Two kinds of people exist in our world: those who have experienced a total solar eclipse and those who have not. It is that simple. You have either witnessed a total eclipse of the sun or not. No, if, ands, or buts. Seeing a partial solar eclipse does not count as impressive as they are. Words, including anything I write here, won’t do it justice. Any analogy I want to compare it with won’t do. I risk falling into clichés.

Seeing a Total Solar Eclipse possibly like seeing a live baseball game for the first time

The closet I can compare observing for a total solar eclipse is a May 2023 AARP Bulletin essay from legendary sportscaster Bob Costas, “Visiting Yankee Stadium with Dad.” It’s his reflection on “the first major league game I can recall. Over 6 decades later, it remains one of my most memorable.”

My mom mailed a hard copy of this subscription article to me that arrived in the mail recently. I write ‘hard copy’ loosely because she ripped the article out of the magazine so it arrived in three separate pages in no order. With those loose pieces of paper, trying to decipher the article from beginning to end felt like an archeologist trying to resemble an ancient treasure map. Or an income tax preparer trying to organize loose receipts from a shoebox for tax deductions.

For Costas, the actual game played that day was not significant. The Orioles won 7 to 2 over the Yankees. It was the experience spending time in the ballpark with his dad that day. Costas attested it to “Many fans of a certain age have likened walking for the first time up the tunnel leading to their seats to the moment when Dorthy is transported from black-and-white Kansas to Technicolor Oz. Like entering a different and, for a kid, enchanting world.”

Costas then paints a description of seeing the baseball field, the feeling of being in “a baseball cathedral…’The House that (Babe) Ruth Built’”, his dad teaching him how to keep score, and the fans exited the ballpark by way of the field. To top it off, Costas and his dad walked by Yankee Stadium’s famous Monument Park, which had monuments back then to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and their manager, Miller Huggins. The 7-year-old Costas cried when he saw those “monuments” thinking they were their cemetery headstones. His dad then did his best to change his mood by hoisting Bob on his shoulders as they bobbed along to exit.

That was 1959. Costas remembers it like it was yesterday. His dad died when Bob was 18 years old. Costas went on to broadcast many playoff and World Series games. His biggest regret was never taking his dad to be with him to one of the games he broadcasted. However, his son was at his side when he worked many of those baseball games. Costas attended thousands of games. But he recalls his first game at Yankee Stadium as a 7-year-old with his dad most fondly.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, as a third generation fan of the St. Louis Cardinals major league base team. I enjoyed attending Cardinals baseball games as a kid. I even played for a little league baseball team around the time I was in first grade around 1974. Thus, I understand how Bob Costas fell in love with baseball.

This is what I think seeing a total solar eclipse is like: a life changing moment like what Costas experienced watching at a baseball game with his dad for the first time.

My wife Tanya and I missing out on the Total Solar Eclipse in 2017

On August 21, 2017, a solar eclipse happened across the United States from northwestern Oregon to South Carolina. Tanya and I had many family members and friends who witnessed that solar eclipse in the zone of totality. In February 2017, Tanya and I moved permanently to Portland, Oregon. She accepted a job as a cytotechnologist in a nearby medical lab from where we live in northeast Portland. This was my last summer working as a seasonal naturalist ranger at Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon. Both Tanya and I were outside of the area of the total eclipse. It literally passed between our locations.

At Crater Lake around 10:15 am, I looked up with special eclipse glasses to see the moon blocking most of the sun. I watched the partial eclipse from the second story balcony deck from my seasonal park housing. Looking around, everything looked normal. It was a smoky summer at Crater Lake from Oregon forest fires. The air smelled like a campfire and the outside visibility looked less than ideal for a clear day. A tinge of smoke lingered in the air making it harder to see the nearby mountains in the park, making everything look a bit orange. I did not start work until noon that day. While I watched from home how the surrounding world reacting to the eclipse, the TV blared CNN to see how areas across the U.S. encountered the total eclipse.

CNN TV crews showed spectators cheering in areas experiencing the full shadow of the moon. Sadly, some parts of the U.S. were overcast and could not see the moon blocking the sun, just grey clouds and everything getting darker. When the eclipse passed over Oregon, Crater Lake was not in the zone of totality. Outside my balcony deck, it looked like the orange haze dimmed slightly but not much. The park housing is near the main park road that visitors and staff use to drive through the park. During the partial eclipse, the road and the park became silent. It felt like visitors and employees wanted to contemplate the moment and experience the phenomenon, not driving their cars or talking loudly while the partial eclipse happened.

Tanya went outside her work to see the partial eclipse in Portland. She took photos of the unusual shadows on the ground of the impaired sunlight mostly blocked by the moon shining light through the leaves of the trees above her. Since we first started dating in 2013 and got married in 2015, we yearned to be together to experience events like that. It was sad we were separated by work to not be together to witness it in Portland, Crater Lake, or the zone of totality.

This was a different story for our families back in St. Louis, Missouri, which was the inside the area of the total solar eclipse. Tanya’s parents live the western suburbs, Creve Coeur. Their home was barely in the totality zone, so they drove to a secluded spot south to be in the center of the total eclipse. Tanya’s brother lived in the city of St. Louis, just outside of the total eclipse area. He drove to Tanya’s parents’ house to see the eclipse there with this dog.

My parents lived in south St. Louis County. Their house was positioned in the zone of totality. They decided to stay home to watch the eclipse. My younger sister Mary Frances and my brother-in-law Robb drove to my parents’ house to watch the total eclipse together. It was a typical hot and humid day outside in St. Louis. My dad told me afterwards that the temperature dropped several degrees during the total eclipse. It felt cold for him during the totality to be outside in shorts and a t-shirt. After the eclipse passed, my Dad frequently shared how their two cats seemed confused by the total eclipse. When my parents, sister, and brother-in-law went back inside, the cats had a bewildered look on their faces as to say, ‘What happened? Please tell us what happened? Is everything ok? Are you ok?’

I had fellow ranger friends at Crater Lake who took off work to drive to see the total solar eclipse that day. They all seemed to enjoy the experience. But they came back to Crater Lake with stories of intense traffic tie ups leaving the zone of totality after the eclipse. Some of them were stuck in their cars for hours waiting for the traffic to move.

Planning a Trip to St. Louis see the Total Solar Eclipse in April 2024

The stories good and bad intrigued me to see a full and total eclipse for myself if the opportunity happened. I noticed in the news in 2017 that the next full solar eclipse would be on April 8, 2024. This solar eclipse would have a different path than the 2017 eclipse. The 2024 eclipse U.S. path started from lower southwestern Texas, then traveled through the cities such as San Antonio and Dallas, touch the southeastern corner of Oklahoma, through the center Arkansas, especially the Little Rock area. The eclipse would then go through Southeastern Missouri and Southeastern Illinois. It would then continue through Indiana, Ohio, the Great Lakes Of Erie and Ontario, and then up the U.S. Canadian eastern border before exiting in Maine.

The town of Carbondale, Illinois piqued my interest because it would be one of the few U.S. towns in the path of the 2017 and 2024 total eclipses. Carbondale is a two-hour drive or 100 miles southeast of St. Louis. I started scheming so that Tanya and I could combine a trip to see the total solar eclipse with a visit to see our parents and families in St. Louis.

Even more, Tanya’s parents, Nancy and Rex, are excellent trip planners. I marveled at the trips Tanya and I took with them over the past 10 years to see family in Denmark, the Olympic peninsula in Washington state, and Yosemite National Park in California. In September 2023, my in-laws organized a trip for 14 of us, including 8 of Nancy’s Danish relatives, to meet in Seattle for a 10-day trip to go see Glacier National Park in Montana. On the way back from Glacier, we spent two days visiting North Cascades National Park in Washington state before returning to Seattle. Rex and Nancy had a detailed itinerary of the motel we would stay each day, where we would sightsee, picnic, and the restaurants where we would eat dinner each evening.

I was confident that if we flew to St. Louis, Tanya’s parents would know the best place to see the eclipse and they would gladly take us there as a family outing. It would be a budget trip to see the eclipse without worrying about expensive hotel reservations, rental cars, meals, etc. Rex and Nancy were excited we were coming to visit them. My parents were thrilled we would visit them. This eclipse was a good excuse to see family. In the worst case scenario that it could be totally overcast during the day of the total eclipse, at least we would spend a week with family.

Tanya’s parents would have probably gone to see the solar eclipse in southern Illinois anyway, regardless of our visit. Like I suspected, they researched the best place to see the total eclipse.

When we packed for the April 6-14, 2024 trip to St. Louis, I decided to pack my heavy but very sturdy 34 year old Bogen Tripod and our complex Canon EOS Rebel T5i digital camera Tanya’s parents gave us for Christmas in 2016. Since 2018, I exclusively used my iPhone 8 for photography. Tanya used the Canon to get the detailed photographs she liked to take. Over the years, Rex gave her as gifts zoom and wide-angle lenses for that Canon camera. Tanya enjoyed having extra lenses on our hikes and sightseeing exclusions to take quality photos.

A couple of years ago, Tanya switched to a smaller Canon EOS digital camera with an adapter to handle her three various lenses. The Canon EOS Rebel T5i camera was sitting on a shelf for a couple of years unused when I decided to take it on this trip. That camera was a gift from Rex and Nancy to both of us, but I never used that camera. It became Tanya’s camera. Suddenly, I needed to familiarize myself with that camera quickly to photograph this complex rare astronomical event. Bottomline line: I had no idea what I was doing with this camera.

When we arrived in St. Louis, I figured Tanya and Rex would quickly teach me how to use this camera to photograph the eclipse. In January 2024, I read an article in Astronomy advising first-time eclipse viewers to not try to photograph it. The writer urged a new eclipse chaser to just enjoy the first-time experience and worry about photographing the eclipse if they see it for a second or third time. Good advice to ponder. But full solar eclipses over the United States have only happened a couple times in my lifetime. I am doubtful if I will see another solar eclipse. Therefore, I wanted photos of this event, damn the consequences!

Tanya and I flew to St. Louis on Saturday, April 6, 2024. On Sunday, April 7th, Rex and Tanya took time to try to teach me how to use the Canon EOS Rebel T5i Camera. Rex went out of his way to create for me a lens filter that I could photograph the sun. The filter subtracts all the bright light so the sun looks like a bright orange spotlight with a black backdrop. It was a joy for me with new toys photographing the sun on that Sunday afternoon to practice taking photos for the solar eclipse the next day. Rex programed the camera with a quick shutter speed to minimize the image from looking shaky, fuzzy, or looking out of focus. At the same time, he set up the camera to have a slow enough shutter speed to draw in adequate light to capture the sun with the eclipse filter on the lens. Basically, we needed a Goldilocks shutter speed for me: fast enough to capture the sun going into the eclipse but slow enough to capture enough light.

I spent some time that Sunday afternoon practicing photos of the sun I got images that I liked. Some of my first photos of the sun were blurry. No worries! I kept practicing with the tripod and long lens to aim the camera at the sun to try to capture the glowing orange light bulb.

Monday April 8th was the big day to see the eclipse. I was as eager as a kid on Christmas morning to see this event. I figured there would be a lot of heavy traffic from St. Louis and elsewhere to southern Illinois to see the eclipse. The eclipse was projected to occur around the Carbondale area around 2 pm. I meekly asked my mother-in-law Nancy if we planned to leave early in the morning to beat the traffic. She firmly replied, “No, we are leaving around 9 am.”

She packed lunches for us. We did not pull out of the driveway until almost 10 am. It’s normally a two-hour drive to Carbondale, but it took us over three and a half hours to drive to the location where Nancy made the reservation. We ran into some traffic delays, road construction, and we got a bit lost with the GPS and maps trying to find the destination.

Nancy reserved parking and spaces for us at the Alto Vineyards in Alto Pass, Illinois. When we arrived around 1:30 pm, we saw hundreds of people in a carnival like atmosphere of music blaring, dancing, wine sipping, children playing with balls, and family groups sitting on blankets waiting for the eclipse to start. By the time we arrived, we had to park near the far end of the parking lot since most of the attendees arrived before we did. We grabbed our lunch bags, a blanket to lay on, folding chairs, my tripod, our cameras, and temporary eclipse safety glasses.

We found a secluded spot in this vineyard next to where some of the grapes grew. We saw lots of people dozens of yards from us, but we had plenty of space to feel like we could have our own conversations without anyone listening to us. Most of the attendees gathered close to the restaurant and bar. They probably wanted to enjoy the eclipse close to their family and friends. Their location was in proximity where they could order more wine, food, and other drinks.

We arrived at our chosen spot just as the moon started first contact crossing over the sun. I hastily set up my tripod and mounted the elaborate Canon camera on it. I immediately noticed the tripod was not helpful. The sun was high in the sky for the middle of the day. The steep angle did not work to point my camera on the tripod at the sun to take photos. Plus, I was using a quick enough shutter speed so my images would not be fuzzy and out of focus. Somehow the Goldilocks setting Rex set up the day before was not locked in on the camera. Rex scrambled to help me as he set up his own camera and tripod for the eclipse. He then advised me to forget about using the tripod and just lie in the grass embankment to take photos. Lying flat on the ground would allow me to be in a steady enough position to take quality photos of the eclipse.

As usual, Rex’s photography tricks helped. I was now off to the races taking photos as the moon crossed about 25% across the sun. As the moon moved further across the sun, it looked like Pac-Man or a cookie with bigger bites taken out of it. As the moon further encroached across the sun, the crowd grew quieter in anticipation something magical was about to happen.

The partial eclipse looked very familiar to me since I saw one at Crater Lake National Park in 2017. When I worked as a naturalist guide in Everglades National Park from 1998 to 2002, I remember seeing a partial solar eclipse when I narrated one of the sunset boat tours. The partial eclipse happened just as the sun was about to set into the Gulf of Mexico. I glimpsed hundreds of sunsets dropping into the ocean while working in the Everglades. This partial eclipse sunset of the most memorable.

On April 8, 2024, as the moon acted like it was gobbling up the sun, I felt like I entered into a new and unknown territory. The moon’s advancement turned the sun into a crescent. Then just a tiny sliver of the sun showed. The stunning part was when the moon covered almost 99% of the sun. Yet, it still appeared like daylight was all around us. Maybe a bit dimmer. It looked like a normal day surrounding us and scanning the horizon. The outside appearance was like when a dark puffy cloudy on a sunny day moves in front of the sun and the brightness of the day is a tad less. That moment showed how powerful the sunlight is even when a small bit of sunshine comes through. It was a revelation how vital it is to use the eclipse safety glasses even when less than 1% of the sunlight hit the area around us. Even that miniscule amount of sunlight could do damage to the eyes without proper protection such as the eclipse safety glasses.

As the moon moved after closer to a solar totality eclipse, everyone at this vineyard grew quiet with anticipation. We all held our breath for what came next.

Then it occurred like a flip of a switch. The moon totally blocked out the sun. It became dark in a second, but not like midnight. It was more like an evening darkness a half hour after the sun set. The crowd let out a huge boisterous cheer like the moon hit a huge home run in a baseball game broadcasted by Bob Costas. Most people there, including Tanya and me, never saw a total eclipse before. We could not contain our excitement. The moon in this total cooperation with the sun put on this spectacle of show that made all of us huge fans of the moon.

Yes, the moon is incredibly beautiful when it is full or even half, quarter, three quarters, waning, waxing, etc. It is lovely to admire when it shines at night, dusk, dawn, or can be seen during the day. I previously saw a huge full moon rise behind Mt. Hood by the duck pond near the location where Tanya and I live in outer northeastern Portland. Several times at Crater Lake, I saw a full moon rise over the eastern side of the caldera as the sun set in the west. I viewed this while leading visitors to the summit on one of my sunset guided ranger hikes up the Watchman Peak.

At our park housing area at Crater Lake, I saw the full moon rise in the east behind a ridge with tall pine trees on Garfield Peak. A bit of moon light would peak between the trees like a spotlight. Then it would rise above the trees in a way that was reminiscent of the Steven Spielberg film E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial. When the large full moon rose above the pine trees at Crater Lake, I imagined Eliot, E.T, and Eliot’s friends riding their bikes in the sky across the full moon with music composer John Williams music soaring in the background.

Yet, this full eclipse on April 8, 2024, was way beyond any brilliant full moon. The moon outdid any performance I had seen it do before. As soon as totality happened, all of us took off our eclipse safety glasses to admire the show of the umbra. The umbra is defined as “The darkest part of the Moon’s shadow, within which the entirety of the Sun’s bright face is blocked.”

The moon now looked like a black hole with the bright white light of the sun flowing off the total darkness of it. I could not stop myself from taking numerous photos. The pearly glow of the sun’s corona was visible to me for the first time in my life. With my camera zoomed in on the total eclipse, I had some chromospheres show up on my photos. They are the thin, red-colored layer of solar atmosphere. They appear as tiny pinkish reddish dots on the edge of the moon blocking the sun. When we saw them during the eclipse we referred to them as solar flares for a lack of knowledge of the correct scientific term.

With the umbra causing a darkness around us, I could hear crickets starting to chirp, thinking it was nightfall. A buzz of conversation stirred in this huge crowd as the spectators shared a joyful celebration of this rare moment. They eagerly chatted with their family and friends astonished what they were witnessing together.

The sky was dark enough above us that a few evening stars began to appear. However, the horizon all around us looked like it was dusk. It looked like it could be daytime in the far distance while we briefly experience a brief midday night experience. This total eclipse only lasted about 4 and a half minutes. I made sure to lie in the grass next to my wife Tanya to take in this mystical moment we were experiencing together and may never experience again.

We then started seeing Bailey’s Beads, shafts of sunlight shining through deep valleys on the lunar limb (edge), they look like a series of brilliant beads popping. The sun became impatient getting blocked by the moon. It was not going to take this blockage much longer. The moon looked eager to separate from the sun and continue its path. Then we got the brief Diamond Ring phenomenon where more of the sun’s corona shines in a corner of the totality. It looked like a spectacular wedding ring that you would love to give to the person you want to spend the rest of your life. I felt like I scored a victory capturing a photo of this Diamond Ring.

Diamond ring signals the end of the solar eclipse totality. Within a second, poof! The total eclipse of the sun was gone. It was over. We now were back to seeing just a tiny sliver of the sun. We grabbed our eclipse safety glasses fast so the suns fast approaching bright rays of light would not damage our eyes.

Many of the spectators, including Tanya and her parents, were now shuffling their feet and looking ready to pack up to leave. Not me! I wanted to stay as long as I could to take in the third contact stage where the moon slowly edges away from blocking the sun. I wanted to take in everything I saw and photograph the sliver of the sun grow into a crescent sun. Then from the crescent sun change into a quarter sun, then a Pac-Man looking sun, then a sun looking like a cookie with a smaller and smaller bite taken from it.

Finally, the moon covered a tiny portion of the sun. The moon and the sun decided that their mutual dance was over. They were on different paths and had different places to go. This very brief but spectacular close relationship was over. I still wanted to take everything in from this occasion. Tanya, her parents, and her parents’ friends who joined us were now back at the cars with all the items we brought with us. Part of me didn’t want to leave. I still wanted to sit there and absorb what I saw. It felt like a life changing experience for me. I did not want it to end.

Before I left this vineyard for good, I felt like the moon gave a masterful performance. I wanted it to take a bow and even do a curtain call. I swiftly gathered up my stuff, folding up my Bogen Tripod, putting Tanya’s Canon Camera back in the camera bag, and finishing the contents of my sack lunch. I hurriedly went back to the cars where the rest of the group gathered before they could realize that I was holding them back.

The Aftermath on my life of seeing the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024

The detailed conscientious planner that is my mother-in-law Nancy had a hike for us in a nearby state park for us to do next on this gorgeous spring April day. She picked a hike for us to try on the Tree Discovery Trail in the Trail of Tears State Forest. The trail was only .4 miles long. We then hiked on a C.C.C. Heritage Trail which connected to the Discovery Trail, which was another .4 miles. These trails had an elevation gain of 150 feet to the tops of these hills. The trees were mostly bare from their winter shedding of leaves. But leaves were sprouting on several of the trees showing the rejuvenation of life in spring was underway.

For Tanya’s parents, Tanya, and her parents’ friends, the hikes were welcome exercise after standing and sitting in one place for a couple of hours at the vineyard to witness the solar eclipse, plus the three and a half hour car ride to travel to see the eclipse. After the hikes around 4:30 pm, we decided to drive back to Rex and Nancy’s home in west St. Louis County. We hoped the hikes would help clear out the eclipse traffic heading back to St. Louis. We were wrong. We were trapped in long lines of very slow traffic on the state highways from Carbondale to St. louis. It is normally a two-hour drive, but it took us over three and a half hours as the vehicle parade of eclipse chasers crawled through rural southern Illinois back to St. Louis.

We didn’t make it home until after 8 pm. Since we return home so late, the best we could do for dinner was a Domino’s Pizza. With my love of pizza, including Domino’s, this capped off a perfect day for me to see a once in a lifetime event.

The next day, Tanya and I visited my dad who lives in an assisted care facility in St. Louis. I showed my photos from the solar eclipse from the previous day. He was impressed with my photos. He requested a copy of one of my photos of the solar eclipse totality with the white pearly glow of the sun’s corona dancing off the jet-black sphere of the moon blocking the full view of the sun. I mailed the 8×10 inch photo I printed to my dad in early June. During the summer, my mom framed the photo. It is now prominently displayed in my dad’s room.

I made second copy of that same photo I gave my Dad of the total solar eclipse. I framed the photo in the summer of 2024. It is now displayed in our guest bedroom in our home.

Tanya and I returned to Portland on April 14th. I was back to my busy life of climate organizing. I helped organize a Portland Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) forum for the candidates running to be a Representative for Oregon Congressional District 3. I called my friends and other climate organizations to invite them and almost 200 people attended this event. In late April, I got a temporary job as a field organizer for East County Rising (ECR) knocking on doors in Gresham and the east Portland area to urge voters to support local Democratic legislative candidates. This job ran until the Oregon primary election on May 21st.

In June, I traveled to Washington D.C. to attend the CCL Conference and Lobby Day to meet with Congressional staff at their Washington D.C. offices to urge them to support strong climate legislation. From the end of July to the November 5th election, I worked again as an ECR field organizer to urge voters to support local Democratic candidates who were strong for climate action.

On Thanksgiving, Tanya and I flew back to St. Louis for nine days to visit with her parents and my parents for an early Christmas celebration. From January 5-11, 2025, Tanya and I flew to the Big Island of Hawaii for a vacation to go hiking, swimming at beach, sightseeing, and stay with friends that I once worked with at Crater Lake and the Everglades.

Much happened since the April 2024 trip to see the total solar eclipse. Over the last five years, I had many peak and low moments as a climate organizer. At times, I felt so discouraged that I wanted to quit. However, that solar eclipse trip showed me the beauty to be alive to see a once in a lifetime experience. It reminded me to go for my dreams and aspirations. It challenged me to make the most of out of life and strive to make a difference with my life.

We live on a magnificent planet to witness wonders like a total solar eclipse. Bob Costas still remembers his dad taking him to see a baseball game at Yankee Stadium when he was 7 years old. Costas recalls it as one of the most memorable experiences of his life. This April 7, 2024 memory watching the total solar eclipse with stay with me for the rest of my life. It renewed and uplifted my spirit to roll up my sleeve to take more climate action. I hope you will seek out experiences like this so you can make a difference caring for our glorious planet.

Over the past 11 years, I noticed articles on the internet and social media bout climate grief, climate anxiety, climate depression, climate despair, eco-anxiety, ecological grief, etc.

I will admit at times I felt down about climate change, including today (Please note: most of this blog was written in July 2024). My wife and I are planning a trip next week to North Cascades National Park, Washington for my birthday. As I previously blogged, Heather Meadows and Artist Point at the Mt. Baker Ski Area is my favorite place on the planet. I love the views of Mt. Shuksan and Mt. Baker there. I lost track how many times I visited there since I first saw it in 2009.

I was getting excited for this trip until a friend on Facebook who is a Fire Management Officer for the National Park Service posted about the Pioneer Fire along the northern shore of Lake Chelan in North Cascades National Park. As of July 8, 2024, the fire is only 14% contained with “continued increase in activity and spread in the days and weeks ahead.” Even worse, Level 3 (Go Now!) evacuation orders were recently issued for the areas of Prince Creek down lake to Safety Harbor. This fire putting a damper on my vacation plans is nothing compared the potential property damage with lives damaged and lost because of this wildfire.

This fire is one of many depressing reminders in the news that climate change is here and it is bad. On the news today, Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas causing power outages for around 3 million people and is blamed for three deaths. While this hurricane caused havoc in the Caribbean in early July, it alarmed meteorologists and hurricane trackers as “the earliest category five Atlantic hurricane in records going back around 100 years.” According to the BBC, it is a clear “sign of a warming world.”

If that is not enough, the Guardian reported on July 8th, that “US heatwave tied to four Oregon deaths as temperature records are shattered.” The article stated, “More than 146 million Americans under extreme heat alerts as dangerous weather fuels outbreak of new wildfires.” I live in Multnomah County, Oregon. that article noted, “Authorities in Multnomah county – home to Portland, where temperatures broke daily records over the weekend – said they were investigating four suspected deaths tied to the heatwave.”

The Present American ‘Democracy Crisis’ has triggered climate despair for me

For the last several years, I focused on the extreme danger to U.S. democracy. Recent events made the severity more acute that American democracy is teetering on the edge. On July 1st, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Donald Trump “has absolute immunity for core acts.” Their ruling ensured Trump would not be held legally accountable for his actions instigating the January 6th insurrection or stealing federal classified documents until after the November 5th election. The Court assisted Trump’s legal tactics to delay the voters from hearing any evidence of guilt in a court trial. Even worse, if Trump won the Presidency, he could shut down all the legal proceedings against him. Historian Heather Cox Richardson called the Supreme Court ruling “putting their thumb on the scale for Trump.” She went on to call it a “legal coup in our system.”

The maddening part is we need an American President that can communicate well and inspire confidence in the American people about the current dire threat to our democracy. Sadly, President Joe Biden failed to make that case in his June 27th debate with Donald Trump. Because of his advance age of 81, voters were not assured Biden has mental acuity to lead the U.S. during the next four years. In short, Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. It came at pivotal moment when our democracy and climate is in peril if Trump wins.

Heather Cox Richardson warned last year: ‘If former president Donald Trump is elected president or takes the presidency in 2024, we will lose American democracy for our lifetime.’

Four years ago, climate scientist Michael Mann cautioned that a second Trump Presidency would be “game over for the climate.” Last October, he reiterated that opinion with this essay in The Hill, “Trump 2.0: The climate cannot survive another Trump term.”

Ever since the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021, the words of Al Gore stuck in my mind that he said for many years, “To fix the climate crisis we need to fix democracy.”

Thus, for the past four years, my hair is on fire that we can’t reduce the threat of climate change if we don’t have a democracy. My climate despair, grief, anxiety, and depression since 2021 is that our climate is “doomed” and it is “game over” if we lose our democracy in the November 5, 2024 election to a wannabe strongman autocratic dictator like Donald Trump.

For my fellow climate advocates, this is not a drill! I still worry that many of them don’t get the serious situation where our democracy currently stands. I felt too many climate and environmental activists did not strongly support Al Gore for President in 2000 or Hillary Clinton for President in 2016. Instead, they spent too much time chasing shiny objects like Ralph Nader in 2000, Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primaries, or Jill Stein in 2016 general election. To win, we need to truly build a strong coalition across the political spectrum.

My frustration was confirmed in late 2023 when I read the book Facing the Climate Emergency by climate activist Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon. I wrote a blog review of the 2023 second edition of this book in March 2024, Yes, we have a Climate AND a Democracy Emergency.

In my blog review, I penned, “I did not notice a peep about this threat (to our democracy) in Margaret’s book, especially in the 2023 edition. Since January 6th, we are now aware of the daunting threat Trump poses to our democracy and climate. However, I did not see her write at all about this in her book. Furthermore, I have not seen her post anything about the threat to our democracy in her social media.”

I went on to write, “As a fellow climate organizer, I really do need Margaret (and everyone else) to address the democracy emergency in 2024 so we can then face the climate emergency.”

This was not the only blog where I tried to sound the alarm about our democracy. For the last two months of 2023, I wrote an 8 part blog, For Climate Action, let’s protect our democracy. From August 2023 to February 2023, I tried to network my contacts and post on social media for a national march for our democracy. Those efforts went nowhere.

I am not giving up. I refuse to give up for our democracy and our climate. I will get involved with political campaigns to knock on doors, phone bank, text bank, organize house parties for candidates, and do all I can to get out the vote for the November 5, 2024 election. We have too much at stake to lose. I will work as hard as I can for the upcoming election because the future of the world and America depends upon it. As I posted on social media on July 7, 2024:

Finding my purpose to organize for climate action helped me overcome depression

To be completely honest, the democracy crisis since January 6, 2021 actually masks a deeper issue for me. I almost quit the climate movement in 2021 because I felt unappreciated and I did not matter. I felt a very deep amount of pain and hurt as a climate organizer over the years. The hurt is so deep for me that I procrastinated for months and years to write this blog.

For my 8 part blog, For Climate Action, let’s protect our democracy, I began each of those blogs writing: “This is the toughest blog for me to write.” Writing about how the bitter losses of the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2016 were extremely painful for me to write. It opened up old wounds for me to write about to try to heal from that pain. This blog cuts even deeper to write because I feel used and abused by the climate movement.

Upon self reflection, I must be candid I am a highly sensitive person and working 25 years in the national parks skewed my perception of reality. Over 98% of park visitors are kind and in awe when they see park rangers. As a park ranger, many visitors treated me like a celebrity. They wanted their photos with me. They hung on my every word. Many laughed at my jokes that were not funny. I knew it was the uniform that impressed them, not really me. It was a heady experience when so many people liked me. For the rest of my life, I am pegged by many people as a park ranger. Oddly, I have not worked as a park ranger since 2017, seven years go.

I started off as a seasonal concessionaire employee at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon in the summer of 1992 and Everglades National Park in the winter of 1992-93. I fell in love with working and recreating in the national parks. They became home for me. My happy place. A few years working in the national parks, I wanted to become a National Park Service ranger. The pay was better than working for the concessionaire, the uniform was snazzy, and rangers were well respected by the park visitors. I was fortunate to be hired as a summer seasonal entrance station ranger at Crater Lake in the summer of 1996.

I struggled with deep bouts of depression in the 1990s because I wanted to make some kind of difference in the world, but I was unsure how to do that. In January 1998, I became a concession naturalist guide narrating the boat tours in Flamingo in Everglades National Park. That helped me to find a life’s purpose and meaning to be able to chat about ecology, the environment, the Everglades wildlife and the history of the area on a daily basis.

As I often blogged and shared my story in public presentations, a turning point happened in 1998 soon after I became a concession naturalist in the Everglades. Soon after I started narrating the boat tours in 1998, visitors asked me about this global warming thing, which I had scant knowledge. Visitors hate when park rangers and naturalists tell you, “I don’t know.” Visitors expect park rangers to know everything. Don’t you?

Soon afterwards, I rushed to the nearest Miami bookstore and to the park library to read all I the scientific books I could find on climate change.

The information I learned scared me, specifically sea level rise along our mangrove coastline in Everglades National Park. Sea level rose 8 inches in the 20th century, four times more than it had risen in previous centuries for the past three thousand years. Because of climate change, sea level is now expected to rise at least three feet in Everglades National Park by the end of the 21st century. The sea would swallow up most of the park and nearby Miami since the highest point of the park road less than three feet above sea level.

It shocked me that crocodiles, alligators, and beautiful Flamingos I enjoyed seeing in the Everglades could all lose this ideal coastal habitat because of sea level rise enhanced by climate change. In the years after 1998, I was not sure what to do about climate change except reading books and watching documentaries such as An Inconvenient Truth to educate myself about it.

On October 1, 2007, my mentor, Steve Robinson passed away. He was a seasonal park ranger in Everglades and Crater Lake that I first met him in 1993. He lost his struggle to pancreatic cancer less than two month from doctors diagnosing his illness. His passing left me feeling adrift in life with a deep feeling of sadness. In the winter of 2007-08, I started work in a new location at Everglades National Park. The supervisor at Shark Valley recruited me to work there.

When I arrived in Shark Valley in November 2007, the new location was not a good fit for me. I felt isolated. I had a surly housemate. I missed my Everglades City friends from previous winters. On top of that, I was still deeply mourning the loss of my friend Steve.

In my sleeplessness, depression, and restlessness, I found a clear direction for my life. I decided to carry forth my mentor Steve’s message of protecting our Earth and environment since he could no longer share that vision with others. I resolved this was my final winter working in Florida. For future winters, I would stay with my parents in St. Louis and organize for climate action locally. Once I made that decision in December 2007, my depression at that time diminished.

It was dedicating my life to climate action that helped me overcome this bout of depression.

Finding Comedy in my life’s purpose to become a Climate Change Organizer

For the first several years, I had a string of successes slowly transitioning to be a climate organizer. My background as a park ranger helped open some doors.

Since I was giving up a winter job in Everglades National Park, I needed to find a job when working the winters in St. Louis. I still had my summer seasonal interpretation ranger job at Crater Lake National Park, but I wanted to secure another job for the winter. In May 2008, I visited my parents in St. Louis. I was curious about working at REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc) at their St. Louis store. I went inside the store and asked to speak to the manager. I explained my situation that I was getting ready to work for the summer at Crater Lake National Park. I asked if they would have any positions available for the winter. The manager Jon was receptive. He encouraged me to submit my application and resume to work at the store for the winter, especially for the holidays. With my park ranger background, they seemed eager to hire me for the winter since I had a background in the outdoors. REI’s business focus is selling top quality gear, equipment, apparel, and expert advice for the outdoors. Thus, this was a good fit for me to work there the upcoming winter while I tried to figure out what I would do for climate action.

REI was flexible with my winter starting date. That turned out to be ideal. I ended up working a long season at Crater Lake until October 20th. Friends I knew years earlier in the Everglades invited me to visit them on the Big Island of Hawaii. I stayed with them for the last week in October and the beginning of November. My Crater Lake supervisor invited me to attend the annual meeting of National Park Service Interpreters in the second weekend of November in Vancouver, Washington. After that conference, I started the cross country drive from Vancouver to St. Louis, arriving in mid-November. I missed the seasonal training for the holiday staff, but that did not matter for REI. They were happy to have me working for them.

I had a learning curve to be knowledgable about the REI products and this was my first retail job. REI likes for their sales floor specialists to sell their lifetime memberships. I became adept selling the memberships while engaging with customers in the store. When a membership is sold at the register, the cashiers made a coded announcement over the loud speaker. It let the management and staff know a membership was sold and who was credited for the sale. It was something like ‘224Ettling.’ I heard that announcement several times while I was working there in December 2008. A couple of times, it happened more than once during my work shift. Sometimes the announcements were not far apart. I started turning heads with my fellow employees with the memberships I sold, which boosted my confidence.

REI has a customer discount. It was retail shopping bliss to get that discount on top of reduced price sales for gear in the store. I bought a brand new winter coat for myself, which I own to this day, as well as my first car GPS unit. It was heaven to get good REI stuff while working there for their high quality outdoor products. Sadly, the good times at REI did not last after the new year. The U.S. economy was in the depths of the Great Recession. Retailers like REI had to make deep cuts in their staff to remain profitable. Since I was one of the last ones hired as a holiday seasonal staff, I was one of the first laid off from in January 2009.

It is always sad to leave a dependable job like REI. However, I was not concerned about my next job. Crater Lake hired me back in mid March to work for their spring Classroom at Crater Lake program. I enjoyed leading the snowshoe hikes for the school groups.

During the snowshoe hikes, a highlight was using a big snowy hill for the students to slide down. I always went first to show the students how to slide down the snow. Several occasions, the teachers and adults could not help themselves and slid down the snow. At the end the of program, I would line up the students at the top of a tall snowy embankment. I took off my snowshoes and was about 20 yards away from them. I stood on the paved road at Rim Village and dared them to hit me with a snowball. It was a fabulous workout to dodge the snowballs. The students were hilarious trying to hit me. One kid yelled at me, “Today is your funeral, mister!”

I worked at Crater Lake at my seasonal interpretation job until the end of September. During that summer, I became lifelong friends with fellow seasonal park rangers Graham Hetland and Aubrey Shaw. They lived permanently in Ashland, Oregon where they attended Southern Oregon University (SOU). Graham’s mother lived in Ashland. They needed someone to housesit for his mom, Barbara, for the winter. Barbara planned to go on a cross country road trip in a RV. Thus, they wanted someone to watch her home and her friendly cat, Poppy. I planned to return to St. Louis, but they persuaded me to housesit for their mom.

After I moved to Ashland in early October 2009, I fell into a funk because I was restless to do something for climate action. However, I had no idea what to do.

I decided to go to SOU and meet Dr. Greg Jones, an SOU professor and climatologist. He specializes in the study of climate structure and suitability for viticulture. Specifically, he studies how climate variability and climate change influence grapevine growth, wine production, and quality. At that time, I was interested in attending grad school to learn more about climate change. I was eager to see if he had any advice for me. Even more, I was curious to see if maybe I could get my master’s degree studying under him at SOU.

My meeting with Dr. Jones did not go well. I shared my background of seeing climate change in the Everglades, plus watching the 2006 documentary about Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth. He immediately let me know he did not like Al Gore. He believed Gore was a bad spokesperson to explain to the public about climate change. That did not sit well with me because it was Al Gore and his advocacy that brought me to meet with him in his office. I left this awkward meeting I not knowing what my next step would be to pursue my climate change vision.

A few days later, I visited my friend Naomi Eklund who lived in Ashland for advice. She pressed me on what exactly did I want to do with my life. She kept pushing me harder. Finally, I snapped, “Fine! If I could do anything, I would like to be ‘The Climate Change Comedian!” 

Naomi was a tough audience, but she nearly fell out of her fell out of her chair laughing. She replied: “That’s perfect! I want you to go home and grab that website domain name now, www.climatechangecomedian.com.”

I went home and did that. Barbara soon sent news that she did not like RVing across country. She decided to return to her home where I was housesitting in Ashland in mid November. When she moved back home, it felt awkward living in her house. Around Thanksgiving, Barbara announced she did not want to share her home with me. My parents just moved into a new home in St. Louis. They wanted me to return home to spend the winter with them.

On December 10, 2009, I left Ashland, Oregon for a cross country drive back to St. Louis, Missouri. During that winter, Naomi advised me to fully develop my website and create my own climate change PowerPoint that I would use for my presentations. Early in 2010, I developed my first climate change PowerPoint, “Let’s Have Fun Getting Serious about Climate Change.” I showed that PowerPoint to friends and family in the St. Louis. A family friend helped me launch my climatechangecomedian.com website that is still active to this day.

During the early months of 2010, my sisters in St. Louis wanted me to speak at my nieces’ and nephews’ schools. My younger sister first booked me to speak at my nephew Sam’s second grade class in St. Charles, Missouri on February 5, 2010. This was my first presentation outside of working as a ranger in the national parks. Before I left St. Louis in late April to return to Crater Lake, I gave several presentations to my nieces’ and nephews’ school, plus an Earth Day presentation for the nearby Catholic school, where my mom would substitute teach.

At Crater Lake National Park that summer, I gave my climate change PowerPoint informally to some of my ranger friends one evening and I shared it with a few other ranger friends. During my cross-country drive from Crater Lake National Park, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri in November 2010, I showed this PowerPoint twice. I shared it to some ranger friends in Page, Arizona and to my college friend Brent in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. These friends gave me some helpful tips and feedback to improve my talk.

In 2011, things started happening for me as a climate change advocate. After I returned to St. Louis for the winter of 2010-11, I wanted to improve my skills as a public speaker and climate change communicator. I joined a local Toastmasters group, South County Toastmasters, in January 2011. Over the next five years, I gave 20 climate change speeches to this local Toastmasters Club. My fellow Toastmasters voted for me as “The Best Speaker” for 8 of these speeches.

In March 2011, I had the fortuitous luck to be offered a job to work at the St. Louis Science Center’s temporary Climate Change exhibit. This was one of the few climate change museum exhibits in the United States at that time. While working there, I met St. Louis businessman Larry Lazar. We decided to co-found the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up in December 2011 (now known as Climate Meetup-St. Louis).

In August 2011, I gave my first climate change ranger evening program at Crater Lake National Park, called The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. I performed this ranger talk at Crater Lake for the next five summers, up until 2017. Over the past 13 years, I ended up giving over 200 climate change talks in 12 U.S. states, Washington D.C, and Ottawa, Canada.

In 2012, I attended a Climate Reality Project Training led by former Vice President Al Gore to become a Climate Reality Leader. I loved attending that training and was honored to be a mentor for 8 addition trainings to guide others become effective Climate Reality leaders. At the May 2015 Cedar Rapids Training in front of the group of my fellow mentors, I personally asked Al Gore how to best respond to his critics.

After I became The Climate Change Comedian, I created some YouTube videos with my wife Tanya, my mom Fran Ettling and my dad LeRoy Ettling. Comedy Central’s Tosh.o noticed these videos. This TV show flew my mom and I to Los Angeles in April 2016 to appear on their episode airing on August 2, 2016. I never dreamed when I gave myself that title I would be on a TV show seen by millions of people. My 2016 guest appearance met the satisfaction of Tosh.o because they invited me back for a second time for their November 10, 2020 episode.

In April 2012, Carol Braford, the St. Louis Chapter Leader for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) recruited me to volunteer for CCL. I immediately became deeply committed to CCL. While working as a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park during the summer of 2012, I reached out to various climate and environmental advocates in the Ashland, Oregon area. As a result of these interactions, I co-founded the Southern Oregon CCL chapter in 2013 that still regularly meets in Ashland. In 2013, CCL inspired me to write 10 published editorial opinions, two in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and eight in newspapers throughout Oregon.

CCL inspired me to attend 8 of their Washington D.C. conferences from 2015-19 to lobby Congressional offices on Capitol Hill. I loved attending lobby meetings with fellow CCL volunteers to urge Congressional offices to support federal climate legislation. As a climate change organizer, public speaker, and writer, it felt like 2011 to 2019 were very productive years for me. 

My Frustrations and Setbacks as a Climate Change Organizer

During those same years, I had some setbacks and frustrations as a climate organizer. As the disappointments mounted, I felt more depressed and crushed that it seemed elusive for me to find a permanent and stable job in the climate movement.

In an earlier blog, I wrote about how networking and making connections I made as the co-founder of the Climate Reality St. Louis Meet Up group led to a job in late October 2013. Missouri Chapter of the Sierra Club hired me in October 2013 to be an organizer primarily for the Beyond Coal campaign. At the time, it felt like a dream come true to work full time as a climate and environmental organizer.

The job felt like it was not an ideal fit for me just days after I started. Besides the Sierra Club, I organized for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL), the Climate Reality Project and I was the co-leader of the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up group, along with Larry Lazar. I took this Sierra Club job hoping to still coordinate with these other climate organizations. However, the job turned out to be all consuming with no time to interact with those organizations.

The St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up had an event with a large attendance in November 2013. I hoped to go to recruit volunteers for the Sierra Club and the Beyond Coal campaign, as well as coordinate with those climate activists attending for future coalition organizing events. Sadly, my boss at the Sierra Club did not want me to attend because of a small gathering of Sierra Club volunteers scheduled to meet at the Sierra Club office that evening. I found his decision to be rather short sighted. It felt like we were just not seeing eye to eye on climate organizing.

Even more troubling, I learned that my job was an “exempt” position, not subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime regulations and, therefore, not entitled to overtime pay. It felt like I was working morning, afternoons, and evenings with very little free time. It felt stifling and confining compared to my other climate organizing and my summer job as a park ranger at Crater Lake National Park. Around Thanksgiving 2013, I did not want to do that job anymore, so I gave my two weeks notice.  

It was a huge letdown for me to get a full time permanent paid organizer position that did not work out for me. I felt free I was no longer chained to the endless demands of that job. Yet, I still yearned to work full time as a climate organizer. I set my sights to work CCL or even the Climate Reality Project. Those organizations seemed to have a better work life balance for their employees. I remember CCL’s Executive Director Mark Reynolds and other top CCL staff frequently sharing this E.B. White quote, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

In December 2013, I requested to schedule a call with Mark Reynolds to ask him how I could work for CCL. He was friendly on the phone but he gave little solid advice, wisdom, or encouragement for me. He mentioned that others were hired by CCL when they showed they created work so valuable that the organization had to hire them to keep them. Therefore, I determined I should then set out on this path to stand out as a volunteer and accomplish things big enough that CCL, Climate Reality Project, or another climate group would want to hire me.

I set myself on becoming a “Super Volunteer” for CCL, Climate Reality Project and other groups. I gave hundreds of climate change talks locally and up to 12 U.S. states, participated in radio and podcast interviews, and wrote numerous newspaper opinion editorials and letters to the editor. I took on leadership roles such as CCL liaison to my member Missouri member of Congress, Rep. Ann Wagner, became co-group leader of the St. Louis CCL group, CCL co-state coordinator for Missouri. I became a breakout speaker for three Climate Reality Trainings and several CCL national conferences. I lead two Missouri CCL speaking tours in 2017 and 2018, plus an Oregon CCL speaking tour in 2017. I became interim Chair of the Climate Reality Portland Chapter in 2019. Yet, none of this seemed to matter when I applied for jobs.

I applied for a Climate Reality Project Engagement Coordinator Position in the summer of 2015. They scheduled for a job interview. I thought the interview went great. I knew the staff member interviewing me from attending some of the trainings. Yet, I never heard back from Climate Reality after that interview. I was not having much luck when I applied for jobs with climate organizations. When Tanya and I moved to Portland OR in February 2017, I knew I wanted to transition out from working as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park to be a full time permanent climate organizer. The climate advocacy world would be different than the National Park Service world where I spent years working.

In blogs I wrote in 2017, I shared my frustration and trying to seek out mentors in Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) and Climate Reality. I felt crushed when people I approached to mentor me that I deeply respected turned me down. I did not let that stop me from giving my all to the climate movement. By 2020 around the same time as the pandemic started, I felt burned and burned out by Climate Reality. When I was the interim Chapter Chair for the Portland OR Chapter during the second half of 2019, the infighting within the Leadership Team wore me out. I prevailed in the struggle to organize three big events for the chapter, but I had no energy left to lead the Chapter by February 2020.

In 2020 and for the first half of 2021, I remained a loyal and dedicated CCL volunteer. This was actually a peak time for me as a climate organizer. I led the efforts for 30 Oregon Legislators to endorse CCL’s federal bill in Congress, The Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (EICDA). Out of this effort, I was then the lead organizer for a resolution in the Oregon Legislature as Senate Joint Memorial 5 or SJM 5.

Senator Michael Dembrow proudly introduced SJM 5 on the Oregon Senate floor on February 4, 2021. This resolution called for Congress to pass a bipartisan climate carbon pricing legislation such as the EICDA. SJM 5 passed the Oregon Senate on April 7th by a vote of 23 to 5, with 6 Republican Senators, half of the Oregon GOP Senate caucus, joined all the Democratic Senators present to vote to support it. Sadly, SJM 5 fell short of receiving a floor vote in the Oregon House in June 2021. It was exciting that 30 House members, including 7 Republicans, signed on to co-sponsor it. The Oregon House has 60 members. Half the chamber was SJM 5 co-sponsors.

The worst part of this defeat was Oregon CCL leadership becoming very angry when the OR House Democratic Leadership refused to give SJM 5 a floor vote. After I experienced two dreadful GOP walkouts that defeated the 2019 and 2020 cap and invest bills, I never believed SJM 5 would pass until I saw it with my own eyes. The Oregonian published an opinion editorial (op-ed) from Oregon CCL leadership and I disagreed with the tone. Former Rep. Tiffiny Mitchell advised us not to publish it since it seemed to attack OR House Democratic Leadership.

I pleaded with The Oregonian and Oregon CCL leadership to re-edit the op-ed to be more gracious, but they ignored my input. Oregon CCL then organized a protest at the Capitol that I did not want to participate. It looked pointless. OR House Leadership conveyed to me in a clear message that SJM 5 would not receive a vote. The reactions of the CCL Leadership Team after SJM 5 died left me feeling disenchanted with CCL and the climate movement. In the summer of 2021, I stepped away from CCL and the climate movement. I was unsure what to do with myself since I was disillusioned with CCL, Climate Reality, and the climate movement.

With the funk I felt in the middle of 2021, I reached out to a fellow mentor in Climate Reality, Jill MacIntrye Witt. We were both trained at the Climate Reality Training in San Francisco in August 2012. I met her as a fellow mentor at several Climate Reality Trainings we attended since then. Jill works as an a Senior Instructor at Western Washington University in the Environmental Studies and Health and Human Development departments. On top of her deep involvement as a Climate Reality Leader and Mentor in 2021, she expanded into climate coaching as part of the Climate Coaching Alliance. Jill and I scheduled several coaching sessions. Her main advice to me was to journal and spend time writing about climate activism highs and lows. I resisted writing because I was in the middle of a writer’s block, defined by writing expert Mike Rose as: “the inability to begin or continue writing for reasons other than a lack of basic skill or commitment”.

In our coaching sessions, Jill grew frustrated with me that I resisted her advice. At that time, I had not blogged in over two years with my busy schedule in 2019. In 2020, I fell into a deep depression with the pandemic, lack of social interaction, and burn out from all the drama and fighting with the Portland Climate Reality Leadership Team. The first half of 2021, I focused on organizing the SJM 5 climate resolution and then it stung when it fell apart. Finally, the writer’s block damn broke around September 2021. I was writing again. As it turned out, I wrote a lot.

In autumn of 2021, I began writing a blog which turned into over 82 pages. It looked like a possible book with the title, Why I Quit the Climate Movement. However, that title and those writings felt too pessimistic. It seemed best to set those writings aside at that time. The good news is that I published my first blog in two and a half years in December 2021, Climate Action vs. “Let’s Go Brandon!”. A Facebook friend’s snarky post blaming President Joe Biden for high gasoline prices finally spurred me to blog again. I wrote three more blogs in January 2022.

Because of the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol and the precarious state of American democracy, I dedicated 2022 to work on political campaigns for state legislators. I focused on electing local Democratic candidates who would protect our democracy. The good news was I found ways to get paid full time for this campaign work. I enjoyed door to door canvassing, organizing house parties, and fundraising for the Raz Mason for Oregon Senate campaign.

In September, Raz became worried about her campaign funds running too low to pay me. She encouraged me to apply to be become a full-time paid canvasser for the East County Rising (ECR) community organization. ECR is a social justice organization that focuses on getting out the vote to elect progressive Democratic local candidates for the eastern part of the Portland metro area. I canvassed full time for ECR, knocking on thousands of doors in the final two months of the campaign, up until the November 8th election.

Sadly, Raz Mason did not win her Oregon Senate campaign. However, nearly all the candidates that I canvassed for ECR won their campaigns.

In mid November 2022, I traveled to North Carolina to give climate change presentations. Robin Riddlebarger, Park Superintendent of Hanging Rock State Park, invited me to come speak at the annual conference of superintendents for North Carolina State Parks. She saw this Climate Change Comedian website. She wanted me to give a humorous talk during this conference at Hanging Rocks to the Superintendents. She wanted a fun talk from me “instead of listening to boring HR polices that could have been handled in an email.”

My presentation at Hanging Rock went great. The was my first in-person talk since the beginning of the pandemic almost two years previously. I got my groove back with this talk! I did not know when I would return to North Carolina. In October, I messaged friends I knew for decades that lived on Ocracoke in the Outer Banks if I could stay with them. They said yes. However, they insisted I ‘sing for my supper’ by giving a climate change talk to over 50 middle and high school students in Ocracoke. Thus, I gave two climate talks on this 8-day trip to North Carolina.

After this trip to North Carolina, I then had to figure out the job situation. I applied for some legislative aide positions in the Oregon Legislature. (Please note: the rest of this blog was written on December 31, 2024 and January 1, 2025) However, I heard back from none of the legislators when I applied to work for their staff. I felt discouraged seeking to find jobs as a legislative aide or working for Oregon climate and environmental organizations. With the approval of my wife, I spent 2023 writing multiple blogs that focused on my specific achievements as a climate organizer. My goal is to eventually turn my writings into a published memoir about my peak experiences, low points, and perspective as a climate organizer.

In January 2023, I registered for a continuing adult education class at Mt. Hood Community College called Writing Your Story. This class met every Thursday from 1 to 3 pm on Zoom. About fourteen people attended this class regularly. We read short stories we wrote about our lives. We were encouraged to keep our stories would be about five minutes in length so everyone in the class had a chance to share these stories. I loved the regular deadlines the class presented to share stories. We weren’t required to share stories, but it made for an inspiring challenge to consistently share a story. The class motivated me to regularly write my own blogs. It felt like a gift and a bit of fresh air to participate in this class with my dream to become a writer.

In the first half of 2023, I carpooled with over climate organizers to Salem, Oregon to lobby for climate and environmental bills. I joined with OLCV (Oregon League of Conservation Voters), MCAT (Mobilizing for Climate Action Together), Building Resilience and the Oregon Just Transition Alliance to lobby my legislators and other Oregon legislators to pass strong environmental and climate legislation. On one of the trips where I rode with an environmental organizer to Salem, I had a revealing conversation with one of the environmental leaders in Oregon. I remarked how I loved lobbying for climate legislation. This leader responded that the climate and environmental groups appreciate all that I do because they see me as a “Super Volunteer.”

My heart sank into my chest when I heard him say that. I feel like I was being forever boxed in and pigeon-holed as a volunteer. I wondered how I would ever break out of how everyone saw me as a “Super Volunteer” for climate organizing. I desperately wanted to get paid for my work, but it was not happening. Everyone seemed to think of me as a volunteer.

It reminded me of my life as a single man before I met my wife Tanya. I hated being single. I longed to date, fall in love, and get married to wonderful woman. I met many women whom I found to be attractive. I became friends with them. I never wanted to rush into a relationship. When I thought they could be a great match for me, I would gently let them know I wanted to take the relationship to the next level of dating. They would then rebuff me to say they wanted to “just be friends with me.” For most of adult life, I was stuck being single and “in the friendship zone” with women. I hated it, especially when I worked in the national parks. The dating opportunities were limited in the national parks. It sucked!

I gave up my winter job in the Everglades in 2008 to be a climate organizer. Even more, I hope spending my winters in an urban area of St. Louis, MO, even with living with my parents, could help me find my life partner. It worked! Within four years of leaving Everglades National Park, I found Tanya. In November 2011, I co-founded the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up (now called Climate Meetup-St. Louis) group to discuss, learn, and take climate action. Tanya came to one of our MeetUps in early 2012. We became friends and started dating a year later. We got engaged on Christmas Eve 2024. Our wedding was November 1, 2015. She is my best friend to this day.

Yet, as I write this blog in January 2025, I am still stuck as a “Super Volunteer” in the climate movement. (Yes, this blog is so painful to write it took me over 6 months to write it!). To clarify, I worked as an ECR Field Organizer (paid canvasser) knocking on doors of undecided and Democratic leaning voters in eastern Portland metro area in May and from the end of July to November 5th. However, I have not yet found a job as a legislative aide or an organizer with an Oregon climate or environmental group.

Our climate and planet is too precious and sacred for me to give up. I will keep volunteering and lobbying for climate action. Yet, I am so tired of being a “super volunteer” for Oregon climate and environmental groups.

My situation reminds me of a story the late Tony Campolo wrote about in his 1997 book, Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God. Dr. Tony Campolo was a professor of sociology at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He was a Baptist Minister and a leader for the progressive Christian movement. He was a sought-after speaker and a best-selling author of numerous books. Campolo was a personal spiritual advisor to President Clinton during the 1998 sexual misconduct scandal with Monica Lewinsky. I saw Dr. Campolo speak twice on campus when I was a student at William Jewell College from 1988-1992 and I read several of his books since then. Sadly, he passed away recently on November 19, 2024.

In Following Jesus Without Embarrassing God, Dr. Campolo tells the story when he pastored a church in suburban Philadelphia. A Georgia minister sent him a note that one of his most devoted families moved into Campolo’s community. This family was super devoted to the church in Georgia. Thus, this pastor believed this family would join Campolo’s church and greatly contribute to the ministries of this Philly congregation. His friend sent this family’s new address and urged Tony to go to their house and “get them” before another church invited them to join.

Thus, Tony rushed over to the house to meet this family. He rang the doorbell and the father answered. Dr Campolo introduced himself with, “Mr. Holly? I’m Tony Campolo, the pastor of Upper Merion Baptist Church. I understand you’re Baptist, and I stopped by to invite you to be part of our church. May I come in and talk to you about it?”

Mr. Holly looked shocked and fearful. He responded, “How did you find us?”

Tony replied: “The pastor of your church in Georgia wrote and told me that you moved into our community and I should do my best to get you involved in the ministries of our church.”

“Dear Lord!” he yelled. “Is there no escape? Is there no way we can have some peace and time to ourselves? Will there always be somebody out there waiting to get us and swallow us into a hundred and one church programs?”

The man then revealed how their church in Georgia almost destroyed his family. The entire family were so active in the church that they barely saw each other. The hectic schedule led to the family feeling no sense of unity and left them exhausted.

He explained, “This is a family that has been burned out by the church. We’ve had enough, already. When my company had a job opportunity a thousand miles away, I took it, primarily to escape from that church down there. And now I find that they’ve traced my whereabouts and sent you to get me involved in the same kind of rat race again. Well, thanks! But no thanks.”

Dr. Campolo reassured his church would be different, but the man was not buying it. According to Tony, “the man politely, but firmly, ended the discussion and closed the door.”

I admit this was an extreme example. However, it feels too often in the climate and environmental movement that organizations are just looking for “super volunteers.” Yes, I get they have limited funds to hire staff. However, the Bible says “Man cannot live by bread alone.” Neither can activists like me just live by volunteering. We need to find a way to get paid.

When I attend Citizens’ Climate Lobby conferences, Climate Reality Trainings, and other local environmental and climate gatherings, I frequently noticed the audience tends to be older white people (present company included). More diversity of age and ethnicity is needed for the climate movement to succeed. At the Climate Reality Training in Chicago in August 2013 where I attended as a mentor, I expressed this thought to an African American woman that mentored. She smiled and responded: ‘We ain’t gonna win if we are just pale and male.’

I thought her comment was so spot on that I immediately wrote it down on the cover of my notebook and almost fell out of my chair laughing. It was brilliant! At the same time, I wanted to add, ‘Nor are we going to win if we are just rich and retired.’

I am not opposed to fund raising if I obtained a job working for a climate or environmental non-profit. Heck, I raised over $1000 for my Facebook Birthday Fundraiser for Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) in 2018. I started with a goal of $200, but I upped it to over $1000 when I blew past $200. I ended up raising over $1,137 with 35 people contributing. I prioritized fundraising for Raz Mason when she ran for the Oregon Senate in 2018. I persuaded friends, fellow Climate Reality Leaders, and family to contribute several thousand dollars to her campaign. I don’t mind helping an environmental or climate organization raise funds. I just would like to be seriously considered for paid work. I would love to get a chance to prove my value.

This leads to vital questions for all of us in the climate movement: How do you respond when someone says ‘yes’ to join the climate movement? How are you ready to receive someone into the climate movement when you have them at hello? How can you be there for them to keep them in the movement if they are not rich and retired? How can you help folks that are called into the climate movement wanting to make a difference and want to get paid doing that?

In the Bible, Jesus called his Disciples to join him by saying, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Then they immediately left their nets and followed Him. (Matthew 4:19-20)

What are we doing to grow the climate movement to keep recruiting activists and helping them make a living reducing the threat of climate change? The threat of climate change keeps getting worse with 2024 likely to become the hottest year on record. This will break the previous hottest year on record which as 2023. We need the climate movement to be massively expanding since we just elected Donald Trump as President on November 5, 2024 who will proudly be ‘Climate Denier-in-Chief.’ Environmental experts warn Trump will be a ‘Wrecking Ball‘ for global climate action and his Presidency poses ‘major threat to the planet.’

As a climate organizer, this is the biggest source of anxiety, depression, and grief for me: finding a way to be fully accepted into the movement to get paid to do this work as my life’s calling. I long to make a solid living following this path. I gave up a wonderful career as a seasonal park ranger to take this journey. Yet, I feel I have been kept at arm’s length by the climate movement.

Recently, I finished reading marine biologist, policy expert, and writer Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s newest book about climate change solutions, What if We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures. I found her book to be uplifting with her conversations with fellow scientists, artists, farmers, organizers, thought leaders, and movers & shakers. They chat about the actions needed to strive to create a world free from human caused climate change. I recommend this book. It intrigued me to watch her recent media interviews, including her 2022 TED talk, How to Find Joy in Climate Action. It’s a must watch video answering the question: “What can I do to act on climate?”

Near the end of her TED talk, she says to her audience:

“My last challenge to you, then, since all our fates are intertwined, is in addition to leveraging your talents, can you help others in using theirs?”

Now she pointed out that inequality is “one of the major barriers to participation.” She then elaborated,

“Perhaps you know that around the world, it’s people of color who are most heavily impacted by the effects of climate change, whether that’s air pollution, hurricanes, droughts or floods. But you may not know that it is also people of color who are most concerned about climate and most likely to want to be a part of the solutions. In the US, where we have robust data on this, 49 percent of white Americans are concerned about climate, compared to 57 percent of Black Americans and 69 percent of Latinx Americans. Imagine the huge and additional contributions these folks could make if unburdened from the dangerous distraction that is racism. And goodness, do we need all of that ingenuity and leadership. In other words, help us, help you, help us all save the planet…

let’s work to demolish the societal barriers that prevent people from fully devoting themselves
to climate solutions.”

She ends with this call to action, “This is an invitation. Find your role if you haven’t already, encourage others to find theirs. Averting climate catastrophe: this is the work of our lifetimes. Thank you.”

No, I am not a young low income female person of color needing a helping hand to succeed in the climate movement. Yes, do what you can to help them as we keep building the climate movement. However, I could use your help and encouragement to live sucure as a climate organizer. I want them to succeed since it is their future at stake, even more than mine. If you can find a way to assist and be there for me, I promise I will be in a better position to help them.

Thank you so much for reading this blog to the very end that took me six months complete! I started this blog in early July 2024 and I am writing this on January 1, 2025.