Joan Gregerson - Climate Action Challenge: A Proven Plan for Launching Your Eco-Initiative in 90 Days

CLIMATE

ACTION

CHALLENGE

A Proven Plan for

Launching Your Eco-Initiative

in 90 Days

Joan M Gregerson

Climate Action Challenge: A Proven Plan for Launching Your Eco-Initiative in 90 Days

Version 3.2, April 30, 2022

Copyright 2020-2022 Joan M Gregerson,

Positive Energy Works LLC

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced without prior written permission by the author. The information in this book is intended for general guidance.

Published by Positive Energy Works LLC

Denver, CO USA, positiveenergyworks.com

We now need to create a worldwide grassroots movement that no one can ignore.

Antnio Guterres,

UN Secretary-General

Note from the Author

This book is about climate action, and so much more...

The coronavirus pandemic hit in March 2020, just as I was finishing the first draft of this book. Within weeks, billions of people around the world were on lockdown, ordered to stay home to minimize the spread of a new and deadly virus.

At first, people asked, when will we get back to normal? But it didnt take more than a few weeks to realize this was different. We would never go back to that previous normal.

A friend in Australia had told me the same a few months earlier. Historic wildfires had wiped out forests, killed a billion animals, and kept people indoors for months. After the fires stopped, she said, We cant go back to how it was. We dont want to. That normal was the problem.

In May, when George Floyd, yet another black man, was unjustly killed at the hands of police in Minneapolis, millions of people rose up and took to the streets. People rose up and said, enough already.

Policies that had been deemed impossible to change for decades were revamped within weeks. School districts broke their contracts with police departments. Cities banned chokeholds. Teams finally ditched their offensive mascots.

Frank discussions of white supremacy and systemic oppression shined a light on the roots of the problems. The protests were not limited to the details of one murder. The uprisings called for a self-analysis of a country that was founded on and is propagating the legacy of white supremacy and racial violence.

Throughout the summer of 2020, the western U.S. broke one record after the next for high temperatures and wildfires. A record 10 percent of Oregons population was under evacuation orders, scrambling to find somewhere safe to go, somewhere to breathe easier.

The events of 2020 laid bare that the very fabric of society is woven of the threads of injustice, showing just how far we have yet to go.

The virus, air pollution, our fragile atmosphere, and racial violence are all pointing to the same thing.

The tenuous quality of breath asks for reverence in our relationships with each other and the world that holds us in her embrace.

2020 marks a turning point.

If the old normal was the problem, what will the new normal be?

Will we, as in the wake of the 1918 pandemic, allow these crises to amplify the inequities of the status quo? Will we call it good enough when communities of color endure more sickness, more pollution, more incarceration, and more violence?

Is it okay for the most affluent among us to cause the most pollution, weaken our fragile atmosphere, and turn a blind eye as less affluent nations and communities suffer?

Will we settle for a society that values some lives less than others? Or will we figure out how to create a more just, verdant, and harmonious world?

In this historic moment, we are presented with a choice. We can go along blithely with our conventional but ineffective and uncaring ways.

Or we can turn to Indigenous wisdom and to nature herself to become apprentices and faithful stewards of our only home.

We can move from merely respecting science to proactively nurturing deep, caring relationships with Mother Earth and each other.

We can stop waiting for someone else to fix everything for us. We can unleash our creativity, our love, and our brilliance. We can step up and become the leaders that weve been waiting for all along.

What say you, my friend? Shall we?

Joan Gregerson

Denver, Colorado, January 2021

Never forget that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can make a difference. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

1. Youre in the Right Place

I should have known that Ana would reach out to me. In the boatloads of online trainings Ive done, theres one question that seems to get to people. I often say that I was a nature girl and ask if there are other nature kids in the group. The ones who pipe up immediately usually reach out to me directly later.

During the training, Ana had written in the chat, Me! Im a nature girl! I always played in the creek near our house. My brother and I would swing from a tree into the river. We made our mom crazy coming home muddy and wet, with crawdads and frogs we wanted to keep as pets.

I work for the stormwater department in my town, Ana told me when we hopped on the phone together. I used to work as a civil engineer for a construction company, but I was appalled at how lax the safety was on site.

Oh, no! I replied.

I quit after a few years. I just couldnt handle what was being done to the rivers, said Ana.

She told me how if things arent done properly during the construction process, topsoil is disturbed and gets washed away into the rivers. In addition, other construction debris also gets into the rivers. All this hurts the land, clogs the river, and kills the animal and plant life.

Thats why she got a job as an inspector in the stormwater department. She was determined to stick up for nature in any way she could.

But even as an inspector now, Im heartbroken, Ana said.

She told me how the culture of the stormwater department was intermingled with the construction companies, with several key people going back and forth between inspector positions and construction companies.

It feels like a buddy-buddy system, said Ana. Ill report things, but then sometimes my reports arent even filed against the companies.

I drive the long way home alongside the river, letting the river know that Im sorry and that Im doing everything I can.

Ana told me that when she heard my story and found out about the system that I developed, she felt an immense wave of relief.

Ive read all the IPCC reports, and I keep up with whats going on with pollution, health, and species going extinct, and my heart just breaks. I was losing hope. Ive been doing everything I can think of, but its not enough. So, when I joined your training and heard your story, I finally started to feel better. I realize that Id been missing something that was there, right in front of me all along. For the first time in a long time, I feel optimistic. Ive got direction and hope for moving forward. I can do this!