a shameless romantic. I am political, engaging, and yes, even radical. I am not ashamed to say I am a progressive who wants to work with others to solve the entangled web of interconnected issues we are facing and have a lot of fun while doing it. This is said with it being noted that none of the aforementioned would I have been willing to confidently identify with just a year ago.
I'm about to transition into a new chapter of my life-- I have been hired to be the Associate Organizing Representative for the Sierra Club Beyond Coal campaign in Denver, Colorado. I am so thrilled to be able to go out there and fully invest myself into a community and work directly in developing the leaders that will take us to a sustainable future.
The next few weeks to months are going to be a hard transition. A metaphor I found myself explaining the way I have felt the last few weeks is like that of a mirror-- in the last several months it has cracked in several places--- cracked by the challenges I faced with working on Green Corps campaigns, cracked by the growing disconnect from high school and college friends, cracked from life challenges of friends and family and finding a balance to be there for them while keeping up my needs, and the final, major crack, was the death of my father in June which has left me, as many who lose a parent, in a small existential crisis. It was all I could do to hold the mirror together for the last few months bearing the weight of these coming-of-age challenges to finally have it shatter altogether, completing a challenging chapter of my life. Now, though, comes the exciting and terrifying time to piece together the remaining shards into a new frame, a blank canvass. Through the reflection of these shards I will start to write out my thoughts of the last 13 months of my life in a series of postings over the next several weeks.
But before I start reflecting on this past chapter, I must head to sleep as the winds of a fading tropical storm Irene tussle the trees outside the screen door in the darkness of night. At last, though, I am at a place I can blog.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Headed to the Golden Coast
I’m writing this blog in the house of a Green Corps alum within Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve embarked on my second cross-country road trip for the year, hitting up two more states (Iowa and Nebraska) that I haven’t been to before. This puts my total count to 42 states ever visited, with having been in 40 of them in the last two months.
The last several weeks have been filled with rotations of emotion between shock, anxiety and excitement. I'm still shocked that I am in such an amazing program, with such amazing people whose network is perhaps the best in the environmental movement. I'm also shocked that I got such an amazing campaign, of which I'll get to in a second. I'm anxious about my skill sets and diving into this heavy level of organizing that includes everything from training, leadership development, phone banking, petitioning, rallying, and so on. Finally it is hard not to be excited! To be involved at this level, working on campaigns across the nation creating substantive change is the most empowering idea I've ever experienced.
I’m now headed to Berkeley, California for a few days and then will settle into Santa Monica to rally up the residents for opposing Proposition 23. This proposed proposition will essential kill the previous progressive global warming legislation that was passed in the state several years ago by nullifying it until unemployment in the state gets below 5.5%, something that won’t happen for a long, long time. This is time we don’t have regarding the WORLD’S most advanced climate policy. That’s right, California isn’t just leading the United States but actual the world with this act. If this proposition passes it could significantly impede efforts across the planet to fight climate change at a time in which we are already drastically behind on action. This makes the stakes at an all time high. This campaign, if we are successful, will help save the world as we know it. Really-- it is not a far exaggeration to say that I’m directly working to save the world.
I couldn’t have asked for a better campaign.
This campaign, of course, gets even better. You see, two Texas oil companies are providing the funding for prop 23. Considering all that is happening with the gulf oil disaster there is no wonder in my mind that out-of-state oil interests will see their actions backfire with the public. This makes things very black-and-white and Valero has made itself the perfect villain for this story. I can’t speak on any of our organizing strategies… yet. Stay tuned.
For information on the campaign, click here.
Alas it is midnight (or 2:00am EST, which was just two days ago). I should sleep as we have our final 14 hour driving leg ahead.
Best,
Bryce
The last several weeks have been filled with rotations of emotion between shock, anxiety and excitement. I'm still shocked that I am in such an amazing program, with such amazing people whose network is perhaps the best in the environmental movement. I'm also shocked that I got such an amazing campaign, of which I'll get to in a second. I'm anxious about my skill sets and diving into this heavy level of organizing that includes everything from training, leadership development, phone banking, petitioning, rallying, and so on. Finally it is hard not to be excited! To be involved at this level, working on campaigns across the nation creating substantive change is the most empowering idea I've ever experienced.
I’m now headed to Berkeley, California for a few days and then will settle into Santa Monica to rally up the residents for opposing Proposition 23. This proposed proposition will essential kill the previous progressive global warming legislation that was passed in the state several years ago by nullifying it until unemployment in the state gets below 5.5%, something that won’t happen for a long, long time. This is time we don’t have regarding the WORLD’S most advanced climate policy. That’s right, California isn’t just leading the United States but actual the world with this act. If this proposition passes it could significantly impede efforts across the planet to fight climate change at a time in which we are already drastically behind on action. This makes the stakes at an all time high. This campaign, if we are successful, will help save the world as we know it. Really-- it is not a far exaggeration to say that I’m directly working to save the world.
I couldn’t have asked for a better campaign.
This campaign, of course, gets even better. You see, two Texas oil companies are providing the funding for prop 23. Considering all that is happening with the gulf oil disaster there is no wonder in my mind that out-of-state oil interests will see their actions backfire with the public. This makes things very black-and-white and Valero has made itself the perfect villain for this story. I can’t speak on any of our organizing strategies… yet. Stay tuned.
For information on the campaign, click here.
Alas it is midnight (or 2:00am EST, which was just two days ago). I should sleep as we have our final 14 hour driving leg ahead.
Best,
Bryce
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Green Corps 2011 - Day 3 of Training
I’m now in day three of Green Corps training, the ‘school for environmental organizing.’ They have likened it to a master’s degree in environmental organizing and honestly it is hard not to see the success of the program. With around 275 alumni since the early nineties, members have become executive directors across the board in some of the top environmental organizations in America. Just in the last few days we’ve had speakers such as Phil Radford, the executive director of Greenpeace USA. While I’ve always been skeptical of their tactics, Phil seemed to me to have a solid head on his shoulders. He discussed the ‘million dollar megaphone’ we’re up against with corporations willing to spend whatever they can to keep things easy for them. In terms of his organization having a radical public perception, he emphasized that ‘we should be radical and effective.’
Yesterday we had John Rogers, the senior analyst from the Union of Concerned Scientists talk about their report, Climate 2030: A National Footprint for a Clean Energy Economy. This report goes into if a cap-and-trade carbon program in conjunction with implementing local polices toward a clean energy future could not only save the country hundreds of billions of dollars but also can create millions of jobs and save tens of thousands of square miles of space in our country (mining efforts may take upwards of 80,000 square miles). Solutions like this make sense, but unfortunately the steps we need to take to have a just transition to a sustainable economy are blocked by strong corporate interests, that million dollar microphone. This is one of the main reasons why the cap-and-trade bill just fell in the senate.
I must run, but this has been an amazing experience already, meeting a great diversity of organizers (there are 21 of us in the class of 2011) from all over the country. We face extraordinary challenges ahead and we must put forth a tremendous effort to bring about a just and clean future for all.
Of course with the hard deadline of 80% reductions of carbon emissions by 2050 only having a 50/50 chance of being enough to stabilize climate change, we must always continue to push in this movement.
“50/50 shot for our kids’ future? I don’t think so!” said Phil Radford.
Yesterday we had John Rogers, the senior analyst from the Union of Concerned Scientists talk about their report, Climate 2030: A National Footprint for a Clean Energy Economy. This report goes into if a cap-and-trade carbon program in conjunction with implementing local polices toward a clean energy future could not only save the country hundreds of billions of dollars but also can create millions of jobs and save tens of thousands of square miles of space in our country (mining efforts may take upwards of 80,000 square miles). Solutions like this make sense, but unfortunately the steps we need to take to have a just transition to a sustainable economy are blocked by strong corporate interests, that million dollar microphone. This is one of the main reasons why the cap-and-trade bill just fell in the senate.
I must run, but this has been an amazing experience already, meeting a great diversity of organizers (there are 21 of us in the class of 2011) from all over the country. We face extraordinary challenges ahead and we must put forth a tremendous effort to bring about a just and clean future for all.
Of course with the hard deadline of 80% reductions of carbon emissions by 2050 only having a 50/50 chance of being enough to stabilize climate change, we must always continue to push in this movement.
“50/50 shot for our kids’ future? I don’t think so!” said Phil Radford.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Returned Home, Green Corps in two weeks
I'll admit, I'm not the best blogger. I have my spurts of blogging energy and then find myself too engaged with life to take a moment to sit down and reflect (something I should be doing more of nowadays). I am always shocked to see that it has been a month or more since my last post!
We concluded our wonderful road trip adventure a few weeks ago in Blacksburg and as of last week I moved out of town back to my parents in Northern Virginia. I'm definitely going to miss all Blacksburg had to offer, but there are definitely exciting opportunities coming down the pipe.
Here are the pictures from the rest of our trip!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2521270&id=6232754&l=bc9a65b814
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2522629&id=6232754&l=c4a72da1a2
I spent a good 28 hours on a really awesome ~30 minute video putting the entire trip together. Unfortunately there are several copyrighted songs in it so I cannot upload it to sites like Vimeo or YouTube. I threw a version of it on my website (don’t sue me!), but expect it to take a long while to load at 2.2 GB. The quality is regretfully lower than I would have liked, but I ran out of time to compress it appropriately.
A new chapter in my life will start in two weeks with the bound-to-be-quite-crazy adventures of Green Corps, a national non-profit environmental organizing training school. Out of thousands applying across the nation, only 25-30 get accepted... I guess running for town council didn't hurt my chances.
My training starts August 1st up in Boston. Halfway through training I’ll find out where in the nation I’ll end up for my first of several 3-month assignments. I’ve been pushing for Hawaii but I don’t think that’s likely, so I’ll settle (if I can) for something on the west coast. Either way after experiencing the U.S. through our road trip I’m pretty excited to be anyplace new!
Another exciting tidbit- our guest trainers for August include the Executive Directors / Presidents of the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, Greenpeace, Environment America, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Quite a lineup!
My goal is to blog a bit more regularly over the next year, so keep your fingers crossed and / or yell at me!
We concluded our wonderful road trip adventure a few weeks ago in Blacksburg and as of last week I moved out of town back to my parents in Northern Virginia. I'm definitely going to miss all Blacksburg had to offer, but there are definitely exciting opportunities coming down the pipe.
Here are the pictures from the rest of our trip!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2521270&id=6232754&l=bc9a65b814
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2522629&id=6232754&l=c4a72da1a2
I spent a good 28 hours on a really awesome ~30 minute video putting the entire trip together. Unfortunately there are several copyrighted songs in it so I cannot upload it to sites like Vimeo or YouTube. I threw a version of it on my website (don’t sue me!), but expect it to take a long while to load at 2.2 GB. The quality is regretfully lower than I would have liked, but I ran out of time to compress it appropriately.
A new chapter in my life will start in two weeks with the bound-to-be-quite-crazy adventures of Green Corps, a national non-profit environmental organizing training school. Out of thousands applying across the nation, only 25-30 get accepted... I guess running for town council didn't hurt my chances.
My training starts August 1st up in Boston. Halfway through training I’ll find out where in the nation I’ll end up for my first of several 3-month assignments. I’ve been pushing for Hawaii but I don’t think that’s likely, so I’ll settle (if I can) for something on the west coast. Either way after experiencing the U.S. through our road trip I’m pretty excited to be anyplace new!
Another exciting tidbit- our guest trainers for August include the Executive Directors / Presidents of the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, Greenpeace, Environment America, and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Quite a lineup!
My goal is to blog a bit more regularly over the next year, so keep your fingers crossed and / or yell at me!
Monday, June 7, 2010
Facebook Woes
Unfortunately the privacy settings with Facebook won't let me share videos unless you are an account holder. Once I get a chance I'll upload the videos I have on YouTube (likely after the roadtrip).
In the mean time you can check out the third album I've put up. If you really want to stay up-to-date with the roadtrip, follow me on Twitter.
We're headed to Yosemite tomorrow, then Vegas, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and eventually Austin, Texas.
That's all for now!
From San Francisco,
Bryce
In the mean time you can check out the third album I've put up. If you really want to stay up-to-date with the roadtrip, follow me on Twitter.
We're headed to Yosemite tomorrow, then Vegas, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon and eventually Austin, Texas.
That's all for now!
From San Francisco,
Bryce
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