StLSass

Last night I attended a local meeting on Climate Change, put on by local activist groups Indivisible St. Louis and Citizens Climate Lobby, to help lay out a plan for people on the best ways to go about contacting Congress, and also to brainstorm ideas on solutions for Climate Change. Their last meeting that was held in December, which I did not attend, had 6-10 people at it. The meeting last night had well over 100 people in attendance. A lot has changed from December to now, and I suppose a lot more people see that the unless we stand up for our planet, our government will not.

The meeting was extremely informative. It included first a National Geographic Video clip from the an episode of the show Living Dangerously, which followed Actor Bradley Whitford as he set out on a mission to lobby for Climate Change. In the video we were introduced to Jay Buterra, a long time lobbyist of Climate Change who has been on a mission to convert the Republican party to a group of climate change believers, one member of Congress at a time. Buterra has slowly created a Bi-Partisan Caucus on Climate Change. Jay started with the governor of Florida, as it’s slowly sinking state feels the effects of climate change the most right now, and slowly he has gotten 22 other Republican party members to agree to join the group to lobby Congress to pass a bill stating that Climate Change is real. (Which is ludicrous that Republicans are still denying this is real, but our government is slow to acknowledge and adapt new ideas, which is exactly why this group is slowly making history by converting the party one Congress member at a time.)

The clip of the show, was certainly eye opening, however, after watching the video the group had also had arranged for a live Face Time meeting with Jay Buterra where he addressed some of the issues in more depth, and also gave us all great direction on how to effectively influence Congress. Some of the takeaways I got from the meeting include:

• Fact: Your voice matters! Congress is coming around to admitting that Climate Change is real, however, their biggest excuse is that they do not hear from their constituents about it enough, so it’s easy for them to say people don’t really care about it.
  Resolution:  We all need to be contacting our members of Congress regularly about the issues that we care about. Our voices matter, but we must use them!! One phone call, or one letter, or one tweet, is not going to do anything either. We need to be constant and persistent. Set a reminder each week and repeat your method of contact weekly to enforce the fact that you really care. This is in regards to whatever issue you are taking up with Congress.
• Fact: You cannot effectively lobby for all the injustices that are happening right now at once. If you try to be involved in every movement, and every protest, you will be spreading yourself to thin and therefore making all of your efforts less effective.
  Resolution: Pick one thing that you are truly passionate about changing, and put all of your effort into that one thing. Educate yourself to the max on it. Know not only your reasons as why you believe it is necessary, but understand the views of the opposition as well. The only way you can effectively speak to those with opposing views in a manner that may change their mind, is to understand where they are coming from first. When you focus on one thing,  you can accomplish much more towards change than if you are splitting your attention between multiple causes and not really doing a great job at any one of them. Pick one thing, and do it well.
• Fact: You will not change minds with hate, anger, or Facebook rants. That is a fact. These things only serve to bring y our energy down, and therefore bring down the energy of those around you.
  Resolution: Focus on the positive!! In the instance of Climate Change instead of focusing on how terrible the oil industry is, they suggested we focus on the positives of how many jobs updating our country’s energy infrastructure would bring. Right now, our current power grid cannot handle the massive energy that could be generated in America by adding more wind farms, so in order to prepare for clean energy we need to update America’s power grid, which not only creates jobs, but it also creates a safer, less vulnerable, energy grid for America. Focusing on the good things that will come about from the change that you want will go along way to creating actual change in people’s minds.
• Fact: Your voice does matter! This one was so important I feel like it needs to be said twice. Many people make comments like “Well I would have done something, but I know my state is heavily Conservative/Republican so me doing anything isn’t going to matter anyways.”
  Resolution: DO NOT BECOME DISILLUSIONED AND THINK THAT YOUR VOICE DOES NOT MATTER!!! It does. The minute you think that you can’t make a difference is the minute the other side wins. They want people to feel like this so it suppresses people from even trying. The truth is, we the people, have a lot more power than we can even imagine.

There are so many different ways to go about being involved in a movement. There was a guy who stood up last night to mention that he likes to create puppets, and he is looking for help to create political puppets that he could do skits with to spread the message with. I thought that was so cool! This guy loves puppets, and so he wants to use that to inspire change! It showed me that you can really take whatever innate talents and abilities that you enjoy and apply those things to creating change. The sky is the limit when we exercise our creativity! Who knows, maybe someone who would never care about an issue sees a puppet show one day on climate change, and THAT is the thing that helps them finally understand the issue and want to help make a change.

Last night, for the first time since the election, I felt a sense of hope about our country. Being in a room full of people who were just as upset and passionate as I am about what is happening here, assured me I am far from alone in this fight. The truth is, many people are not happy about what is going on. Many people have not been happy for a long time, but it took a situation like President Trump to make people understand that the only way we can change anything is by actually being involved. That is when the magic happens. When Americans get involved with their politicians and government and remind them who they work for. We have become complacent as a country, where for many of us, getting involved in politics is the last thing we ever wanted to do. That mentality has to change though. We all must stand up together, and fight for our freedoms. We all must make our voices heard.

Find your cause, dive in, and make a difference. Our country, this world, needs you now more than ever!

God bless,

– Christine