This is the second part of my blog about my trip to Washington D.C. July 19-23, 2023. Part 1 focused on my arrival in Washington D.C, the friends I stayed with in Takoma Park, touring the National Archives and Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Conference to prepare for the Congressional Lobby Day.

Part 2 (below) is about my experience lobbying on Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill.
Part 3 is my recollection of the evening guided tour inside the U.S. Capitol Building led by Congresswoman Val Hoyle.

The CCL group photo on the Capitol Steps at 8 am in the morning

These are long days on lobbying on Capitol Hill. I set my alarm to wake me up around 5:30 am so I could shower, put on my dress business suit, and eat a good breakfast. I needed to leave the house where I stayed by 7 am to walk or see if I could catch the bus to Takoma Park DC Metro station to head towards the U.S. Capitol Building. I reached the Union Station Metro stop by 7:40 am. The U.S. Capitol Building Rotunda Dome looks like a lighthouse beacon greeting us coming up from the escalators at Union Station. As soon as I left Union Station, I found myself in the middle of a throng of CCL volunteers, old friends and new, in our best business suits happy to see each other and eager to lobby for the day.

All of us CCL volunteers and staff needed to be there before 8 am sharp to be in the CCL group photo of around 800 volunteers on the northeast U.S. Capitol Building Steps that would be lobbying Congressional Offices that day. We created a sea of people covering and occupying the lower half northeast Capitol Building Steps. I participated in over 10 of these lobby photos from previous CCL Congressional Lobby days. It was a motivating way to start the day. In past years, the CCL volunteers break out into singing “This Land Is Your Land” with our excitement of being together for the traditional big group photo on the Capitol steps.

After CCL staff took the group photo, I mingled with old and new CCL friends. For this lobby day, I volunteered to be in CCL publicity photos of volunteers talking to each other with the Capitol Dome in the photo background. They mostly needed young women and people of color front and center in the photos. At the same time, as 57-year-old white male, it was still helpful for CCL for me to be in the background of some of the potential publicity shots.

My first lobby meeting was at 10 am at the Hart Senate Office Building with staff of Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon. The Hart Office Building is basically two city blocks from the Capitol building, only about a 2-minute walk. After the publicity photos wrapped up, I had plenty of time to text and call my mom, my niece, and my wife Tanya to let them know I was by the U.S. Capitol Building getting ready to lobby Congressional Offices for the day. I took my traditional selfie photos on lobby day in my dress suit with the U.S. Capitol Dome behind my left shoulder. It was a beautiful clear summer day in Washington, D.C, and it was muggy and humid. Too hot to wear a suit jacket outside, except to be seen with it in photos. I chose to carry my jacket on my arm so I would not sweat as much before my Congressional lobby meetings.

The CCL Lobby Meeting with Staff of U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley

After chatting with various CCL friends in front of the Capitol Building, I started walking to make it in plenty of time to my 10 am Senate lobby meeting. I entered the Russell Senate Building, located across the street from the north side of the Capitol. The bad news is that it takes a couple of minutes to go through an airport like metal detector screening to enter inside any Congressional Building. All metal must be out of one’s pockets, such as keys, business card cases, wallet with coins, etc. The good news is that all the Senate Office Buildings on the Senate side connect with each other and the House Office Building on the House side all connect with below ground tunnels. The tunnels are open for anyone to use, not just members of Congress. They are very helpful shortcuts to get around the Senate and House Office Building, without going through the airport like security check points each time.

I made it to the front of Senator Jeff Merkley’s office around 9:30 am. I hate being late or last minute to any of these lobby meetings. Arriving early gave me plenty of time to relax until the rest of the CCL lobby team arrived between 9:45 to 9:50 am. We went into the Senator’s office reception area a few minutes before 10 am to announce we arrived for our 10 am scheduled lobby meeting. We were then led into a conference room to talk with Senator Merkley’s staff: Ben Schreiber, Director of Climate and Energy, and Kat Abrams, Legislative Correspondent.

CCL trains it volunteers to keep anything said by members of Congress and their staff confidential to build trust and a positive working relationship. I will say all the CCL participants were happy with the outcome of the meeting. We felt like we had a great exchange of ideas and insights from Ben and Kat. We learned a lot hearing Senator Merkley’s staff perspectives on the CCL priorities of permitting reform and the Fix Our Forests Act.

I started the meeting with an appreciation for Senator Merkley for all he has fought for to try to improve our democracy, especially the 2024 that he wrote Filibustered: How to Fix the Broken Senate and Save America. Ben and Kat were pleased that I brought a copy of the book with me.

I mentioned my dream for the past year since I read the book. I wanted to organize a public event with Senator Merkley, similar to what Portland CCL did on April 18, 2024, for Congressional candidates Maxine Dexter and Susheela Jayapal. At the April 2024 Climate Candidate Forum, Dexter and Jayapal shared their climate change thoughts and priorities if elected to Congress. With Sen. Merkley, I think I would be beneficial to discuss his filibuster book and his thoughts how we can improve American democracy, especially to pass effective climate policies.

Ben offered that I should email him after the meeting, and he would be glad to connect me with the staff in Merkley’s office who are focused on democracy issues. After the lobby meeting, Kat gave me the business cards of Merkley’s staff working on democracy policy. I followed up with reaching out to his staff about organizing such an event with the Senator. I have not heard little from his staff about such an event, but I am going to keep politely asking.

After the meeting, I asked if we could get a group photo with Ben, Kat, and the CCL volunteers. Ben and Kat readily agreed to be in the photo with us. They walked with the CCL volunteers to the hallway outside Senator Merkley’s office to be part of a group photo. Ben and Kat then chatted with us outside of Senator Merkley’s office for another 5 to 10 minutes. Ben was gracious to converse more about his energy and climate knowledge with his vast expertise serving as the Director of Climate and Energy for several years for Senator Merkley.

In my 10 years of lobbying for CCL and attending 11 CCL conferences & Capitol Hill Lobby Days, I never saw legislative staff hang out with CCL volunteers for that length of time after the official meeting to continue the conversation. If they were not called back into the office for another meeting, I had the impression that Ben and Kat would have talked with us longer, possibly even gone out for coffee with us. From his generous use of time and willingness to extend the interaction well beyond the allotted meeting time, we had the impression that Ben and Kat enjoyed meeting with our group of CCL volunteers for the July 22nd CCL Lobby Day on Capitol Hill.

A Chance Encounter with Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici from Oregon

After the meeting lobby meeting with Senator Merkley’s staff, I left the Senate Office Buildings to walk in front of the Supreme Court Building and the east side of the U.S. Capitol Building around 11:15 am to head to the U.S. House Congressional Offices for my three afternoon meetings. The next meeting I had was with my Representative Maxine Dexter and her staff at her office at the Longworth House Office Building at 1 pm. I made it through the security checkpoint around 11:25 am, with plenty of time to eat lunch and get ready for the 1 pm meeting.

A fascinating part of lobbying on Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill is you might just inadvertently interact with a member of Congress as they are passing in the hallway. In June 2024, I got to say hello and take a selfie with Congressman Jamie Raskin. In June 2023, I said hello to Senators Ted Cruz and John Kennedy in the hallway on the Senate side. They were both lost in their thoughts and had no interest to say hello to me.

After I entered Longworth, I opted to familiarize myself with the exact location of Rep. Dexter’s office so I would know exactly where to go for the 1 pm meeting. As I took the stairs up to find her office, I saw someone familiar walking down the steps with a group of staff. It was Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici, who also represents Portland Oregon in Congress. She walked right past and then immediately turned around to point at me to say, “You look familiar.”

I responded, “I am Brian Ettling from northeast Portland, Oregon. Like you, I was at Congressman Earl Blumenauer’s retirement party last December. We have both attended various events in Portland over the years. I am here today as a volunteer with Citizens’ Climate Lobby.”

She replied, “We look forward to our meeting with you later on today.”

She then continued briskly walking with her staff to reach some destination. I didn’t have time to respond that I was not assigned to this CCL lobby meeting. However, I was thrilled that Representative Bonamici seemed to somehow recognize me.

Lunch at a Congressional Office Building and waiting for the 1 pm lobby meeting

Representative Dexter’s office was just a few feet away from my friendly interaction with Rep. Bonamici. After I was satisfied I knew the location of the office, I went down to the basement cafeteria to have lunch. The Congressional Cafeterias have the best food of any school, corporate, or organizational cafeteria I have seen. You can find most kinds of food that you are craving on any day, such as pizza, Mexican food, Asian food, a sprawling salad bar, various soups, made to order sandwiches, many different types of desserts, etc.

It was around noon, so the cafeteria was packed with people. There were business and industry lobbyists, Congressional staff, citizen volunteer lobbyists from other advocacy organizations, and CCL volunteers eating at several tables throughout the cafeteria. The CCLers were easy to spot since they all wore their white circular Citizens’ Climate lobby buttons. They tended to sit together to do last minute planning for their next lobby meeting. Televisions monitors mounted on the walls close to the ceiling had CNN and Fox News Channels on with the sound off. It was a sobering reminder that decisions made here daily directly impacts the up-to-the-minute news.

Around 12:40 pm, I headed up the two flights up steps to be outside of Rep. Maxine Dexter’s office to greet my team to assemble outside the office around 12:50 pm. All of us wanted to be in front of the office at least 10 minutes before the scheduled meeting at 1 pm to converse about any last-minute details. The outer door to Rep. Dexter’s Congressional Office was open and we could see the receptionist right by the door.

I shepherded my lobby team to a side corridor away from where the office staff might hear us. Once the group gathered, I mistakenly advised them that this was scheduled to be a face-to-face meeting with Rep. Dexter. However, my experience lobbying for the last 10 years for CCL in Washington D.C. is that members of Congress always run into last minute meetings and schedule changes that prevents a direct meeting with CCL. Thus, I gave it a very low probability that she would meet with us. I tried to stress again like in the prep meeting the day before to listen carefully to the staff’s responses to our questions, especially their sticking points and objections, to make sure they feel fully heard before we respond to our cherished talking points. Everyone had a nervous excitement, especially me for this meeting to start and be successful.

CCL Lobby Meeting with my Congresswoman Maxine Dexter and her staff

Right before 1 pm, we walked inside Rep. Dexter’s Congressional Office to the reception area. We introduced ourselves from CCL and stated we had a 1 pm meeting with staff. The receptionist led us to a large circular 8-person table that we all barely fit around. We asked the Energy and Environmental Aide Gillian (Gil) Mead how much time she had scheduled with us. Gil responded, “That depends upon Congresswoman Dexter who will be joining us any moment.”

We barely started our introductions with Gil when Rep. Dexter came into the room from her closed inner office door. She explained that she just finished her quick lunch. Her scheduled happened to change that day and she was eager to join us. I later learned that House Speaker Mike Johnson shut down House for the summer before the official August recess to sideline calls for Epstein transparency.

She gave me and others that she recognized in the room hugs as she went around the table to greet everyone. I was extremely surprised and ecstatic to see Rep. Dexter. I never had a face-to-face meeting with a member of Congress in my 10 years of lobbying with CCL, let alone my member of Congress. Even more, it felt even more of an elevated high wire situation for me since I led this meeting. I want to stress that our conversations in our lobby meetings are confidential to build and maintain trust with members of Congress and their staff.

I will share this: as we talked our CCL priorities such as permitting reform and the Fix Our Forests Act, Congresswoman Dexter came across as acutely knowledgeable, detailed oriented, and with informed well stated opinions on all these subjects. I was there to learn her positions, and she gave us copious verbal information. I had a hard time taking notes because I was still stunned she joined us in this meeting. Our official notetaker could not keep up with all of Rep. Dexter’s comments.

Despite all my preparation with my lobby team to do the CCL methodology of being polite, motivational interviewing, and showing appreciation, gratitude, and respect, the meeting tone shifted. To my horror, someone on our lobby team wanted to argue with Rep. Dexter about the finer points of the Fix Our Forests Act. It felt like I was starting to watch a garden hose lose control and get everyone wet. Congresswoman Dexter responded like a pro. All her years of being a doctor practicing as a lung and critical care physician showed up here. She had an excellent bedside manner and a calming way to relate to people. She asked the spirted person to tell her more why she felt that way. Maxine truly listened to the CCL volunteer in a heartfelt way while I felt mortified that the volunteer let their emotions in the moment get a bit over the top.

I attempted to regain control of the meeting by saying, “I hope we can continue to have an ongoing conversation into the future about permitting reform and the Fix Our Forests Act.”

Rep. Dexter agreed that she would like to do that.

At the beginning of our lobby meeting, I asked Rep. Dexter how much time she had available to meet with us. She replied, “15 minutes.”

At 15 minutes, we had members of our team still asking her questions. I felt it was time to wrap up to respect her time and schedule. Congresswoman Dexter still seemed like she liked answered our questions and engaging with us. However, her staff shifted awkwardly in their chairs and made big pointing gestures at their watches to her that the meeting must end.

I interjected that we did not want to take up more of her time. I squeezed in a quick question of which Republicans she likes to work with across the aisle. She enthusiastically shared names of several GOP House members she worked with on bills. I then asked if we could get a photo with her and she was happy to oblige. We took a group photo in the hallway outside of her office.

Debriefing from the CCL Lobby Meeting with my Representative Maxine Dexter

We then said our goodbyes. I then walked the CCL team down the hallway away from the office where they could not hear our debriefing. I asked the team what they thought about the meeting. They all seemed positive about the meeting. I felt disappointed and peeved that one of our team had a testy exchange with Rep. Dexter over the Fix Our Forests Act, plus I felt we were not respectful enough of their time when they clearly wanted finish up the meeting. As delicately as I could, I suggested that we really should in the future to be cognitive when the member of Congress or staff tell us they have 15 or 30 minutes to work as a team to wrap up the meeting at their 15- or 30-minute deadline. In their excitement, they pushed back to say that Rep. Dexter and her team were still answering our questions at the 15-minute mark. I responded, “Yes, but the staff were all pointing at their watches, plus Rep. Dexter and her staff were shifting in their chairs like they needed to end our meeting.”

The group did not really see my point of view. I was able to get all of them to sign the thank you card. I filled out the rest of the card thanking Congresswoman Dexter and her staff for the meeting and sharing a quick recap of the CCL priorities in the thank you card. I then dropped off the thank you card with Rep. Dexter’s receptionist and headed to my next lobby meeting.

After I dropped of the thank you card, I saw Rep. Dexter pass by me in a hallway walking at a fast pace with her aides trying to get to the next item on her schedule. Part of me wanted to thank her again for the meeting and apologize for over eager volunteer looking to challenge her on the Fix Our Forests Act. Another part of me wanted to just hide and make sure she did not see me since our group took up more than our allotted time, plus she might not have wanted to think about our group anymore that day due to our overly passionate volunteer.

My remaining two CCL lobby meetings of the day

I had two more lobby meetings that afternoon. The next one was with Congresswoman Val Hoyle’s Congressional staff, at 3pm EDT on July 22, Longworth House Office Building. My last meeting of the day was 4 pm Cannon House Office Building, a House Congressional Office Building located next to Longworth connected by basement tunnels.

The meeting at 4 pm was scheduled to be a face-to-face meeting with Congresswoman Andrea Salinas of Oregon. I met Rep. Salinas years ago when she was a representative in the Oregon Legislature. I knocked on doors for her in May 2022 when she ran for Congress. I attended one of her fund raisers in July 2024. At the June 2023 CCL Lobby day, I spotted her in a hallway as she darted from one meeting to another. She recognized me and we briefly chatted about CCL priorities as she briskly walked. She knows me so I looked forward to this face-to-face meeting.

Neither my 3 pm nor 4 pm meetings were face-to-face with the members of Congress. Like all my previous years lobbying on Capitol Hill, the member of Congress could not make it due to scheduling conflicts with other meetings or last minute changes with committee hearings. I was not disappointed Rep. Salinas could not attend because I was still decompressing from the excitement of meeting with my Rep. Dexter earlier that afternoon.

In the last two lobby meetings, the team leader asked me to be the notetaker. This is my least favorite lobbying role. I always try not to be the notetaker if I can help it. I never felt like I could write down quickly all the information that the Congressional staff shares with us. At the same time, I am a team player. I wanted these lobby meetings to succeed. For these last two lobby meetings, we had new volunteers who did not feel comfortable taking notes. I wanted them to have an enjoyable first-time lobbying experience. I know what it involves to take good notes. We strictly needed to capture the opinions, perspectives, and advice of the members of Congress and their staff for the CCL Government Affairs Team. Again, it annoys me that I can never jot down fast enough what the Congressional staff tell us in the lobby meetings.

Both lobby meetings went smoothly and uneventful. The Congressional staff in those meetings were friendly, kind, and enthusiastic to meet with us. Like most Congressional staff I met over the years, they had great people skills. They had a reverence and joy working on Capitol Hill, especially meeting with constituents and citizen lobbyists, like the volunteers with CCL.

Normally, after the lobby meetings, I would walk two blocks from the Congressional Office Buildings to the Capitol South Metro Station. I would then take the DC Metro to the Omni Shoreham for the CCL evening reception. In all my past CCL lobby days, I looked forward to these receptions to see CCL friends one last time and eat tasty hors d’oeuvres. While eating the appetizers, munching on the cupcake desserts, and chatting with friends, we would hear speeches from a member of Congress and new CCL volunteers recounting their adventures lobbying Congressional Offices in Washington D.C. for the very first time.

This lobby day would be different. I found out the day before the Oregon CCL delegation, including me, were invited to be part of a group tour of the U.S. Capitol Building led by Congresswoman Val Hoyle of Oregon on that evening of July 22nd. Stay tuned for my next blog, part 3, to read about my recollection of the this tour.

This year, I recently received sad inquiries from friends when they found out about a trip I took in July. As soon as they hear that I briefly traveled last summer to Washington, D.C. to lobby members of Congress for climate action, they give me that melancholy look like all is lost. They then proceed to ask me: ‘What was it like to lobby in Washington, D.C. in July?’

I share my friends’ concern that President Donald Trump halted all federal actions on climate change this year with his executive actions, budget cuts, and attempting to a stop major clean energy projects. Just recently, Trump called climate change a ‘con job’ at his speech to the United Nations on September 25th. However, I will not let Donald Trump stop me from lobbying to tackle the threat of climate change.

I happily responded, “I had a fantastic time lobbying in Washington, D.C. this summer.”

My friends look at me dumbfounded. I then share why it was a wonderful trip.

Over the past 10 years, I lobbied Congressional offices in Washington, D.C 11 times. I love lobbying on Capitol Hill for climate action. All those trips were fabulous experiences. I blogged about those journeys in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2023. This trip was no different.

Below is the part of my blog about my trip to Washington, D.C. July 19-23, 2023. The first part focused on my arrival in Washington, D.C, the friends I stayed with in Takoma Park, touring the National Archives and Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and checking in at the Citizens’ Climate Lobby Conference to prepare for the Congressional Lobby Day. 

Part 2 is my story lobbying on Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill on July 22, 2025.
Part 3 is my recollection of the evening guided tour of the U.S. Capitol Building led by Congresswoman Val Hoyle on July 22, 2025.    

Arriving in Washington D.C. to see the U.S. Capitol before a thunderstorm

I arrived in Washington, D.C. on late Saturday afternoon, July 11th. I took a five-hour nonstop flight on Alaska Airlines from Portland, Oregon to Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. The airport is located just south of the National Mall and the Pentagon. Thus, one can get a close bird eye’s view of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, the White House and the Capitol Dome greeting you if you are in a window seat as the plane is approaching the runway of this airport. It’s as if the iconic white monuments want to say, ‘Welcome to your Capitol City!’ as the plane descends with its the wheels out make a touchdown on the airport’s runway.

After I deboarded the plane, I headed straight for the DC Metro, the rapid transit public trains that service the Washington, D.C. Metro area. As these commuter trains approach the stations every few minutes, they seem to stretch a long distance with 6 to 8 grey to silver looking train cars. In the underground stations, the loud echo inside the cavernous waiting platforms makes it seems like the trains are roaring like a lion as they meet up with the hordes of local commuters and visiting tourists depending on this public transportation.

When I visit Washington D.C, I stay with friends in Takoma Park, Maryland, which borders upper northeast section of Washington, D.C. On my way to visit them, I always take a temporary diversion to get off at the Union Station Metro stop. I then walk 4 blocks to the U.S. Capitol Building to take a selfie of myself with the white gleaming U.S. Capitol Dome behind me. Immediately after that, I texted my wife and close family members, as well as letting the whole world on social media, that I am excited to be in Washington, D.C. to lobby for climate action.

When I stood near the Capitol Building on July 19th this year, a few lightning bolts landed in the area. It delighted me to be in Washington, D.C. However, the sky was in a different mood as an energic summer thunderstorm would be unleashed any minute. After I took my selfie and texted family that I was standing next the U.S. Capitol Building, I quickly scurried back to the Union Station Metro stop to try to beat the impending downpour of rain.

I made it to the Takoma Park Metro stop where my friends Tom and Reena offered to pick me up in their car. As soon as I departed from the train, it rained hard with a voracity I had not seen in a long time. I texted Tom and Reena 10 minutes before I arrived at the station so they could pull up to the Metro parking lot just as I was getting off the train. When I walked towards the parking lot, they were not there. I had to wait in the access tunnel at the Metro stop because it rained so hard. I texted Tom again. I messaged him on Facebook. I called their landline phone. 20 minutes later with the continual hard rain still coming down, I saw no sign of their car. I dialed the landline again. Tom picked up the phone. He felt embarrassed he had not heard my calls and texts. He quickly scrambled to get to his car and pick me up at the train station.

Staying with my friends Tom and Reena in Takoma Park, Maryland

Traveling to Washington, D.C. to lobby for climate action is expensive, especially flying from the West Coast. Even more, the hotels in the city command a hefty price. I was fortunate that a friend gave me his airline points on Alaska Airlines to fly to Washington, D.C. In the spring, I contacted my friends Tom and Reena to see if I could stay with them. If they were not available for me to stay with them, I would not have been able to afford to travel to Washington, D.C. Fortunately, they responded in the spring that they would be happy for me to stay with them.

Over the years, Tom and Reena became my once-a-year Washington D.C. family. I lost track how many times stayed in their home. I cherish my conversations with them about U.S. politics, Middle East peace (they have advocated on that issue for decades), their involvement with Braver Angels, talking about our families and mutual friends, our travels, the latest news on Washington D.C, and their friendly sweet but food aggressive cat Botang. The time I spend with Tom and Reena in their home is so fulfilling that I stay up too late chatting with them. I burn the candles at both ends because I wake up early for the all-day climate lobbying conference and then the next intense day of lobbying Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill. I joke I should either come to Washington D.C. to just lobby and stay at a convenient hotel or visit Tom and Reena. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to take separate trips.

This time, they offered me to stay in their remodeled studio room above their garage, a separate building from their house. This room looked like a brand new and expensive Air B&B with a sofa that expanded into a bed, bathroom with a shower, kitchen, and kitchen table. The catch was that I had to collapse the bed back to a sofa each day and put all my luggage in the closet. Reena is a licensed couples and family therapist who sees clients during the week in the place where I stayed. Thus, she needed it to look like her professional office and a comfortable place for her clients to attend their therapy sessions. I even teased Reena that it made me seem like she was hosting a fugitive. We both laughed. Our joke was if the police came their door looking for me because of my political lobbying and activism, she could claim that I wasn’t staying there and that she had ‘never heard of me.’

I woke up on that Sunday morning relaxed and refreshed in that room. I went to their nearby co-op to buy food for my breakfasts for my entire stay. I stopped by their house around 11 am to inform them that I planned to spend time in the Washington Mall. I would then pick up my registration materials for the climate lobbying conference when they opened after 3 pm that day. It was a sunny summer day in the Washington D.C. area. It surprised Tom and Reena that I started the day so late to sightsee on the Washington Mall. I almost responded I was sluggish to start my day because I felt so at home in their guest quarters.

Exploring the National Archives on my first full day in Washington D.C.

I walked from their home to the DC Metro through their community of Takoma Park. The city of Takoma Park is a middle-class professional suburb of Washington D.C. With Norman Rockwell style brick homes and colonial style houses, it looks like the place you would want to raise a family and escape from the hustle and bustle of urban Washington D.C. It has a quiet feel. Yet, there are trendy boutiques, cafes, and restaurants in the fifteen-minute walk from Tom and Reena’s home to the DC Metro. It had a neighborly feel like fictional Mayberry, North Carolina from the Andy Griffith Show. I wanted to say hello to everyone I encountered, and they were happy to respond. Takoma Park is famous for its far-left progressive vibe. As a result, it prides itself on the nicknames of “Berkeley of the East” and “The People’s Republic of Takoma Park.”

Tom and Reena moved to Takoma Park after the 2020 COVID pandemic diminished. This was my third time staying with them there. Walking and spending time in Takoma Park was a highlight of my recent trips to Washington, D.C.

Like all my other visits to Washington, D.C, I had time to explore the national monuments of the Washington Mall during the day before the climate lobbying conference. I usually walked by the White House, Washington Monument, Vietnam Memorial, and the Lincoln Memorial. However, this year it felt too hot and humid to go for a long walk outside. To beat the heat, I decided do something different to go inside at the National Archives to see the original copies of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Afterwards, I intended to see the modern cultural exhibits at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

With the threat to our democracy from the autocratic breakthrough of Donald Trump, I was curious to see America’s founding documents to reflect upon how our country will prevail in these dangerous times. Even more, I came to Washington, D.C. to lobby my members of Congress to petition them to act. The American precedent to petition our leaders started with the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. Like the other federal buildings on the Washington Mall, the National Archives looked like an imposing Roman or Greek grey stone temple with towering columns to hold up the building’s exterior. To get one in the mindset to go inside the National Archives, a sitting Roman statue, known as the Guardianship statue, was next to the front steps with the words etched in the stone, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Once inside the National Archives, I walked around the Exhibit of the Record of Rights. The exhibit had great quotes from Chief Joseph, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and others on the significance of freedom and equality. In the center of the entrance to the exhibit was one of the four original copies of the 1297 Magna Carta, the first document of its kind to state that the king is not above the law and every man is entitled to a fair trial. The Magna Carta is considered as one of the most important legal documents in the history of democracy. In addition, it was a guiding source for the U.S. founding fathers for drafting the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

I next went to the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom which held the U.S. founding documents. The mammoth gates were open in the front of the room. I assumed they closed to protect the documents from thieves when the National Archives are closed in the evenings and weekends. The left side of this area had a huge mural painting of the founding fathers gathered around Thomas Jefferson holding the Declaration of Independence, known as the Declaration Mural. The right side had enormous mural painting of the founding fathers standing around holding copies of the U.S. Constitution with George Washington in the center, known as the Constitution Mural. Underneath the Declaration Mural, written displays explained and showcased the documents that lead to the Declaration of Independence. The center of the room under three large temperature-controlled cases displayed the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, known collectively as the Charters of Freedom.

A steady stream of people lined up under the Declaration Mural to see the Charter documents. I got in line to see them for myself up close. Because it was a steady line of individuals to look at the documents, I could not linger long admiring and studying them up close. I did not want to cause a delay for the onlookers. Looking at the originals up close, it was a bit disappointed to see how faded they were. On the other hand, the original Declaration of Independence document will 250 years old next year on July 4, 2026. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are 14 years younger than the Declaration of Independence. Those documents now live more in our hearts, norms, and precedents than on the disappearing ink of this national treasure.

I was happy to see the big crowds at the National Archives. It gave me hope our American democratic experiment might continue past the threat of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement looking to trample over it. Granted this was a Sunday afternoon in the middle of summer vacation season. Yet, it felt like many people, including the international visitors at the National Archives, still cared about these documents and the democratic values they represent.

Seeing the Smithsonian National Museum of American History

I then went to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. I made a beeline to the Entertainment Nation Exhibit to see modern cultural icons, such as Archie bunker’s chair, Dorothy’s (Judy Garland) ruby slippers from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, and puppets from The Muppet Show. I felt elated seeing all those cultural touch zones. Then I was enthralled to see so much more. I took many photos admiring so many other spectacular items, such as the R2-D2 and C-3PO costumes from Return of the Jedi, Prince’s guitar, the costume worn by Lin-Manuel Miranda as Alexander Hamilton in Hamilton: An American Musical on Broadway, 1992 U.S. Olympic gold medal figure skating champion Kristi Yamaguchi’s ice skates, the sign post from “M*A*S*H”, and the jacket, hat, and bull whip worn by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, a bandana from country music artist Will Nelson, etc.

As I left the Smithsonian, I chatted with a tourist traveling with his family from the state of Washington. He recommended that I travel to the top of the Old Post Office Building, which is just a couple of blocks from the Smithsonian, to get a bird’s eye of view of Washington D.C. It took some time to wait in line to take the two different elevators to the observation deck. The view was a pleasant view of the city. However, it was windy at the top, which made the experience feel queasier with the heights. Plus, the view from the top of the Washington Monument is much higher and gives the best aerial view of the capital city.

Attending Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Conference to prepare for lobbying

As with my previous ten visits to Washington D.C, I was there to attend a Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Conference and lobby Day on Capitol Hill. CCL prides itself as a nonpartisan, grassroots advocacy climate change organization focused on national policies to address climate change. They like to enable individual breakthroughs in the exercise of personal and political power, such as lobbying Congress, on specific effective climate policies. This year, CCL wanted us to lobby Congress to support clean energy permitting reform and the Fix Our Forests Act to reduce wildfire risk, improve forest health, and protect local communities.

Before we lobbied on Capitol Hill on Tuesday July 22nd, CCL had an all-day conference on Monday, July 21st to learn more about the specific lobby asks for permitting reform and the Fix Our Forest Act. Even more, CCL had various trainings to help us be more skilled citizen lobbyists. When meeting with Congressional staff, CCL wants us to establish a likable rapport, listen intently to find common ground, while we confidently ask members of Congress to prioritize our climate policies. Over 800 CCL volunteers from nearly every U.S. state came to this conference to lobby over 400 Congressional Offices.

Since this was my 11th CCL Conference and Lobby Day, I made numerous friends with CCL from across the United States that enjoy reconnecting with at these conferences and lobby days. Friends from New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Minnesota, California, Maryland, Alaska, Hawaii, Virginia, Missouri, and so many places. I made time to socialize with these friends at the hotel bar and restaurant meals in the limited free time.

The conference was held at the majestic Omni Shoreham, an upscale hotel located in northwestern Washington, D.C. Numerous plaques commemorate the history of this landmark hotel. It hosted numerous Presidential Inauguration Balls from President Franklin D. Roosvelt 1933 to President Bill Clinton playing the saxophone during his Inauguration Ball held there in 1993. President Harry Truman came there to play all night poker games while he was President. The Beatles stayed there in 1964 while they were in Washington D.C. to perform one of their first American concerts. The gravitas and the regal history of the hotel lend well to responsibility of lobbying Congressional offices to lobby for climate action at the U.S. Capitol the next day.

During the lunch, dinner, and evening breaks at the conference, CCL encouraged us to meet with our lobby teams to prepare for our scheduled Congressional lobby meetings happening the next day. At these prep meetings, we brainstormed on an action the member of Congress took that we would share our thanks and strategize on how to ask them to support the CCL priorities. We then assigned various meeting roles such as appreciator, notetaker, timekeeper, deliverer of the CCL leave behind document, asker of the primary and secondary CCL priorities, photographer, organizer for the thank you card, and follow up after the meeting to the requests and questions of the Congressional staff or member of Congress. These prep meetings were typically lively assuring a new person that their lobby experience will go well, others who have strong opinions how the Congressional Office will respond to the asks, and jockeying to consider who is best suited for each meeting role.

Before the conference, CCL assigned me to participate in four lobby meetings. They were all for Oregon members of Congress: Senator Jeff Merkley, Rep. Maxine Dexter, Rep. Andrea Salinas, and Rep. Val Hoyle. The meeting schedule indicated these would be staff meetings without Senator Jeff Merkley, Representatives Maxine Dexter, and Representative Val Hoyle there. It noted that the meeting with Andrea Salinas would be face-to-face with some of her staff present. It is encouraging when we see that the member of Congress might be joining us. However, in my 10 previous lobby days on Capitol Hill meeting with numerous Congressional Offices, I never saw a member of Congress show up to a CCL lobby meeting because changes in their committee schedule or other meetings forced them to attend those commitments instead.

I was the designated leader for the Congresswoman Maxine Dexter meeting. Because conflicts with other lobby prep meetings and another event, only two of my lobby team was able to join me for dinner to prepare for our meeting. I knew we had some very long-winded talkers in my lobby group who were very passionate about permitting reform and the Fix Our Forests Act. I advised the two people present that we wanted to balance listening to the concerns and objections of the Congressional Office to our asks to make sure they feel completely heard while we advocated for our CCL climate priorities. These two individuals talked a lot during our prep meeting. I worried they did not fully comprehend my advice. In addition, I shared my observation from 10 years of lobbying with CCL on Capitol Hill that there would be a slim chance that Rep. Dexter would join us since members of Congress frequently have schedule changes that force them to skip the CCL lobby meetings. I cautioned to not expect Rep. Dexter to join us but be pleasantly surprised if she does.

After this lobby prep meeting and the others I had that evening, I went back to Tom and Reena’s house in Takoma Park to visit with them and try to get some sleep before the big CCL Congressional lobby day on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, July 22nd.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this blog: san account of my experience lobbying on Congressional Offices on Capitol Hill on July 22, 2025.
Then Part 3 is my recollection of the evening guided tour of the U.S. Capitol Building led by Congresswoman Val Hoyle on July 22, 2025.

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
– Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020)

Most people, including me, are bad at persuading others to support your cause. We mistakenly think that if we just give someone the facts, we will sway them to agree with our point of view.

For years, I loved the quote by British climate communicator George Marshall: “Science is not what persuades people. It’s the stories they hear from the people they trust.”

Before I share my 5 steps, allow me to share a recent story where I was somewhat successful persuading someone on the spot. Yet, I feel like I failed. Then I will recount my frustration of attending recent Congressional town halls in Oregon with disruptive audience members not allowing my member of Congress and other attendees to speak. I don’t feel like these hecklers are effectively winning, influencing people, and inspiring others to join their cause. Their disorderly tactics motivated me to write this blog.

A Brief Conservation with a Climate Denier in Salem, Oregon

On Sunday, August 31^st, I blew an opportunity to significantly persuade someone. I drove from my home in Portland, Oregon to the State Capitol Building in Salem, Oregon to give oral testimony to the Joint Legislative Committee on Transportation. In my oral testimony, I expressed how I saw climate change working in the national park. Thus, I urged the lawmakers to pass a climate friendly transportation package that fully funds public transportation in Oregon. 

I woke up that morning to an email from Helena Birecki, the Chapter Chair of the local Climate Reality Portland OR Chapter. The email simply stated, “Transportation-interested folks. Please read and consider.” I considered myself a passionate advocate on public transportation, so this email caught my eye. Helena included an email from Cassie Wilson, Legislative Manager for 1000 Friends of Oregon. In her message, Cassie wrote, 

“There is a public hearing tomorrow (Sunday, August 31 at 12pm) on the bill, HB 3991. We understand that it is Labor Day weekend and many folks are offline or otherwise occupied – but if you are able to join us and submit written testimony or sign up to testify virtually or in-person, your efforts would be greatly appreciated.” 

I traveled to the State Capitol several times in the spring of 2025 to lobby legislators to support a legislative package that fully funded public transportation. The legislators and their staff I lobbied were receptive to fund public transit in the 2025 transportation package. However, the bill package failed to pass at the end of the session because it did not have enough Democratic support. I found it infuriating because the Democrats had a super majority (60%) of seats in both the House and Senate chambers. Yet, the bill died because they did not have enough votes to pass it before the legislative session ended on June 30, 2025. 

All the other times I traveled to Salem during the legislative session the winter and spring in 2025, I carpooled with other climate advocates. The Interstate 5 route from Portland to Salem is a grind to drive with heavy traffic during weekday rush hour. The good news: it was Sunday of Labor Day weekend, so the traffic would be light. The bad news: it was too short of a notice to arrange for a ride to Salem, so I needed to drive myself and figure out where to park.

I arrived inside the Capitol Building after 11 am, with an hour to spare before the hearing was scheduled to start. A large crowded assembled outside the hearing room of primarily conservative citizens eager to testify against any tax increases. I made a beeline for the bathroom since I had last used it two hours before the drive to Salem, finding a free parking space, and walking 10 blocks to the Capitol Building.

While I washed my hands inside the men’s restroom, a friendly thirty something young man asked me if I was there to testify for the transportation package. I affirmed that that was why I was there. He was eager to tell me that his grandfather was once the Governor of Oregon. He then shared that he felt like this special hearing and session on Transportation was illegal and not the way that legislative business should be done in Oregon. He could not wait to voice this opinion to legislators during the hearing, especially if he had a chance to give oral testimony. In addition, he was against raising taxes to fund transportation in Oregon.

He thought I would agree with him, but he was curious what I would say in my oral testimony.

I responded, “I am very worried about climate change, so I am going to testify that I think public transportation should be fully funded.”

As soon as the words “climate change,” he replied, “Can I share with you my words that I like I assure folks that they don’t have to worry about climate change?”

I was in a sour mood driving down to Salem to give oral testimony in the middle of Labor Weekend when I would have rather been hiking with my wife. Thus, I retorted, “I am anxious to draft my testimony in the few minutes before this hearing. I am not interested in getting into a debate about climate change.”

He replied, “I am not interested in debating either. Can I just share my information with you?”

In exasperation, I sighed and said, “Sure.”

He proclaimed, “People worry about climate change, but I want to put you at ease that forest fire smoke and volcanoes emit a lot more carbon dioxide (CO2) than humans.”

I countered, “That is not true. That was debunked many years ago by scientists. In fact, humans are currently emitting 100 times more CO2 than volcanoes.”

He was flabbergasted, “Really? Do you mind if I look this up using AI (artificial intelligence) to determine which one of us is correct.”

I answered, “Yes. Go for it!”

He looked up the answer on his iPhone. AI showed I was basically correct that humans emit a lot more CO2 than volcanoes. He joyfully responded, “Thank you so much! I did not know that!”

He had a big smile and reached out to shake my hand. I gladly shook hands with him. I asked him what his name was. I might have even given him one of my business cards. I wished him the best of success at the hearing and then ended the conversation. I was singularly focused drafting my oral testimony before the hearing began.

While I composed my words for my oral testimony, the Capitol security opened the doors to allow the public into the hearing room. That same fellow walked up to various legislators at the dais before the hearing officially started to shake their hands and introduce himself. He loved interacting with people even if he gave off vibes of some social awkwardness.

During the hearing and afterwards, I regretted I did not get his phone number to have an ongoing conversation with him. He was politicking and attempting to entice legislators and citizens to his conservative point of view. Yet, in my conversation with him, he had an openness to learn more information and a flexibility to adjust his opinion when it did not correspond with his ideology. I felt like a blew it that day to stay engaged with him.

To shift his thinking about climate change would probably require an ongoing sustained effort. However, I was not feeling it that Sunday. I was narrowly focused on delivering my oral testimony and immediately heading home. He probably veered back to his conservative thinking on climate change after I left, especially to stay in the good graces of his family, friends, and other conservative peers. Years ago, I read the book, How to talk to a Science Denier by Lee McIntyre. One of Lee’s tips is that it really takes a long-term effort of gaining trust and rapport with someone before you have a possibility of changing someone’s mind.

I shared this story because I had a positive discussion with that young man that day. However, I feel like I fell short because I overlooked him. I did not fully appreciate the opportunity I had in the moment to persuade him in the long term. I give this example as a situation of how folks like me who like to blog and write about persuading others don’t always get it right.

Feeling Frustrated by Gaza Protestors at local Congressional Town Halls

I decided to write this blog after my wife Tanya and I attended a town hall for our member of Congress, Rep. Maxine Dexter, on Saturday, September 6th. Rep. Dexter likes to hold these in person town halls at a nearby school gymnasium or auditorium about once a month. As a climate organizer, I love attending local Congressional and legislative town halls to bring attention to the issue of climate change.

The frustrating part of these town halls is that they are often disrupted by activists trying to stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. My wife and I as well as most of the audience members are very unhappy about how Israeli is conducting the war in Gaza. Our members of Congress, such as Rep. Dexter, Senator Jeff Merkley, and Senator Ron Wyden, all seem to disapprove of the Israeli war on Gaza. However, no words or actions never seem to be enough to the local activists attending these town halls. Instead of listening to the member of Congress speak and waiting their turn to ask a question, they shout down the elected official and don’t give the audience a chance to hear what the Senator or Congresswoman has to say on any subject.

For my wife, other audience members, and me, the activists on Gaza often come across as annoying and uncaring. They are so focused on Gaza that they don’t seem to care all about other issues constituents want addressed at the town hall such as threats to our democracy, climate change, immigration, women’s rights, healthcare, etc. They appear so singularly passionate about Gaza that they don’t realize that they might be alienating others that could potentially ally with them. They are so loud and disruptive that others attending the town hall and myself feel even less inclined to do anything to partner with them and speak out on the Gaza situation.

Personally, I want a two-state solution that honors the Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace in that region. Like New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman, I believe in “Two states for two people.” I strongly think the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are entitled to full human rights and an independent state. At the same time, I believe there should be an Israeli for the Jews living there. I detest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I think he is an autocrat destroying Israeli democracy. I applaud Last Week Tonight with John Oliver’s takedown of Netanyahu on its September 28, 2025 episode. I am very angry about the West Bank Israeli settlers and the military destroying homes and farms while attacking Palestinians in the West Bank.

My wife and I mourned deeply the Hamas attack on Israeli on October 7, 2023. There is so much pain and trauma in that region because of world events like the Holocaust, the eastern European Pogroms, the Nakba in Palestine, etc. I see that region as very complicated. I don’t have the answers. I recently read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, The Choice, where he writes a deeply critical perspective on Israeli comparing the occupation of the West Bank to apartheid and the American south under Jim Crow. I did not read anything in the book that I found myself disagreeing with what he wrote. In fact, he ends the book by admonishing American culture and media for not providing the Palestinian perspective when we hear stories about Israeli.

I want to be clear that protests, including disruptive protests, are meant to make us feel uncomfortable. In 2016, I supported NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s taking a knee protest during the playing of the U.S. national anthem before football games to protest racial injustice, police brutality, and oppression in this country. A good protest should make one angry and then have an internal reflection on why they are angry and uncomfortable. Thus, I want to be respectful of the activists trying to draw attention and action to the horrific situation happening in Gaza. I feel their pain and their need to be heard. If I was in their shoes, I would feel the same way.

On the other hand, I don’t think they are being effective by being disruptive and disrespectful at Congressional town halls. I am scared about our democracy, climate change, and immigration policies of the Trump Administration. They don’t seem to care about those issues at all. Even more, they don’t seem to care about Israelis living in Israeli when they have chants like “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” I don’t want Gazans starved and bombed out of Gaza and Palestinians pushed out of the West Bank. Nor do I want Israelis evicted from Israeli.

Days after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack, my wife Tanya and I went to a “We refuse to hate” interfaith service held at an Islamic Mosque in southwest Portland on October 23, 2023. Nearly every local religion was represented by various faith leaders, such as Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, Baptist, etc. They talked about how they wanted peace for that region and to stop the killings. We would attend another event like that in a heartbeat. However, I don’t see the activists for ending Israeli war on Gaza wanting to work for a true peace for the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Their answer seems to just be for Israeli to go away. I want a genuine peace for Israelis and Palestinians. Thus, I don’t have much patience for the disruptive protesters.

At the September 6th town hall for Representative Maxine Dexter, my wife Tanya and I made signs before the event saying, “Let Maxine speak!” During the town hall, a protester about the Gaza situation interrupted the Congresswoman and kept shouting over Rep. Dexter as she spoke. The person sitting next to us turned around to say, “I think you made your point.”

I got my sign out from under my chair and chanted “Let Maxine speak!” until the protester quieted down. Yes, citizens should come to these town halls to express the issues they want their member of Congress to prioritize. At the same time, they should not drown out others who are there to advocate for other vital issues, such as our democracy, climate change, and protecting immigrants. I don’t see how we are going to build for a lasting Middle East Peace and human rights for the Palestinians without a healthy American democracy and a livable planet.

This is why I want to share my 5 Steps to Persuade Someone to Support Your Cause:

1. Listen fully

On Saturday, July 13, 2024, I knocked on doors in Fairview to urge voters to support Oregon Legislator Rep. Zach Hudson in his re-election campaign. I canvassed one door where a man in his 30s answered. He identified himself as a Palestinian American very upset about the situation in Gaza. He had friends and family killed by the Israeli Army. He said that was the only issue that mattered to him in this election. He wanted to know how Rep. Zach Hudson felt about this issue before he could even consider voting for him.

His hurt over the situation in Gaza was very palatable and vivid in that moment. Thus, I made sure that I completely listened to what he said. I was fully present in the moment to make sure he felt heard, and I felt his pain. This was the only conversation in the world that mattered to me in that moment.

2. Acknowledge their perspective

I responded that he had every right to feel the way he did. I shared that if I was in his situation, I would feel the same way. I said it in a humble way where I sincerely meant it. I deeply cared about his pain at that point in time and was intent on doing something about it.

3. Agree with them

I shared that I am also outraged by the over-the-top response of Israeli to their war on Gaza. I believed that Israeli had no right to the level of bombings and killings in Gaza. It was simply indefensible. The response by Israeli made me angry, but I did not know what to do about that situation. I expressed that I was open to learn all that I could from him.

We both agreed that Hamas should never have attacked Israeli on October 7, 2023. At the same time, Israeli’s very violent response was not justified.

4. Take Action to show that you care

I immediately knew that my words were not enough. Even more, this man wanted to know that his legislator cared before he would even consider voting for him. Thus, I knew what I had to do.
I asked this man if I could call Rep. Zach Hudson to speak to him directly about his question. The man said, “Absolutely!”

I reached for my iPhone and called Zach. He answered immediately. I told Zach that I had a voter at a door that was outraged about the Israeli response in Gava. I asked Zach if he could talk to him on the phone. Zach said, “Yes! Put him on the phone!”

The voter then explained to Zach that he was a Palestinian American deeply hurt by the Israeli war on Gaza. He wanted to know Zach’s opinion on this.

Zach acknowledged that the Israeli response on Gaza was way too violent and extreme. Zach felt there should be a U.S. arms embargo on Gaza. He was not afraid to say that publicly and in the legislative resolutions about that.

The man then smiled. He looked at me. He handed back my phone and announced: “That’s all I needed to hear! He has my vote!”

5. Thank them

I thanked the voter for his time and sharing his story with me. The man thanked me for connecting me with Zach. He was very appreciative that I took his story, his family trauma, and his vote seriously.

I knocked on over 4,000 doors during in 2024 to urge voters in the metro east Portland area to vote. This was one of my most memorable experiences.

Final Thoughts

This interaction with this voter and my impromptu response taught me a lot how to Persuade People to Support Your Cause:

This interaction with this voter and my impromptu response taught me a lot how to Persuade People to Support Your Cause:

1. Listen Fully
2. Acknowledge their perspective
3. Agree with them
4. Take action to show you care
5. Thank them

I can’t guarantee that these 5 steps will work in every situation, but they worked in the story that I just shared.

On the other hand, I will share what doesn’t work to persuade someone to support your cause or views:

• Shaming
• Yelling
• Lecturing
• Mocking
• Sarcasm
• Talking down to someone in a condescending tone
• Rolling your eyes
• Sighing
• Being snarky
• Interrupting conversations, especially in a public meeting
• Shit posting online

I want to end with the podcast interview that Political Analyst Nicolle Wallace had with American documentary filmmaker Ken Burns on the September 1, 2025 episode of her podcast The Best People. They were talking about the best way to learn about American history while persuading people. As they concluded their interview, Ken Burns quoted the novelist Richard Powers said, “The best arguments in the world won’t change a single person’s point of view. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”

He went on to say, “When you say you can talk to anybody, what you mean is that I don’t have to say that ‘you’re wrong!’ Because when you tell someone that they are wrong, it’s over. Just as when they tell us we are wrong, it’s over.”

Whether or not you use these techniques in this blog, tips I shared in another recent blog, or advice from others, there’s some universal truths to communications. Make sure that you fully listen to someone so that they feel heard, find common ground, show that you care about them, and just maybe they will be persuaded by your point of view.

Best of success communicating with others! I hope this blog was helpful.

As an adult, I experience sheer moments of terror whenever I use a key that does not open a door, mailbox, or lock where I was told this is the correct key to unlock it. My heart starts racing. My mind goes into a panic mode like I might be in danger any moment if I don’t unlock this quickly. I start cursing. Tears are welling up in my eyes. I am on the verge of crying. I start pacing a couple feet around the lock wondering why I am in this situation. Why me? There’s no one around to assure me that things will be ok. I tell myself that I must be stupid if I cannot solve this lock with this key and quickly. I start questioning the unfairness of life itself. I overthink that anyone else in my situation would have solved this by now. Finally, I reach a state of exhaustion with my body and mind reach from this heightened state of fear. I move away hoping I can talk to someone, and they can help me solve it.

This happened to me recently when my wife and I had a key in our apartment mailbox instructing us to open a bigger adjacent mailbox to receive a package. The key instructed us to a mailbox called P2 with this key because we had a package that would not fit in our mailbox. When I inserted the key, the mailbox would not open. When I inserted the key upside down, the same result. When I tried again to put the key inside the key slot more slowly to try to catch an unlocking release, the lock would not budge. I then went into total panic mode.

My panic attack in Washington D.C. in 2011

In October 2011, my friend Judy was happy to have me stay at her home in Washington D.C. for several days. She was a good family friend of someone I had just dated and broken up with. Judy and I had only met twice while I dated Beth in 2010. We developed a good rapport in the two times I interacted with her while hanging out with Beth’s family. I shared with Judy that I heard that Washington D.C. is a terrific city, but I had not been there in over 30 years. She immediately invited me to stay with her if I ever had a chance to visit there.

When I arrived on October 3rd, the weather was balmy overcast autumn weather. Not too hot or cold, ideal for walking around to explore a city with a light jacket, if that. Judy worked for the city government of Washington D.C. Judy had a lot of pride living in the city and working for the D.C. government, with very captivating stories to share. However, she thought I might arrive home before she would from work, so she gave me an extra house key to open her side entrance door. I held tightly to the key with my other keys as I explored the city during the day to walk by the White House, the Washington Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, etc.

One afternoon, I arrived at her house before she did. I tried the key to open her side door. It didn’t work. I tried pushing in the key upside down. No luck. I tried very gently moving the key inside the lock so that the grooves would catch the lock. Nothing. After about five times of failure, anxiety happened. I started cursing, crying, yelling about life itself. The houses were only a couple of feet apart from each other. The side door was next to Judy’s neighbor’s front door. Her neighbor came out inside very worried about me from all the commotion. I pretended like I was ok, but I clearly was not. I decided to go on a long neighborhood walk until Judy came home. After an hour or two of getting more steps in the streets around her home, I went back to the house to be relieved to see that Judy was there.

Judy’s neighbor was a friend of hers and she chatted with Judy in my absence. Both were concerned about me. Her neighbor could clearly see that I was not a robber or a threat to Judy’s home when she interacted with me. Her compassion for me gave me comfort. Judy then took the time to show me how it is an old lock that must catch in a certain way for the lock to release. I then practiced with the lock while she made dinner for the both of us.

Panic attack at working at Crater Lake National Park in 2007

In 2007, I was a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park. During the summer, I led evening campfire ranger talks at the park campground amphitheater. By September, the park starts turning chilly at in the evenings. It becomes too cold to sit in the wooden benches at the amphitheater, even with blankets, to hear a 45-minute ranger program. The campground elevation was at 6,000 feet adding an extra chill to the air. Our lead ranger, David Grimes, decided in late September that I would hold my evening program on a weekend night at the Community House, located at Rim Village.

The Community House sits near the Rim Gift store and a half mile down a very long parking lot is the Crater Lake Lodge. Rim Village is nestled close to 1,000 feet above Crater Lake at a point where one can see five miles across to the north side of the lake. The view from Rim Village offers an expansive view across the almost six-mile width of the lake. One can easily see the cinder cone volcano of Wizard Island located on the west side of the lake and the tiny rock ship formation of Phantom Ship located on the east side of the lake. Rim Village can be very busy with tourists during the day admiring views of the lake.

In the evenings, after the gift store shuts down for the day after 7 pm, things get eerily quiet on the Rim except for a light whistling sound of the wind. The Crater Lake Lodge looks majestic almost a mile down the road with the window lights reflecting out the wooden structure. With the wilderness forest around the expansive lake below, the building looks like a historical ship providing a cozy place for its guests to eat dinner in the dining room, relax in the Great Hall, or just snuggle up in their rooms. Rim Village lies at over 7,100 feet above sea level. It feels like it is high up on a mountain and very isolated from the rest of civilization.

With the frigid evening temperatures in the Mazama campground located seven miles sound of the Rim, we still had public National Park Service flyers announcing the evening program at the rim. We hope that campers would make the fifteen mile drive up to the rim to see the evening program. However, we hoped to entice some of the guests from the lodge to attend this ranger talk. This program was scheduled to start at 7 pm. I always enjoyed arriving an hour before the start of my evening programs to ensure the lights, projector, projection screen, chairs, and everything was set up working well. I wanted it to be an inviting space when guests would arrive up to 30 minutes before the program started.

When I arrived before 6 pm, the key on my government set of keys that should unlock the door did not work. I looked closely on the etched number on the medal lock to make sure it matched the number on my key. They seemed to match, but no success. I tried other keys in my set of government issued keys. The lock refused to let me in. I drove my car down to Dave Grimes residence to see if he had another key that I didn’t know about. He was surprised to see me when he was sitting down to dinner. He gave me one of his master keys. I drove three miles back up to Rim Village. Again, no success.

I tried every key again with no results. Then a couple of visitors showed up. I was reaching panic mode by this point. I looked forward to giving this ranger evening program all week in this large wooden cabin like building. The lock still would not give in to me no matter which key I used and tried turning it clockwise or counterclockwise. A kind middle aged couple showed up for my talk and I had to apologize for the situation. With the cooler autumn temperatures that evening, they were not interested in staying with me while I struggled with the lock. Another guest from the lodge showed up to see me in a losing fight with this door. My frustration was very evident at this point. It felt like life was being cruel to me for no reason.

She didn’t know what to say. She said the most convenient thing she could think of: “If you really don’t want to do the ranger program, you don’t have to do it.”

Her words crushed me and made me feel defiant at the same time. I retorted, “It’s not that I don’t want to do the program. I really want to do this program for you. It’s just that the lock won’t let me in.”

She soon left because this was not the entertaining ranger interaction that she hoped for that evening. I felt like a complete failure because there was no one working in the park to help me with the key situation that evening. The next week I learned that the park maintenance workers changed the locks on the doors. However, they never bothered to inform my supervisor Marsha, the lead interpretation ranger David Grimes, or anyone else. This situation was not my fault at all. However, my past led me to blame myself and how life seems to hate me.

My searing memory of my dad physically abusing me as a child

With the recent incident with the mailbox and other examples of how I responded when I can’t open a lock, I think I might have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) relating to my childhood. I can trace these events back to two incidents that happened when I was a child.

My parents, an older sister, and a younger sister lived in a three-bedroom home in south St. Louis County, Missouri. It was a one-story home that sat above a large basement. We had a sliding glass door in the back part of the basement that led to the back yard. It was very heavy for a kid to open when I was just 6 to 7 years old. We moved to the house from the city of St. Louis in 1973, when I was almost 5 years old. Two times when I was growing up, my dad asked me to walk through the basement to open the sliding glass door for him from the outside.

Both times that I did it the latch was stuck on the inside and would not budge. My dad went into an explosive rage. When we could finally get the door open, he kept hitting me. I felt so vulnerable. There was no place for me to hide. I was all alone. There was no one to defend me from his rage and physical abuse. For years after that, my mom did not want to believe that it happened. No one in my family wanted to believe me.

I hated my dad after that happened, and I still hate him for this to this day. Growing up, part me hoped that my mom would divorce him or that he would die. He was a terrific dad in that he provided well for our family by working two jobs over 60 hours a week. We had a good home, and we never lacked for food. My parents took us on great family vacations. They gave me everything that I asked for as a child, such as Star Wars toys, a new 10 speed bicycle, new clothes for school, etc. My dad was affectionate in his own way. Yet, my trust in him was gone after he physically abused me.

Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. once talked about on his PBS TV show, Finding Your Roots, about expression he heard from his cousins when he was growing up, “Street Angel. House Devil”

That’s what my dad was like when I was a child. He had an explosive temper occasionally. When I between the ages of 5 to 8 years old, he would threaten my sisters and I that he would “go get his belt” if we did not eat all the vegetables that were offered. I remembered flinching and briefly shaking around my dad growing up because I was so scared of him.

I know that my dad loves me deeply. He now lives in a nursing home in St. Louis. He has dealt with stage 4 bladder cancer for 12 years that robbed his ability to walk. Earlier this year he was diagnosed with dementia. He has a hard time remembering the names of my sisters now and he does not know the names of his four grandchildren anymore. My wife Tanya and I visit him twice a year in our visits to St. Louis to see our families. I write cards to him that I send in the mail regularly, and I call him once a month or so to see how he is doing.

For the last seven years, I have not known when I visited him if it would be the last time if I saw him alive. I always tried to give him a quality visit when I am in town. My mom, Tanya, and I enjoy playing the card game Hearts with him at his assisted care living facility. In April 2024, I showed him photos after Tanya, and I visited to St. Louis to see the total eclipse in southern Illinois the day before. He requested a copy of one of my solar eclipse photos, which I mailed to him two months later. My mom framed the photo, and it hangs on his wall.

One of my favorite quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is

“It is pretty difficult to like some people. Like is sentiment and it is pretty difficult to like someone bombing your home; it is pretty difficult to like someone threatening your children; it is difficult to like congressmen who spend all their time trying to defeat civil rights. But Jesus says to love them, and love is greater than like.”

This quote connects with me because I love my dad, but I struggled since my childhood to like him. The emotional and physical abuse he inflicted upon me as a child left deep scars and trauma inside me.

2018 Supreme Court Cavanaugh nomination hearings triggered my abuse wounds

In the last few days of September 2018 and the first week of October 2018, I felt shaken by the live oral testimony of Christine Blasey Ford who accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. This happened during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings to nominate Kavanaugh for majority approval by the committee and then the Senate to serve on the Supreme Court. It angered me how Kavanaugh and his Republican defenders attacked Blasey Ford’s credibility and blamed a partisan “frenzy.” He loudly proclaimed that the assault never happened. Yet, an investigative article in Slate showed “There’s an Entry on Kavanaugh’s 1982 Calendar That Supports Ford’s Story Better Than His Own.“

The media coverage of this story motivated me to post this on Facebook on October 4, 2018:

“#WhyIDidntReport #whyididntreportit
Take a good look at my picture. I was physically and verbally abused as a child by a family member. No, I was not sexually assaulted like so many women sharing their stories right now, but I can still relate. I was around 10 years old and a family member asked me to open the walkout basement door. The latch got stuck. This person started screaming at me like it was my fault. He/she then kept hitting me across my backside. This incident happened twice. To this day, I do not know what I did wrong. I have really struggled with depression over the years. I get panic attacks if I cannot figure out objects or if something gets stuck. I am very reluctant to ask for help to this day, even from my spouse, worried I will be screamed at. My family does not want to believe that this happened and it makes it very hard for me to be around them, even to this day.

Why didn’t I report it? I did not know who to turn. My family did not want believe me. I was around 10 years old. I did not know how to call the Police or Child Protective Services. The Kavanaugh incident with Christine Blasey Ford has me very triggered right now. Kavanaugh’s response at his hearing reminded me very much of my family member who abused me: arrogance, yelling, not answering the questions, Kavanaugh not thinking he did anything wrong, Kavanaugh not acknowledging reality or the hurt he may have caused, etc. I believe Christine Blasey Ford because I recognized her pain from my life.

Kavanaugh MUST NOT BE CONFIRMED TO THE SUPREME COURT. We definitely need undecided Senators to show PROFILES IN COURAGE right now to vote against his nomination. For folks living in Maine, Alaska, Arizona, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Tennessee: Please call your U.S. Senator and ask your senator to vote against Brett Kavanaugh. It’s the least you can do for victims of assault and abuse.”

I received countless supportive comments from friends from that Facebook post that provided much comfort and positive support for me. Unfortunately, the U.S. Senate confirmed Kavanaugh to the U.S. two days after this happened. To me, Kavanaugh’s emotional and bitter response, especially lashing out against Blasey Ford and the Democratic Senators who believed her, showed me that he was unqualified to serve on the Supreme Court.

Character matters in selecting our leaders and judges who set the course of American politics. Kavanaugh is one of the three Supreme Court Justices that Donald Trump elevated to the high court in his first term. Now many commentators who follow American politics and the Supreme Court closely worry that it is backing Donald Trump’s power grab to become a dictator and squelch American democracy. As part of the conservative 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh is helping Trump fulfill his autocratic ambitions to rule the U.S. like a tyrant.

Authoritarian Parenting as a contributing factor to the decline of American Democracy

In the summer of 2025, I followed Parkrose Permaculture YouTube videos showing the commentary of Angela Baker of Portland, Oregon. In two of her May 2025 videos, she talked about authoritarian parenting as a contributing factor to the decline of American Democracy.

What is authoritarian parenting? According to the Mayo Clinic Press “The 4 types of parenting styles: What style is right for you?” from May 10, 2023,

“Authoritarian parenting uses strict rules, high standards and punishment to regulate the child’s behavior. Authoritarian parents have high expectations and are not flexible on them. The children might not even know a rule is in place until they’re punished for breaking it.”

As a side note, I felt like my Dad’s behavior of physical and emotional abuse when I could not open the basement sliding was an example of “not even know a rule is in place until they’re punished for breaking it” that falls under the definition of authoritarian parenting.

In Angela Baker’s Parkrose Permaculture’s May 15, 2025 video, “The Surprising Reason People Fall for Authoritarianism,” she referred to a 2022 CBC (Canadian Broadcast Company) article by Kristin Nelson, “Who’s drawn to fascism? Postwar study of authoritarianism makes a comeback.” That pointed to a book from 1950, The Authoritarian Personality by a group of academic researchers led by Theodor Adorno.

Within the CBC article, Jonathan Weiler, professor of global studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, stated: “When these (research) questions (trying to uncover authoritarian parenting) were first being asked in 1992, there was a pretty even split among Democrats between those who answered these questions in an authoritarian direction and those who answered them in a non-authoritarian direction.”

But all of that had changed by 2020, with the rise of Donald Trump in American politics and the social upheaval of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“People who identified as Democrat were far more likely to answer these parenting questions in a non-authoritarian way and people who identified as Republican were far more likely to answer these questions in an authoritarian way.”

Angela had this conclusion in her May 15th video:

“When I say that the Republican party is now a party of fascism, they are the authoritarian party. They’re no longer the small government party. They’re the party of social control. They’re the party of the dictator, Donald Trump. That seems to play out when you look at what kinds of people identify as Republicans. People who very much align with authoritarianism, are very much susceptible to fascist propaganda, are very much susceptible to authoritarianism. This is why I say that parenting children well in 2025 is a radical act. The way that we view children’s relationship with adults and the kind of behavior we expect out of children absolutely shapes our entire world view. It all comes back to how we treat kids, what we think about children as human beings in society. (Authoritarian as well as) Evangelical parenting that has dehumanized and controlled children focused on obedience has primed this entire nation for the reality that we are living in 2025.”

In Baker’s Parkrose Permaculture May 18, 2025 video, “Can parents show us the way out of this?”, she observed,

“Once you see the connection between how we parent children and how people become pro-authoritarian, you can’t unsee that connection.”

Her emphasis on authoritarian parenting struck a nerve with me with my earliest memories of my dad. He had authoritarian parenting tendencies to “do as I say,” screaming and physically hitting, primarily with spanking, when we misbehaved. He even punished me without warning and no fault of my own when I could not get the basement sliding glass doors open. He would warn by sisters and I when we were young children that he would take off his belt to hit us or use a wooden paddle stored in a closet on us if we didn’t eat all our food at the dinner table.

My dad was a working-class man working two union jobs to provide a middle-class standard of living for my mom, two sisters, and me. He always voted Republican for President. My dad regularly listened to Rush Limbaugh starting when he gained prominence on the radio in the 1990s until Limbaugh died in 2021. My dad believed many of Limbaugh’s false conspiracies such as Iraq having weapons of mass destruction leading to the 2003 American Invasion of Iraq. My dad proudly voted for Donald Trump for President three times.

My dad’s physical abuse on me as a child left deep wounds and our differences in politics as adults caused bitter tensions. I can see now that my dad used authoritarian parenting when I was a child. The physical abuse and authoritarian parenting played a role with my lifelong struggle with depression, lack of self-esteem, an inability to make decisions, and isolating myself from the world for periods of time.

How do we overcome authoritarian parenting that harms our society and democracy?

First, we must become aware of authoritarian parenting. I never heard of it until the recent Parkrose Permaculture videos. This is probably one of the most painful blogs I wrote. If one is comfortable sharing their story, we must be more open talking about child abuse. It is very awkward and scary for me, but it is good to put names and faces to stories of child abuse. Child abuse victims cannot just be statistics.

Second, we must be honest that authoritarian parents can lead to authoritarian fascist rulers in the United States, such as Donald Trump. Research I cited above backs up this claim. We must teach children and adults how to identify people running for political office and elected leaders who are lying to us and have authoritarian traits. A top reason Donald Trump was elected President twice, in 2016 and 2024, was because too many people ignored or chose not to speak out about his authoritarian nature.

Third, if we are parents or want to be parents, we must choose to not be authoritarian parents.

I think that Angela Baker from Parkrose Permaculture said it best,

“This is why I say parenting well in 2025 America is a radical act. to treat your children with dignity and humanity and to give your children the freedom to become who they are as people, to raise them in a way where they get to hone their own good judgment, develop critical thinking skills, make their own decisions, and they are raised free of shame and coercion. That is a radical, radical thing in the United States.”

Now, I am going to do something radical. Yes, my dad physically and verbally abused me as a child. It left deep wounds that I am trying to heal from to this day. At the same time, he provided for my mom and two sisters a good home. My parents, especially my dad, paid for my college education. My parents, including my dad, took my sisters and me on fantastic vacations that led to my love of traveling and inspired me to work in the national parks. Over the last 12 years, my dad told me that he was very proud of my work as a climate organizer. We even made a YouTube video together in 2015 to promote climate change action. He tells me he loves me every time we talk on the phone or when I visit in St. Louis. Because of all the love my dad showed me, even with the trauma of abuse that still lingers in me, I am going to write him letters and call him to let him know that I love him.

Maybe this is how we can overcome authoritarian parenting and authoritarian leaders in the United States: with a strong nonviolent determination to rise above it with a courageous love.

“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and acts like a duck, it’s a duck”
– a common expression

On August 13, 2025, The Guardian published this opinion essay by author Moustafa Bayoumi, “Trump’s Washington DC takeover is straight out of a fascist playbook.”

Bayoumi starts by writing: “key chapter in the fascist playbook has always been to convince the public that it is living in such a state of mortal danger and unbridled chaos that the only chance of survival is to cede individual rights to the determined will of the Dear Leader.”

Trump clearly manufactured a crisis with sending National Guard troops to Washington D.C. and authorizing a federal takeover of the city on August 12th. He claimed he was cracking down on ‘violent crime and homelessness.’

However, according to FBI Crime Data Explorer stats, “Homicide rates in D.C. have generally declined since the 1990s.” In addition, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser responded that “Violent crime in DC is at its lowest level in 30 years.”

On August 18th, the podcast On with Kara Swisher interviewed Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works, to ask him, “Is Donald Trump a Fascist?” The podcast posted 12-minute video of this conversation “Why Trump is a fascist.” Professor Stanley thinks Donald Trump fits the fascist definition because he is “declaring emergencies (constantly),” such the federal takeover of Washington D.C, which he thinks fits the strategy of fascists.

Kara Swisher’s interview with Jason Stanley inspired me to create and post this Facebook meme on August 20th:

I received little to no reaction on my social media (Facebook, Instagram, and BlueSky) when I posted that meme. On Wednesday, August 27th, I decided I should contact a White House correspondent to see if they would answer my question: ‘When will a White House Correspondent ask Donald Trump directly: “Are you a fascist?”

Unfortunately, I did not know any White House journalists or how to contact them. I had a stroke of luck when I posted my lasted blog, “My Top 5 Tips to Restore Our Democracy,” on Bluesky on that Wednesday afternoon. Immediately after I shared it on that social media platform, I noticed this BlueSky post ‪@contrariannews.org‬, “(White House Correspondent) April Ryan wants to hear from you! Call in with your questions and comments, and she’ll read them LIVE on The Tea, Thursdays at 5pm ET. 📞 202-240-8617”‬

Within minutes, I called that number and left voice message. I thanked April for her hard work as a journalist and basically read my meme to ask: ‘Why won’t a White House Journalist ask Donald Trump: “Are you a fascist?”’

I planned to watch The Tea when it was live streamed on YouTube on Thursday, August 28th at 5 pm ET. However, I spent all day creating my own YouTube video, “My Top 5 Tips to Restore Our Democracy.” Thursday evening, I clicked on the August 28th YouTube video episode of The Tea to check with April Ryan to see if she had answered my question. I had no idea if she would respond. Maybe she would have received thousands of voice messages with more compelling questions than mine. I had a feeling though that she might answer my question on the air.

I listened to April’s interviews with president of the Chicago Teachers Union Stacy Davis Gates and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. April primarily asked them about how Trump’s federal takeover of Washington D.C. impacted our democracy. After these interviews concluded one hour into the livestream (1:00:29), April said, “Before we go, I think we have a message from someone who wants to speak. Let us hear them.”

To my delight, my entire voice message then played live. April pleased and had a big smile when I complimented her hard work as a reporter and a White House correspondent. She laughed at the audacity of my question inquiring if a reporter would ask Trump if he is a fascist.

Due to the threat of copyright infringement, I can’t post a video clip of April’s response. She took a few minutes to give a thoughtful response to my question. She replied,

“That was so kind, and I am glad you asked that question. Let me say this. A lot of the people who go into that room are journalists. But a lot of those people are also whose who are loyal to this administration. There are journalists, commentators, and opinion people. I am not allowed in there because I am being retaliated against. But, you know, the problem is if someone does ask that question, they might not get back in. And that’s what’s happening with a lot of this. We’re not hearing those hard-hitting questions anymore of (Press Secretary) Karoline Leavitt or the President on a continual basis. There’s definitively retribution. You don’t have to ask (former U.S. National Security Advisor) John Bolton (The FBI raided his home on August 22nd). It’s real.

But, do we need to ask now? For real? Or, do we see it and believe it? Because what’s the old saying: ‘If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, waddles like a duck, and tastes like a duck, it’s a duck.’

But, it is a more nuanced situation than just whether you ask it or not. If we ask it, what is it going to prove? Because you judge a person by their actions, not just what they say. So the actions may prove that. That’s where we are at now because during the first administration we were like, ‘Well, is he or isn’t he? I don’t know.’ In the second administration, I think we know. I believe we know. I am about 99% sure that we know. And with that said, we are going to overcome someday.”

I really appreciated the time and thoughtfulness that April gave my question. It was a shame that I could not have been in the same room with April to have a conversation about this. Yes, I agree with her that we already know the answer that Trump is a fascist. He gave us plenty of evidence with his actions over the past 10 years. His incitement of the January 6th insurrection when he lost a free and fair election is all the information that we need.

If I had a live chat with April, I would have acknowledged all her points as fair and logical. At the same time, I would have replied, “Why ask the President any question if we know his response?”

My understanding is that the White House Press asks the President a question to get his answer on the record on a particular topic. Even more, the White House Correspondents know that American people want answers from the President on a specific subject, such as ‘Is Donald Trump trying to hide the Jeffrey Epstein files?’

Of course, Donald Trump is going to say, ‘No, I am not hiding the Epstein files.’ The issue of Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Esptein’s sex trafficking of underage women still seems murky and unanswered. This is why we have a White House Press to hold the President of the United States accountable when he does not want to answer inconvenient questions.

Donald Trump’s actions in his second administration looks like it is checking all the boxes of the fascist warning signs, such as an “Obsession with crime and punishment.”

Indeed, Illinois Governor J.D. Pritzker, held a press event on August 25th where he spoke “very plainly” about “ringing an alarm” that “What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.” This was regarded to reports that Donald Trump had plans to deploy the military to Chicago.

To the local and national press covering this press conference, Governor Pritzker did not mince words “To the members of the press who are assembled here today, and listening across the country, I am asking for your courage to tell it like it is.

This is not a time to pretend here that there are two sides to this story. This is not a time to fall back into the reflexive crouch that I so often see, where the authoritarian creep by this administration is ignored in favor of some horse race piece on who will be helped politically by the president’s actions.”

To his fellow governors, Pritzker warned that any consideration to pull “your National Guards from their duties at home to come into my state against the wishes of its elected representatives and its people, you would be failing your constituents and your country. Cooperation and coordination between our states is vital to the fabric of our nation and it benefits us all. Any action undercutting that and violating the sacred sovereignty of our state to cater to the ego of a dictator will be responded to.”

Governor Pritzker gave a perfect example of calling out Trump directly as a dictator and speaking truth to power. This is the action that is needed for our times right now. It is ringing the alarm bell to call Donald Trump an authoritarian, a dictator, and a fascist. Furthermore, it is vital to say it right to his face, especially for a White House Correspondent. Yes, even if the White House would banish you from ever asking Donald Trump a question again.

Yes, we need to ask Donald Trump the question, “Are you a fascist?” although we already know the answer. It’s time we stop acting like this is normal times. Donald Trump and enablers will not choose to let up on their quest for total power. We must confront them, find ways to restrict them, and diminish their fascist control over our country.

As former Vice President Al Gore remarked for decades and on April 21, 2025, “We have to deal with the democracy crisis in order to solve the climate crisis.”

As I shared my story many times in my blog, I saw climate change working as a park ranger working in the national parks. I then became a climate organizer. However, we cannot solve the climate crisis if we don’t have a democracy.

The largest influencer trying to destroy our American democracy and block climate action over the last 10 years in Donald Trump. For a livable planet and nation, we must call Donald Trump what he is: a fascist. Furthermore, it’s time to put the spotlight on him to directly to ask him “Are you a fascist?”, even if we already have the answer.

“Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”
– a quote widely attributed to Theodore Roosevelt. He credits it, in his Autobiography, Chapter IX, to Squire Bill Widener of Widener’s Valley, Virginia. 

Many people, including me, wonder what we can personally do to stop the daunting wave of authoritarian fascism of the current Trump Administration. Personally, I have felt depressed about this since Donald Trump won the November 5, 2024.

Yes, I strongly believe and tried to live by this Joan Baez quote for the last 13 years:
“Action is the antidote for despair.”

Since that election, I have contacted and met with my state legislators, member of Congress, attended numerous town halls, spoke out on social media, and attended protests in Portland and Gresham, Oregon. Yet, I still feel overwhelmed and sad much of the time.

Recently, I saw a video that I sparked me back to action. Author, professor, and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich recently posted on YouTube: “Five Ways to Fight Trump’s Fascism.” I thought the video gave spot on tips. Some of them I recommended myself in previous blogs and social media posts. I will probably recommend them in the future. No perfect list exists on what you should do right now. The main thing is to step up your game and TAKE ACTION!

Robert Reich’s video inspired me to create my own list of my personal top 5 tips to restore our democracy right now. Let’s be clear: my list is not meant to be the be all, end all list. That’s ok. You may disagree with some or even all the items on my list. I look forward to your comments and responses. However, don’t just criticize me and do nothing. ACT! If you want to create your own list that is better than mine. Great! That’s what I want. If you decide to make a better list than mine, act on it, and it inspires others to act, then that’s the win-win-win situation I want. Whether you love, hate, or are indifferent to my list, just act! That’s all I want in the end.

Now that I said it, here’s my list:

1. Check on your family, friends and neighbors
2. Remember Self Care!
3. Speak Out
4. Listen to others!
5. Thank people who are organizing

My Personal Top 5 Tips to Restore Our Democracy Right Now

1. Check on your family, friends, and neighbors to see how they are doing

You don’t know the state of mind of your family, friends, and neighbors unless you knock on their doors, call them, text them, or even email them. Don’t just assume they are ok. They might be struggling with depression, anxiety, despair, loneliness, and a lack of energy to feel happy or even contribute to society right now. I love this Dale Carnegie quote:

“Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”

To be candid, I struggled since depression since I was a child. I especially felt triggered with feelings of sadness, lack of motivation, trouble focusing, and nihilism since the November 5, 2024 election. Yes, I present myself in public as jovial, enthusiastic, and hopeful in public. At home though, I often feel worried and anxious about the state of our democracy.

Yes, I attempt each day to think of others with writing letters, emails, phone calls, and texts to let family and friends know that I love them. This often masks my feelings of inadequacy, lack of self-confidence and esteem, and frustration with the world. I knocked on over 3,600 doors in the purple legislative districts in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon last summer and fall to urge voters to vote for Oregon legislative Democratic candidates. All the Oregon state level candidates I knocked on doors for won. Yet, Donald Trump still won the Presidency and Republicans won the U.S. Senate, House, and control of Congress. I felt exhausted by November 5, 2024. I don’t know what more I could have done. Yet, what I did was not enough because Donald Trump won. It still feels like a crushing blow nearly a year later.

On top of that, I feel irritated that I volunteered super hard for several climate and environmental organizations over the last 14 years, yet it never led to a full-time paying job. I blogged about this in in January 2025, “I struggle with climate despair, in a different way.” In April and May 2025, I worked again as a paid canvasser for East County Rising to knock on over 1,720 doors to try to persuade voters to vote for local school board candidates and a ballot measure to increase the bond for Mt. Hood Community College. Many of these local school board candidates won and the Mt. Hood Community College bond measure won by 131 votes out of over 42,169 votes cast, 50.16% victory.

I have traveled a lot this summer, but I have still not found a paying job with climate or democracy organizing. After 14 years of banging my head against the wall, I feel tired and burned out. I have little desire to volunteer for more climate and environmental groups when it continues to box me in as a volunteer. I went to a social meet up of an Oregon environmental group in the first week of August. I was continuously introduced as “Brian the Super Volunteer.” Damn it! I am tired of being labeled this way.

When I shared my dilemma with a friend when traveling in Washington D.C. in July, he responded, ‘Why would they want to pay you when they can work you for free?’

Great point! However, outside of getting paid to work on election campaigns, I am tired of volunteering for free. It has me unmotivated to fight for our democracy when we need citizens fighting for our democracy the most. No, I am not ok. I am more than happy to check in on you. At the same time, don’t forget to check in on me! I am feeling down right now.

2. Remember Self Care! Take care of yourself first!

We have all heard this message from flight attendants during the safety speech as the plane is leaving the gate: “In case of a sudden loss of oxygen, oxygen masks will be released overhead…Be sure to secure your own mask before assisting others.”

We all know that we must take care of ourselves before we can help others. Since January 2025, the current news has been a constant stream of terrible updates about the threat to our democracy. We were all subjected to the Steve Bannon philosophy to “flood the zone with shit.”

It feels head spinning and deflating, which is their point, if you have not figured that out yet. As I have said for the last 8 years,

It is vital that you find a way in these dark times to maintain hope. Yes, I am just as mad, outraged, and sickened as you are by current events. However, we must not become so hopeless that we are then useless. Our family, friends, neighbors, community, and nation need us right now. To save and restore our democracy, you must take care of yourself first. When it feels like the world and our nation is spinning out of control, take time to breathe and for yourself.

I can think of many ways you can do this:

• Go for a hike or a neighborhood walk. My wife and I go for walks daily and on hikes on our weekends together. Often, I leave my phone at home, so I am not distracted by current events, text alerts, and other distractions from my phone.
• Play joyful songs. Music that reminds you of fun times in your youth or as a young adult. Our home internet was not working from July 23rd to August 10th. It was 18 maddening days being disconnected to the world. I compensated for this by playing the CDs of songs of my favorite musicians such as Willie Nelson, Stevie Wonder, and Rush.
• Find an entertaining film, documentary, or TV series to watch. Last weekend, my wife and I watched a 3 and a half hour 20025 PBS American Masters documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan . I was never a Bob Dylan fan. However, I respected that nearly all the major music performers I love were influenced by Bob Dylan. Yes, the politics of the 1960s were highlighted in this film. Thus, I could not totally escape the turbulent events then and compare them to today. At the same time, the documentary gave me a new appreciation of Bob Dylan as an artist wanting to do things his way and not to be just pigeonholed as an insightful folk singer.
• Get together with friends and family to just hang out, have dinner, talk, and even play boardgames together. Sure, talk politics if it helps you or them to vent. But, don’t get trapped or mired down in the vortex of just talking politics.
  
  If you find yourselves stuck in that conversation of the terrible state of the world, ask them, “What is something that gives you hope?” Try to elevate that conversation to a more positive and hopeful place for their sanity and yours.

As many people say these days, these next four years will be a ‘marathon not a sprint.’ Yes, be active in speaking out, organizing, and protesting. At the same time, don’t let it consume you. You don’t have to attend every protest march, political event, constantly contact your elected officials, continuously post political memes on social media. Take a break now and then for your health and your loved ones’ wellbeing.

Fifteen years ago, I struggled with how I would communicate about climate change in a fun manner that could inspire folks to act. My friend Naomi Eklund and I had a conversation about this in Ashland Oregon in November 2009. She clearly saw how I struggled with this dilemma. She asked me bluntly, “What do you really want to do with your life?”

I blurted out, “Fine! If I could do anything, I would like to be the Climate Change Comedian!”

Naomi nearly fell out of her chair laughing and replied, “I want you to go home right now and grab that website domain. I did. My friend John helped me build a website months later in the spring of 2010. The website, www.cimatechangecomedian.com, is still around today.

I then made some goofy YouTube videos with my wife Tanya and my parents, Fran and LeRoy Ettling. Those videos led to an appearance on Comedy Central’s Tosh.o in August 2016. After that 2009 conversation with Naomi, I discovered a way to talk about climate change using humor that made it fun for me to advocate on that very serious and dire subject.

If you need a quick ‘pick me up’ funny video, maybe watching my Climate Change Comedian – Web Redemption – Tosh.0 video will help. Or maybe not. At least, it might get you thinking about selfcare and humor or lack of it for a few minutes to get your mind off the news. Let me know if you like it or not. If you don’t like it, the joke is on you because I still get residual checks from the show now and then. I am still, as they say, ‘laughing my way to the bank.’ Ha Ha!

3. Speak Out!

Let your family and friends know that you are very worried about our democracy. Please share your thoughts in person when you chat with people and on social media.

35 years ago, a friend gave me a keychain as a joke, “Everyone has the right to my opinion!”
I lost that keychain, but it still makes me laugh everything I think about it.

Dictators, autocrats, and tyrants count on people not speaking out against them. Don’t let them win! Speak out and speak up as often as you can.

When you speak out, it gives others the courage to do the same. Don’t underestimate this superpower!

4. Listen to others!

Be curious to hear about what others say with an open mind.

This may seem like this counterintuitive to my previous tip but strive to be a great listener. Be genuinely curious about what other people want to say.

Learn to have these sentences handy in a conversation with another person:
“Tell me more”
“I am curious: What led you to think that?”
“Let me make sure I heard you correctly. What I heard you say was…”

If a family member or friend is silent, ask them: “What are you thinking right now?”

One of my favorite unattributed quotes is,
“People don’t care how much you know—until they know how much you care.”

If you want to be a better listener, it’s something that all of us can work on to be better. In 2023, political commentator David Brooks wrote a book I recommend, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. In the book, he stresses that none of us are as good at conversations and listening as we think we are. We all have room for improvement.

In 2022 and 2024, I knocked on thousands of doors in the eastern suburbs of Portland Oregon to try to persuade local voters to support Democratic legislative candidates. When I canvassed, my phone app showed me the Democratic or even independent household names that I needed to chat with them to urge them to vote for their Democratic legislator. Now and then, the person we targeted would not answer the door. Instead, I would encounter a burly white man or older white woman who was a staunch Trump supporter. They could tell by the t-shirt I was wearing with the legislator’s campaign on it and my scruffy beard that I am a Democrat.

These Trump supporters were somewhat miffed to see me. At the same time, they wanted to directly express to me their anger with Democrats and their loyalty to Donald Trump. These were delicate conversations for me to engage. It almost felt like I was trying to diffuse a bomb. In those incidents, I would listen to them with an open heart. I attempted to ground myself in a Zen state devoid of any hostility. I did my best to hear them out. Look to understand what they said to me, even with saying annoying remarks, such as ‘people like you and all Democrats who don’t like Trump have “Trump Derangement syndrome.”

I strove for a calm presence. A big reason was that the Democratic or independent voter I wanted to chat with was probably home. Those targeted voters were probably busy, unavailable, or not interested in answering the door. I treated these MAGA folks like family, like they could be my mom or dad or aunt and uncle that I adored. I knew that if this conversation with the Trump voter became a heated argument, I would probably lose the actual targeted voter.

Often, these Trump voters would confess to me that they could not talk to their adult children and grandchildren about politics. It was too volatile to discuss in their family. I would have empathy for them and respond, “That is a shame.”

When these Trump voters saw that I was not a threat, they would start to like and have a trusting rapport with me. We would chat about the weather. They would tell me that they had a respect for me knocking on doors on a hot day. Some even offered me water. As the conversation started winding down because I had more doors I wanted to knock, I told them, “I enjoyed my conversation with you today. This will probably be one of my best conversations. In fact, I will probably have some Democratic voters later today who might agree with me on everything but will immediately slam their door in my face when they see me.”

Trump supporters then would say, “Wow! That’s awful!”

It felt like a huge success to turn a conversation from animosity to empathy. No, I didn’t change their minds about politics. However, I enabled them to think of at least one liberal Democrat as fellow human beings that they could possibly develop a friendship.

What can be better than that?

5. Thank People who organize for our democracy

“If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
– attributed to 12th century priest and mystic Meister Eckhart

When I was a canvasser knocking on doors in the eastern Portland suburbs in 2022 and 2024, it felt like very hard work, even soul crushing work at times. It was not just the extreme heat of the summer, using hats and sunscreen to not get sunburned, downpours of rain going into autumn, aggressive dogs charging at me, tripping and slipping on people’s porches, and other obstacles. The worst part was all the doors slammed in my face. Few of the people who slammed their doors in my face were Trump supporters or hardcore conservatives. Most of the folks who refused to talk to me were Democrats and progressives who felt angry simply because someone knocked at their door.

I tried to plead with some of these folks that I was not knocking at their door for the fun of it or to annoy them. I was there because I was very worried about climate change, women’s rights, protecting immigrants, Black Lives Matter, and our democracy. A few understood this message when I clearly stated it to them, but most could not see past their anger. I pleaded with some that I just wanted to hear their point of few, but they still told me to go away.

One of the hardest parts of canvassing was the lack of access to bathrooms. It is odd because every home I knocked on had a bathroom, probably even more than one. However, understandably, the people don’t know me, so why should they trust me to use their bathroom. As you are reading this, if you suddenly get the urge to use the bathroom, no problem. You walk a few steps to the bathroom and relieve yourself. Not so for canvassing. When that urge to the bathroom starts to tug at me, I had to get creative. Most of the time I could ignore until I went for a lunch break and drove to a nearby grocery store on McDonalds. Occasionally, I would find a port-a-john in the area where I canvassed, which felt like a miracle from heaven. Now and then I could find secluded woods or trees to go behind to empty my bladder.

My worst day of canvassing was Election Day, November 5, 2024. I canvassed in a middle class subdivision in southeast Portland of homes built in what looked to be in the late 1960s or 1970s. Very few folks were home. It was lightly raining with a bit of a wind. It was overcast and gloomy. The temperature was probably in the upper 40s, feeling cold and damp outside. It was a day where you would rather be inside. I was drinking water to keep myself hydrated. However, the colder temperatures meant my body did not seem to absorb the water as much as the hot summer and warm autumn days. As I knocked on doors for about an hour, I was slowly getting an urge to use the bathroom. The problem was that I was not parked near my car.

Suddenly, the need to use the bathroom became acute. I started walking briskly back to my car, but I did not make it to my car in time. My bladder could not hold it any longer and I peed in my pants. I was so angry. Months of canvassing to try to get people to vote and this happened on the last day. I went home to change clothes and I was in a very dour mood. I knocked on several more doors in a different part of Portland, but I felt like I had enough of canvassing for that election season. I sacrificed all I could for our democracy and had nothing left to give. The lack of accessible bathrooms in my months of door knocking finally caught up me.

On the other hand, a couple of times while canvassing in 2022 and 2024, the people I canvassed let me use the bathroom in their homes. When that happened it felt like one of the kindness and most generous gifts anyone ever gave me.

On the Pacific Crest Trail, the long-range backpacking hikers refer to “Trail Angels” to people who freely help them with water, food, shelter, supplies, and transportation on their journey. The few people who offered me food, water, or restrooms felt like angels from heaven to me. Their kindness was beyond words. It provided so much solace compared to the other people slamming their doors in our faces.

If you can, I encourage you to be an Angel to people organizing for political action. Yes, often times they want to engage you when you are preparing dinner, setting your baby down for a nap, getting ready to go to work, coming home from a long day of work, working at home in the middle of a crucial Zoom call, spending quality time with family, trying to knock out household chores in between a long work schedule, sleeping or napping due to an unusual work schedule, etc. No canvasser wants to disturb you when you are busy. We totally understand that you have a hectic life. We have no control over what is happening in your life when we knock on your door. At the same time, I invite you to be kind to political canvassers.

Like you, political organizers, want a better world.

Therefore, when a volunteer or campaign staff calls you or texts you, thank them for their work.
If someone asks you to sign a petition for a ballot measure for a future election, thank them for their efforts.

Please consider thanking a political canvasser, organizer, or candidate knocking on your door.

If you have time, feel like you are in a good mood, and discern that you feel safe with the political canvasser at your door, think about these suggestions to help them in their work:

A. Offer them water or snacks. I always had a water bottle sling with a liter of water with me. However, there was a few times that I ran out of water on a hot day. Or, I got thirsty if I talked a lot to voters at other doors. Thus, that bottle of water was beneficial. I ate the same food daily: sliced carrots, an apple, egg salad sandwich, and a blueberry or raspberry fig bar from Costco. Thus, it felt like a breath of fresh air when someone offered me a snack.

B. Ask if they would like ice for their water bottles on a scorching hot day. On cold days, see if they would like some coffee or hot tea. It was such a booster to get ice in my water bottles when I was canvassing during a heat wave. On a rainy day in October 2024, someone insisted that I sit on a bench on their dry porch while the rain pounded. They then ran inside to make a hot cup of coffee for me. I never drink coffee. I do not like the taste of it. However, I savored that cup of coffee on that cold day with the drenching rain.

C. If you feel safe and the canvasser looks trustworthy, invite them in to use your bathroom. Nearly all people would not feel comfortable letting a person they don’t know inside their home to use the bathroom. I totally understand that concern. I would have to think hard about letting a stranger inside to use my bathroom. But a few people offered me a chance to use their restroom in my years of canvassing. Thus, it is something to think about.

D. If you have a friendly dog or cat, ask the canvasser if they would like to meet them. Most cats are shy and leery about meeting new people. Many dogs are protective of their homes and only know to bark at strangers. On the other hand, I met some very friendly cats and dogs when I canvassed. Some animals have a deep love for people and want to meet someone new.

One African American woman in low-income housing was holding a beautiful kitten when I knocked on her door. We had a pleasant conversation, and I commented that the kitten was cute. She then asked if I would like to hold the kitten. I immediately said yes and held the kitten in my hands. This woman even took a photo of me on my iPhone with the kitten. It was such a blissful moment.

I reflected on this story yesterday with my wife and she responded and teased me, “In the photo, it looked like you were almost strangling the kitten.”

I laughed and replied, “Yes! That’s true! That’s because I had never held a kitten before and I didn’t know how to hold a kitten.”

Bottom line: Be kind to a political organizer and canvasser. They will never forget your kindness.

Again, here’s my list for My Personal Top 5 Tips to Restore Our Democracy Right Now:

1. Check on your family, friends and neighbors
2. Remember Self Care!
3. Speak Out
4. Listen to others!
5. Thank people who are organizing

As I wrote in the beginning of this blog, this is not meant to be the definitive list on this subject. I will probably come up with other totally different lists to save our democracy tomorrow and in the future. This is only meant to start a conversation. I want you to think of ways to save our democracy, even if it is totally different than my list. Then, after you come up with your list, share it with me. Put your list into action and let me know how it goes. Or, you can try implementing my list. See if it helps you to move the needle to restore our democracy.

For Climate Action, giving oral testimony to legislative committees, Part 2

This is the second part of a blog I wrote on May 2, 2023, For Climate Action, giving oral testimony to legislative committees. After I posted that blog, I gave oral testimony five additional times. In September 2023, I gave oral testimony online to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, (NHTSA) about Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. In January 2024, I gave oral testimony to the Oregon Legislative Joint Committee on Transportation. In February 2024, I gave oral testimony three times to Oregon Legislative committees.

As a climate organizer, I find it to be one of the most empowering things I can do to give oral testimonies to legislative and regulatory committees to urge them to enact strong climate policies. Thus, I want to share the text, videos, and even stories from giving these oral testimonies.

1. September 2023 Oral Testimony to NHTSA about CAFÉ standards

As a climate organizer in Portland OR, I volunteer with MCAT (Mobilizing for Climate Action Together) which is affiliated with OLCV (Oregon League of Conservation Voters). With my interest in mass transit, I joined MCAT’s Transportation Committee in January 2023.

On September 20, 2023, one of the leaders of the MCAT Transportation Committee, Rich Peppers, sent out an urgent request, ‘We’re looking for 2 or so people who’re willing to testify, remotely, in favor of national EV policy at a hearing on September 28th (next week) but with the registration deadline within two days, by this Friday, Sept. 22nd. The national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) wants testimony from around the country to demonstrate the need and urgency. If you’re willing to sign up, please let me know so I can report it back to (OLCV).’

LCV led this effort to urge OLCV to recruit a couple volunteers to testify in favor of federal clean car policy. LCV thought it was crucial that the NHTSA hear from citizens across the country, and OLCV wanted Oregon to show up strong.

The next day, I decided to volunteer to give online testimony for this hearing. I signed up to give live testimony at the NHTSA website. After I signed up, I realized I was not sure what to say. I created a rough draft of my testimony. I then approached OLCV staff to give me feedback for my draft testimony. Julia DeGraw and Britney VanCitters from OLCV graciously proofread my testimony so I felt ready to give it at the hearing on Thursday, September 28th.

While I waited much of the day to give my testimony, I kept editing down my words before I gave it on that Thursday afternoon. I did not know if I could get a recording of my oral testimony afterwards, so I took my iPhone and recorded myself as I gave it live. I then uploaded the video to YouTube so you can see it.

Here are the written remarks of my testimony: 

Thursday, September 28 Testimony to NHTSA about CAFE standards

My name is Brian Ettling, and I am here as a private citizen in Portland, Oregon. For 25 years, I worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, one of America’s most scenic treasures. Crater Lake is not close to any major cities or industrial areas, so it prides itself as having some of the cleanest air in the U.S.

Unfortunately, I saw climate change while working at Crater Lake with a diminishing annual snowpack and more intense wildfire seasons. The smoke from the wildfires was hazardous to breathe at times and forced visitors with health issues to cancel their vacations. Scientists tells us that the largest source of climate change pollution in the U.S. now is vehicle tailpipe emissions from burning gasoline and diesel. Air pollution from burning these fuels kills around 9 million people a year globally and negatively impacts the health of millions of Americans.

In 2017, I quit my Crater Lake seasonal ranger job to become a climate change organizer to reduce that threat and deadly air pollution. Sadly, I left the high air quality of Crater Lake to live by a major busy street in northeast Portland, Oregon.

Recently, I was alarmed to read a New York University study that living by a busy urban road can raise the risk of premature death by 20 percent. The American Lung Association reports that adults living closer to a busy road or highway—within 300 meters—may risk dementia. The Environmental Protection Agency’s website states that “research has demonstrated that exposure to pollutants emitted from motor vehicles can cause lung and heart problems and premature death.”

Thus, I am scared about the long-term health impacts of living next to a busy road. My wife and I frequently open our windows in spring, summer and fall to cool down our apartment, which lets in the dirty emissions from nearby vehicle traffic.

With my fears of inhaling toxic vehicle pollution, I urge NHTSA to finalize the strongest possible CAFE standards. Vehicle manufacturers have the technology to meet strong standards. Many recent analyses have shown that strong fuel economy standards will save consumers money at the pump, provide access to the most efficient versions of gas-powered vehicles, and encourage transition to more zero-emission vehicles. This is a win-win-win for healthier air and a safer climate, better health outcomes, and more money saved by consumers.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify.

I felt edgy waiting hours to give this testimony. Many people signed up nationwide to provide oral testimony. Some did not show up, which pushed up my time to testify. On the other hand, it was fun to testify in the comfort of my own home. Overall, I felt pleased to give this testimony to increase the CAFE standards to decrease harmful greenhouse gas pollution

2. January 2024 Testimony to the Joint Oregon Legislative Transportation Committee

On January 6, 2024, the Oregon Legislative Joint Committee on Transportation scheduled a public hearing in Gladstone OR, a community in the southern part of the Portland metro area. The hearing was to get public input on possible tolling, congestion pricing, and possible funding for the replacement I-5 bridge that connects Portland to Vancouver WA. The MCAT Transportation Committee supports tolling and congestion pricing to reduce vehicle emissions on Oregon’s highways, especially in the Portland area.

I decided to start 2024 on a good note by giving oral testimony at this hearing. My friend from MCAT, Catherine Thomasson planned to attend this hearing. She agreed to give me a ride so I would not have to drive my own car there. When we arrived, nearly everyone from the Gladstone area came to strongly object to any thought of the state of Oregon administering tolling or congestion pricing.

I was one of the very few people who came to testify in favor of tolling and reducing emissions from vehicle traffic. I had to wait several hours to testify at this hearing. It was well worth the wait. The audience grumbled during my oral testimony. Someone even yelled from the audience as I was giving my testimony, “Did your ride your horse here today?”

I like going against the grain if I think that society is heading in the wrong direction. I love speaking out for what I think is best, especially for climate action. Thus, it was an honor to give oral testimony that day.

Unfortunately, I was not able to get a photo of myself testifying. The Oregon Legislative committees are normally excellent capturing video recordings of their hearings. However, for whatever malfunction, the recording did not have a video during the last couple of hours of the hearing. Just the audio was recorded. Thus, you can hear what I have to say at 1:45:44 of the recording. However, you cannot see me. That was a disappointment that of no video my hearing.

Oral Testimony to Joint Committee on Transportation on January 6, 2024

My name is Brian Ettling, and I live in outer northeast Portland. For 25 years, I worked as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, one of America’s most scenic treasures. Crater Lake is not close to any major cities or industrial areas, so it prides itself as having some of the cleanest air in the U.S.

Sadly, I saw climate change at Crater Lake with a diminishing annual snowpack and more intense wildfire seasons. The smoke from the wildfires was hazardous to breathe at times and forced visitors with health issues to cancel their vacations. Scientists tell us that the largest source of climate change pollution in the U.S. and Oregon now is transportation caused by vehicle tailpipe emissions from burning gasoline and diesel. Air pollution from burning these fuels kills around 9 million people a year globally and negatively impacts the health of millions of Americans and tens of thousands of Oregonians.

In 2017, I quit my Crater Lake ranger job to become a climate change organizer to reduce that threat and deadly air pollution, the leading cause is transportation. Thus, today I urge you to design our transportation system to optimize safety, climate, maintenance, as well as reducing congestion. We should use a variety of funding sources to replace the gas tax as that decreases due to greater fuel efficiency and electrification.

Let’s shift from fuel tax to multiple other mechanisms, such as
Congestion pricing
VMT or Vehicle Miles Traveled tax graded for vehicle efficiency
Road user fees, such as local tolling projects.
EV purchase or registration fees
Vehicle weight tax
Cordon charges
Parking charges
Tire fees.

If we don’t expand highways, we have enough funds to build a better transportation system. As a state, we also need to be investing more in light rail, bus, and passenger rail transportation to assist Oregonians who can’t drive, don’t like to drive – like me, and shouldn’t be driving – like me (FYI: I drive slow so don’t drive behind me after we leave this hearing today. I tend to cause my own traffic congestion. I drive a green Honda Civic). Anyway, we need to invest, not just in roads, but in other multimodal options to reduce vehicle congestion and deadly pollution.

I love taking Tri-Met (MAX and buses) in Portland instead of driving and taking Amtrak to cities outside of Portland. If you saw my driving, you would agree we should be investing more in that and not roads. Thank you for your time!

3. February 8, 2024 Testimony to the Oregon House Committee about the COAL ACT

As a member of MCAT, I became aware of Divest Oregon in early 2022. They are “a statewide grassroots coalition of individuals and organizations representing unions with PERS (Oregon Public Employees Retirement System) members, racial and climate justice groups, youth leaders, and faith communities with the goal of calling the Oregon State Treasury to account for its funding of climate devastation rather than prudent investing in a sustainable future.”

MCAT is part of the Divest Oregon Coalition, along with the Climate Reality Portland Chapter where I am an active volunteer.

For last several years, Divest Oregon pushed hard for bills to divest Oregon’s Treasury from fossil fuel investments. During the Oregon Legislative of 2022, Divest Oregon advocated for Treasury Transparency bill (HB 4115-3). The bill mandated that the Treasury disclose all of the assets they manage. Prior to the drafting of this bill, the Oregon Treasury did not list public equity nor fixed assets investments on their website, especially if their investments involved corporations extracting, distributing, or selling of fossil fuels.

The Transparency bill passed the Oregon State House and then ran out of time to be considered by the Senate during the short 2022 Feb-March session. Even though the bill died in the Oregon Senate, Divest Oregon still felt like they scored a victory. After they filed a public records request and got a bill submitted to the legislature, the Treasury posted the investments in the two missing asset classes.

For the 2023 Oregon Legislative session, Divest Oregon lobbied for the passage of Treasury Investment and Climate Protection Act (HB 2601). After this bill was introduced in the Oregon House in January 2023, the House Speaker referred it to the House Committee Emergency Management, General Government, and Veterans. The bill had a couple of public hearings. But the bill died in the committee.

According to Divest Oregon, HB 2601 died because the Oregon State Treasury publicly opposed the transparency legislation and successfully lobbied behind the scenes to stop the bill. However, it was not just the OR Treasury, led by Treasurer Tobias Read, that objected to the bill. One of the big three public employee unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, sided with the OR Treasury and State Treasurer Read in opposing the bill.

After the defeat of the 2023 bill, Divest Oregon changed tactics to work with Treasurer Read on a bill that he could support. In the latter half of 2023 when the Oregon Legislature was not in session, Divest Oregon proposed the COAL Act (Clean Oregon Assets Legislation) for the 2024 OR Legislative session to divest the Treasury from any coal investments.

Divest Oregon organized a lobby day at the Oregon state Capitol in Salem on January 10, 2024 that I participated. The legislature was not in session, but the legislators had a workday at the Capitol with committee and lobby meetings.

This was a very productive lobby day at the Capitol for me. I was part of a lobby meeting with Representative Hoa Nguyen who agreed to sign on as a co-sponsor of the COAL Act. I then participated in a lobby meeting with my Senator Kayse Jama and his Chief of Staff Kien Truong. I thanked Senator Jama for being a Chief Sponsor of the COAL Act. I then led a lobby meeting with Abigail Kirshy, the Chief of Staff for my Representative Andrea Valderrama, to urge her to support and co-sponsor the COAL Act.

After our morning lobby meetings, Divest Oregon had all the lobby participants reassemble in a meeting room of a nearby church for lunch. The champion of the bill, Representative Khanh Pham spoke to us to thank us for our lobbying efforts that day and we got a group photo with her. This lobby day showed that the COAL Act seemed to have strong momentum and support in the legislature to pass during the month-long short session.

On February 8th, I returned to the Oregon Capitol to lobby with MCAT for their first of three Thursday lobby days. We had meetings with legislators and their staffs to urge them to prioritize climate policy and funding bills during this short legislative session. That afternoon, the House Committee on Emergency Management, General Government, and Veterans scheduled a hearing for the COAL Act (HB 4083). Since I was already present in Salem for the MCAT lobby day, I choose to attend this hearing and to testify in favor of this bill.

I was part of a carpool for this MCAT lobby day. I successfully talked everyone in this carpool to attend this afternoon hearing at 1 pm. They were enthusiastic about watching this hearing and supportive of me giving testimony. Fortunately, the MCAT lobby day was scheduled to wrap up before 1 pm, so this hearing was not in conflict with any scheduled lobby meetings.

When I arrived at the hearing for this committee, Oregon Treasurer Read and Representative Khanh Pham were the first two public officials to testify in support of this bill. Unlike the 2023 Treasury Investment and Climate Protection Act that Treasurer Read opposed, it was a positive sign that he fully supported the COAL Act. This was a great signal to legislators on this House Committee that Treasurer Read and Oregon Treasury was fully onboard this bill.

After Treasurer Read and Representative Pham gave their testimony, the committee opened up the testimony for the general public. I signed up online to testify the day before. I was surprised when the Committee Chair, Representative Dacia Grayber, called my name to testify.

I then walked up to sit at the table and speak into the microphone to give my oral testimony to the committee. The committee limited our testimony to less than two minutes. I was relieved my testimony was at one minute and 40 seconds, well below the two-minute limit.

Our carpool group soon left for the drive back to Portland soon after my testimony to try to beat the rush hour traffic. They were all complimentary of my testimony and seemed impressed with the personal story I shared.

Here is the video of my testimony and below that is the written remarks of my oral testimony.

COAL Act Testimony to the Oregon House Committee on February 8, 2024

Representative Grayber and members of the Committee:

My name is Brian Ettling and I live in NE Portland.

I am here today because of my dad, LeRoy Ettling, pictured here with my Mom.

For the past 11 years dad has struggled stage 4 bladder cancer. Because of the cancer, he lost his ability to walk and now lives in an assisted care facility.

In 2013, my Dad had a huge tumor and kidney removed. The doctors thought my Dad was a smoker since his cancer is consistent with a life-long smoker. My dad was always a non-smoker.

However, we lived for about 33 years a couple of miles from a coal fired power plant in St. Louis, Missouri that had no modern pollution controls, increasing the risk of his cancer.

Scientific research has known for decades that burning coal is a known human carcinogen that impacts the health of workers and the surrounding communities.

Burning coal is bad for our health and it is also a waste of our taxpayer dollars.

I read that the Oregon Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and the Oregon Treasury Short Term Fund have between $700M and $1B invested in coal over the past 3 years in publicly traded funds.

To be blunt, Coal is an investment loser. According to Divest Oregon, PERS coal investments underperformed by $340 million dollars, compared to if the state had alternatively been invested in the S&P fossil fuel free index fund instead.

I ask you to pass the COAL Act bill for my Dad, all of our families and our kids.

Thank you!

4. February 13, 2024 Testimony to Joint Transportation Committee about WES Study Bill

A few days later, I learned the Joint Transportation Committee scheduled a hearing on the WES Study Bill (SB 1572). I strongly supported this bill for the OR Legislature to require the Department of Transportation, in partnership with the Westside Express Advisory Committee, to study extending the Westside Express Service (WES) commuter line from Wilsonville to Salem.

The WES Commuter Train currently runs from Beaverton, a western Portland metro community, to Wilsonville, a community just south of the Portland metro area. I lobbied in Salem many times. In addition, I drove from Portland to Salem on other occasions to give climate presentations in Oregon or pass through Salem with my wife to sightsee and visit friends in other parts of the state. Driving from Portland to Salem or the other direction during the intense rush hour traffic I found to be very frustrating. My wife works near our apartment in outer northeast Portland. Yet, she has co-workers who commute from Salem each day.

For years, I believed that Oregon must have more commuter train service from Portland to Salem to reduce the heavy traffic on this route. Thus, I fully supported of this WES study bill to investigate the feasibility of extending the WES commuter train to Salem. I followed this bill closely from when I first heard about it in the last week of January 2024. After receiving an MCAT Transportation Committee action alert about this bill, I called and emailed the Chairs and Vice Chairs of this committee to ask them to schedule a hearing on this bill in one of their first committee meetings during the February legislative session.

In the first week of February, I then received a notice from Oregon Legislative Informative System that the Joint Transportation Committee scheduled a hearing on the WES Study Bill on Tuesday, February 13th. I was not planning on traveling to Salem to attend this hearing in person. I had no interest in fighting the traffic, the wear and tear on my vehicle, the cost of gas to drive there, and time expense of several hours to go in person to be at this hearing in person. I was excited I could sign up for to give online oral testimony in the comfort of my own home.

Here is the video my online oral testimony for the WES study bill. Below that is the written testimony I read for my oral testimony.

February 13, 2024 Testimony for WES Study Bill to Joint Transportation Committee

Members of the Committee.

My name is Brian Ettling. I live in northeast Portland.

I am here to represent MCAT (Mobilizing for Climate Action Together) Transportation Committee. We stand with 1000 Friends of Oregon, Climate Solutions, No More Freeways, and the Environmental Center to strongly support SB 1572, which establishes a task force to study the feasibility of extending the Westside Express Service (WES) commuter rail to Salem, incorporating additional local stops. This initiative is crucial to creating a more connected, efficient, and sustainable transportation system in Oregon.

We urge you to pass SB 1572 because investing in an expanding commuter rail services and infrastructure:

• Advances Oregon’s Vision for a Truly Multimodal Transportation System.

• Creates options other than driving that will help ease the frustrating congestion that many of you face regularly on your commute to and from Salem.

• Can significantly reduce traffic-related accidents, injuries, and fatalities on our roads by encouraging less driving, which is linked with higher levels of safety for all transportation users.

• Offers an effective alternative to car usage, potentially lowering harmful vehicle pollution and improving Oregonians’ air quality, thereby contributing to a healthier planet. Expanding rail access is critical to meeting our climate goals.

• Is a cost-effective approach to transportation. It presents long-term savings on road maintenance, eases the need for road expansions.

• Provides greater access to jobs, education, and healthcare, especially for individuals without a car. One in four of Oregonians can’t drive due to age, disability, or cost.

The proposed expansion of WES will stimulate economic growth, encourage transit-oriented development.

Again, please pass SB 1572.

Thank you for your time.

5. February 22, 2024 Testimony to the Oregon Senate Committee about the COAL Act

One week later, on Thursday, February 22nd, MCAT held another lobby day at the Capitol to meet with legislators and staff to urge them to pass climate policy and funding bills during the last two weeks of this legislative session.

By this point, the COAL Act had successfully passed out of the House Committee on Emergency Management, General Government, and Veterans. On Monday, February 19th, the Oregon House voted to pass the COAL Act on a party line vote of 33 to 24. This bill then moved to the Oregon Senate where it was assigned to the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment. This Senate Committee scheduled a hearing for the COAL Act on February 22nd at 1 pm.

Ironically, I planned to be at the Capitol for this MCAT Lobby Day on February 22nd. Like the February 8th lobby day, MCAT planned to have all the lobby meetings finished before 1 pm. Therefore, I decided to sign up to give oral testimony for the COAL for this Senate Committee. Like the lobby day on February 8th, I succeeded in persuading the carpool group that I commuted with to Salem to stay longer so I could give oral testimony.

Before I entered the Committee room to testify, Doyle Canning enthusiastically said hello me. She was the Legislative Director for Rep. Khanh Pham, the Chief Sponsor for the COAL Act. Doyle remarked she liked the testimony I gave about the COAL two weeks ago. She wondered if I signed up to give testimony at the committee hearing starting in a few minutes. I assured her that I planned to testify. She said my previous testimony would be great if I gave it again. I appreciated her compliment, and then I informed her that I prepared new testimony for this hearing. She was delighted I was testifying, and she looked forward to my testimony. She commented, ‘Whatever you say in your testimony, if it is like the previous time, I know it will be good.’

I appreciated her kind words because I love giving oral testimony on climate bills, but I still get nervous hoping I prepared well. It did not take long for my name to be called to testify. Not as many members of the general public looked to give testimony as when the hearing was held in the Oregon House Committee two weeks prior.

Like my oral testimony in the Oregon House for the COAL Act previously, I thought it went well. I was thrilled I spoke around one minute and 40 seconds. This was well below the two-minute limit the Committee Chair set for oral testimony. It was about the same amount of time as my COAL Act oral testimony to the House Committee two weeks before.

Here is a video of my oral testimony with my written remarks below the video:

February 22, 2024 COAL Act Testimony to OR Senate Energy and Environment Committee

Senator Sollman and members of the Committee:

My name is Brian Ettling and I live in NE Portland.

I was a seasonal park ranger for 25 years from 1992 to 2017 at Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.

I loved my park ranger job but, sadly, I saw climate change while working there, I observed a diminishing annual snowpack and a more intense fire season with more smoke in the summertime. I became so worried about climate change that I spent my winters in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri organizing for climate action as far back as 2010.

On December 11, 2012, I noticed this headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Poor, Black and Breathless: Asthma Strikes Many Here.” The front-page article stated 1 in 5 children, primarily children of color, struggle with chronic lung diseases, such as asthma, in the St. Louis area. That was twice the national average of U.S. children with asthma.

How do children get asthma? Primarily from dirty air pollution. Around that same time, I learned that St. Louis burned twice as much coal, over 80%, than the national average.

Scientists estimate the air pollution from burning coal, oil, and natural gas kills around 9 million people globally a year, including in Oregon. Burning coal also disproportionally impacts the health of seniors, children and communities of color, such as Xavier Miles, who was 8 years old when this photo was taken.

Burning coal is an investment loser for Oregon’s Treasury, it’s like investing in arsenic.

I ask you to pass the COAL Act bill to divest in coal investments for our families and our kids.

Thank you!

On March 7, 2024, The Oregon Legislative session ended with mixed results for me in my efforts giving oral testimony to legislative committees. The bad news is that the WES study bill died in the Joint Ways and Means Committee after successfully pass out of the Joint Committee on Transportation. I am still not sure why this bill did not pass.

In the local legislative town halls that happened since the end of the 2024 Legislative session, I attended these town halls to ask the Portland area legislators why the WES study bill did not pass and urged them to reconsider the WES study bill in the 2025 Legislative session. The legislators looked genuinely stumped when I questioned them why the WES study bill did not pass. Some of them did not seem to know about the bill. Other legislators thought it would probably be re-introduced as part of the massive 2025 transportation package for Oregon. Either way, I plan on being a squeaky wheel and steady advocate to make sure that the WES study bill will be seriously considered by the Oregon Legislature in 2025.

The good news is that the COAL Act passed the Oregon Legislature and was signed into law by Governor Tina Kotek on April 4, 2024. As a climate organizer, it was a thrill for me to be part of an effective campaign to reduce investments and dependence on the dirtiest of fossil fuels, coals, that contributes ton climate change.

Final Thoughts

Along with lobbying U.S. Congressional and Canadian Parliamentary Offices, talking directly with my members of Congress and Oregon legislators, planning three large climate events, giving climate change talks in 12 U.S. states, completing climate change speaking tours across Oregon and Missouri, writing climate change opinion editorials published in newspapers, and participating in climate change radio and podcast interviews, I feel like giving oral testimony to Oregon Legislative committees to support climate bills is one of the most empowering climate actions I have done. It is intimidating to give oral testimony to legislators. I spend a lot of time writing my testimony in advance. I then frequently practice it with a timer so I can speak it under the allotted two minutes. This means I keep editing my testimony down to keep it under two minutes.

I am always relieved when my testimony is over. To be honest, it is nerve racking to give oral testimony. When preparing, I strive to share a compelling story, with solid supporting facts, and a sticky message to persuade legislators to support specific climate bills. This might be a stressful experience for some climate advocates that they may choose to forgo. However, I am grateful for the times I gave oral testimony over the last six years. I think it is satisfying.

Stay tuned! I will give more oral testimony to legislators during the 2025 legislative session. Thus, at some point, I will write a part 3 blog to giving oral testimony to legislative committees.

“Don’t hold your breath at seeing Denali. It’s probably not going to happen. Professional photographers wait days, if not weeks, to get that perfect picture of the mountain that you see on postcards.”

This was the friendly advice of local Alaskans when my parents, younger sister and I traveled to Alaska during a three week vacation in July 1988. When we started our trip in Fairbanks, we struck up conversations with local Alaskans while we visited for a couple of days. Our family is outgoing and gregarious. We loved chatting with strangers when we were on vacation. In turn, the resident Alaskans were curious about our family. They inquired where we were from in the lower 48 states and what we hoped to see in Alaska.

For anyone conversing with us, my parents shared the full trip itinerary that they had a Lutheran Marriage Encounter Convention to go to in Anchorage. Thus, they hired a travel agent to assemble this trip to fly to Fairbanks, take the Alaskan Railroad south, stopping in Denali National Park for a couple of days, then reaching our destination of Anchorage to stay with friends and attend the convention. With the locals, I got straight to the point. I hoped to see Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park or on the train ride down to Fairbanks. They rolled their eyes because most visitors they encountered really wanted to see the mountain. Their typical response:

‘Good luck! The mountain is typically shrouded behind clouds. People living in areas with views of it can go for weeks without seeing it. Don’t get your hopes up high. Most visitors don’t get to see it, except for the images they take home on the postcards they buy.’

I sensed an ingrained skepticism with Alaskan residents thinking that tourists like me would not have a visible view of the mountain, nor should we expect to see a view just because we traveled far to see Alaska. My stomach churned as they cautioned me that my odds were low in seeing the mountain. I appreciated their honest sincerity, but I hoped they were wrong.

The Prominence of Denali or Mt. McKinley?

Denali is on my mind these days because President Donald Trump. When he became President on January 20, 2025, Trump proclaimed in his Inaugural speech that the name of mountain Denali would be changed back to Mt. McKinley. He did this in response to President Barak Obama endorsing his Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to change the name from Mt. McKinley to Denali in 2015. Denali means “the high one” or “The great one” by the Native Alaskan people known as the Koyukon Athabascans. Ironically, President William McKinley never saw it when it was named after him in 1896. He had no significant historical connection to the mountain or to Alaska. I doubt Donald Trump has ever seen the mountain. If he did, he would understand why most Alaskans call it Denali. I saw it. It made a huge impression on my life.

Prompted by the passage of a resolution by the Alaskan Legislature in 1975, Governor Jay S. Hammond formally requested the Secretary of the Interior direct the U.S. Board of Geographic Names to change the name to Denali. For many decades, Denali was still the common name used in the state and was traditional among Alaska Native peoples. Thus, I will use the name Denali to refer to the mountain for the rest of this writing, in deference to the people of Alaska.

Denali deserves respect for its massive size. According to Alaska.org, “From its base to its summit, Denali rises about 18,000 feet, about one third more total height than the same measurement for the world’s tallest peak, Mount Everest. That makes Denali the tallest mountain in the world—measured from base to peak—that’s wholly above sea level.”

Talking my parents and younger sister into visiting Alaska

Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri in the 1970s and 1980s, I dreamed of seeing the snowcapped mountains in the western United States. Missouri has no towering jagged snowy mountains, just the rolling hilly mountains of the Ozarks.

While in high school, I decorated my bedroom wall with a poster of Mt. Shuksan, located in North Cascades National Park, Washington. When I hung the poster, I had no idea of the name of that mountain or where it was based. I endlessly stared at this poster of a broad sided craggy mountain with several glaciers resting on it and pockets of snow clinging to it. I knew I wanted to see mountains like this someday when I had an opportunity.

My parents participated in an organization called Lutheran Marriage Encounter when I was growing up. They first went on a weekend marriage encounter retreat in 1975. They enjoyed attending the annual national and international conventions that took place over the years in various locations such as Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, St. Louis, etc. In early 1988, I overheard them saying that the 1988 Marriage Encounter Convention would happen that July in Anchorage, Alaska. I immediately asked them if all of us could go to Alaska on a family vacation while they thought about traveling there to attend this convention.

My parents love to travel like I do. They were immediately sold on the idea. I graduated high school in May 1987. I was on a gap year getting ready to start college at the end of August 1988. During that year, I worked as a cashier at a nearby gas station to save up some spending money for college. I used some of my earnings to go on trips, such as with a friend to see Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in February 1988. In September 1987, my mom went along with me on an Amtrak train trip from St. Louis to see New York City to Boston and back. After the Pittsburgh trip, I was eager for my next big trip.

As soon as my parents mentioned Alaska as a summer destination for them, I knew I wanted to go there. I figured it would be the perfect family vacation. I will always appreciate that they quickly agreed with me that we should go there as a family. My older sister Lisa lived on her own in St. Louis and was no longer interested in joining family vacations. My younger sister, Mary Frances, was a junior in high school, still living at home. She seemed fine with the idea of traveling to Alaska with us.

God bless them! My parents welcomed my ideas in planning this trip. My dad was a passenger and freight train fanatic. I suggested that we take an Amtrak train from St. Louis to Seattle, Washington and then fly to Alaska. On the return flight from Alaska, we would take Amtrak from Seattle back to St. Louis. My parents liked that idea. If we went to Alaska, I thought we should really see Alaska. Not some puny trip to Anchorage.

With my dad’s passion for trains, we agreed we should fly to Fairbanks and then take the Alaskan Railroad down to Anchorage, stopping at Denali National Park for a couple of days in-between. This was 1988 before the internet, when travel agents exclusively organized trips like this. My parents went to the travel agent in the strip mall near our home. She did her magic to put together an itinerary for everything we had in mind and even for things we had not thought about. She suggested a rafting trip on the Nenana River near Denali National Park.

The idea of travel agents now sounds about as quaint now as rotary phones, fax machines, television reception using rabbit ear antennas, smoking in restaurants and airplanes, corner pay phones, Blockbuster Video renting movies on VCR tapes, etc. But that’s the world I remember in the 1980s. The travel agent’s office was a world of its own. Inviting posters on the wall of Florida beach scenes with palm trees, European Castles, and cruise ships floating near tall Alaskan glaciers. There were no booking airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, and outback excursions at home back then. One was at the mercy of their local friendly travel agent. Fortunately, this travel agent pieced together a fabulous trip to Alaska for our family in July 1988.

The getting ready for journey to Alaska and the cross-country train trip

I knew this might be the only time I seeing Alaska, so I bought a new camera. I purchased a Pentax K1000 35 mm film camera. Digital cameras did not exist then. If one wanted to take photos, you had to put a spool of film in the camera which shot a maximum of 24 or 36 photos. If you were lucky, the extra amount of film at the beginning or end of the roll might allow you to snap an extra photo or two. The key was not exposing the end of the film roll to light when installing it or taking it out of the camera. Hence, the half overexposed photo of the Alaskan Pipeline you will see scrolling down this blog.

My best friend Scott and his dad Ty recommended the Pentax K1000 camera. I admired both for their photography skills. In addition, I purchased a 100 to 200 mm zoom lens that was compatible for this camera. I figured the zoom lens gave me a better opportunity to photograph distant mountains or wildlife that I might see in Alaska. Scott and Ty thought I made a good choice with the zoom lens to try to get quality photos from this trip.

Unfortunately, I only shot about one roll of film before this trip. I took photos of downtown St. Louis and from Bee Tree Park near my parents’ home. This local park had picturesque cliff views of the Mississippi River. The photos turned out crisp and clear from my practice photos. Unfortunately, I did not spend enough time learning the shutter speeds to take superb photos. Most of my photos from that Alaska vacation were blurry since the shutter speeds I used were too slow. It was a crushing blow when the developed photos were ready to be picked up at my neighborhood Walgreens. Looking back now, I still captured some good memorable photos from the trip. However, it’s the memories of that fantastic trip that sustains me to this day.

We started the trip with an Amtrak train from St. Louis to Chicago, Illinois. My parents were perpetually late for nearly everything growing up. I remember it was a stressful experience barely catching this train on time. I was internally furious at them for making it such a close call that could have ruined the entire trip. At the same time, I was so relieved we made the train before it left the station, and we were successfully on our way!

From our connection in Chicago, we started heading west on Amtrak. We had sunny skies in Denver, Colorado. We had lovely views of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. It made me eager to imagine how much higher the mountains might be in Alaska.

In Salt Lake City, Utah, our train split up. One train engine pushed half the cars to San Francisco, on a train route known as the California Zephyr. A different locomotive engine pushed our passenger cars with a destination of Portland, Oregon. We traveled on a train route named The Pioneer. It was my first time seeing Oregon. One of the highlights of this cross-country train route was traveling through the Columbia River Gorge.

The Gorge was impressive with towering hills and mountains on either side as the wide Columbia River straddled the Oregon and Washington border. I distinctly remember getting a quick peak of the 12,000-foot-high Mt. Adams as the train rode west of Hood River. My wife Tanya and I moved to Portland, OR in 2017. I feel nostalgia for that first train ride now when we drive through Hood River on I-84. This freeway goes along the same route through the Gorge as The Pioneer did, and I get that same fast glimpse of Mt. Adams that I saw from the train in 1988.

That train ride through the Gorge gave me a yearning to see more of Oregon. It motivated me four years later in 1992 to take a seasonal job at Crater Lake National Park in southern Oregon so I could see more of the state. Sadly, The Pioneer Amtrak route was discontinued in 1997. However, current efforts are trying to enable Amtrak to bring back that train route.

The train made a stop in Portland that allowed us to stretch our legs on the train platform before we rode onto Seattle, Washington. From Seattle, we caught our plane to Fairbanks, Alaska. The plane ride was not memorable except my younger sister sat near a smoker. Mary Frances did not like to be around cigarette smoke. She claimed she was allergic to it. My sister and mom asked the flight attendant if the passenger could stop smoking since it caused problems for them. The passenger did not care and he smoked even more cigarettes. Thank goodness the rules changed years later, and one cannot smoke on commercial flights anymore.

Having a quirky time in Fairbanks

We arrived in Fairbanks late in the afternoon. The airport looked geared for a small town dumped in the middle of nowhere. We rented a car to explore Fairbanks for a during our two night and one full day visit. We ate a delicious Alaska salmon dinner at an outdoor local establishment with picnic tables along the small Chena River. The fish was cooked on open flame barbeque pits. It was some of the best tasting fish of my life. This area was called Pioneer Park. It had old western style store fronts and homes, commemorating early Alaskan pioneer and gold rush history. The food was so tasty that we went back for a second night for dinner.

After dinner on the first day, we stopped by a grocery store to get some items. A store clerk named James who was about a couple years old than my sister struck up a conversation with her. My sister was impressed that he was friendly, kind, easy-going, attractive, and he wanted to get to know her. He asked her out on a date for the next evening. She was thrilled for a chance to go out on a date with a local Fairbanks young man. She asked my parents if it was ok to go out the next evening and my parents were fine with it. We all thought it was funny that my sister caught the attention of a local resident.

On our arrival day in Fairbanks, we were amazed it was still daylight at 10:30 pm. My dad and I took a drive to see the famous Trans-Alaska pipeline. It is 800-mile-long oil pipeline. It runs from Prudhoe Bay on the northern edge of Alaska to the town of Valdez in southern coastal Alaska. At the Valdez Marine Terminal, oil is loaded onto tankers for shipment to global markets. Construction of the pipeline took three years from April, 1974 and finished in June, 1977.

I remember seeing the Alaskan Pipeline on the TV news as a child. It seemed to be a big deal for American ingenuity at the time. Plus, the U.S. staggered with ongoing oil crises in the 1970s. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) boycotted American markets in 1973-74, plus gasoline price spikes due to inflation. The pipeline seemed to be an answer to American oil production woes. According to the ConocoPhillips website, this pipeline was “the world’s largest privately funded construction project when it was built, at a cost of $8 billion.”

In its own way, the pipeline was an iconic engineering marvel. It set a standard for design which endures to this day. Its distinctive zig-zag looks allow the pipe to flex in the event of an earthquake. More than half the pipeline runs above ground, cradled by metal supports, so the hot oil does not melt the permafrost that is prevalent along the route. I vaguely remember as a child that it was controversial with environmental protesters trying to stop it. With all the effort to construct this pipeline, keep the oil flowing, heat the oil so that it does not freeze in the frigid Alaskan winters, and maintain the pipeline, I wonder now if it would be cheaper to switch to clean energy. Just a thought.

My dad and I noticed how quiet it was by the pipeline since we outside the developed area of Fairbanks. It was silently doing its job, without any protesters or signs of workers fiddling with it, at this spot. We were curious to see the Alaskan Pipeline since it made so much news when it was completed in 1977. With its meandering design stretching out to the horizon, it seemed like America’s modern answer to the Great Wall of China. Even more, my dad and I appreciated that we could look at it at 10:30 pm with plenty of daytime on this long July Alaskan day.

We then went to the local grocery store to see people shopping. It was busy like it was 5 pm, rather than almost 11 pm. We laughed as I remarked to my dad, “Don’t these people ever sleep?”

The next day, we explored a museum in Fairbanks where they were constructing a totem pole outside. We went to a shopping mall where they had adult Bengal Tigers and one cub in tiny cages that looked like jail cells. We wondered: What did these tigers do wrong? One tiger in the cage was trying to sleep off the experience in this brightly lit mall. Another tiger just paced back and forth in the cage that was way too small. Even more oddly, they had a bamboo booth set up to get photos with the with the Tiger cub.

That evening, Mary Frances went on the date with James. It was after 10:30 pm. My sister was not back at our hotel room. My mom sat on a bed worried. My dad anxiously paced the small hotel room, like the tiger in the cage that was too tiny we observed earlier that day. He exclaimed, “I should not have let her go out on this date, especially to stay out this late!”

I sarcastically replied, “Gee, Dad, you should not have told her that it was ok to stay out until it got dark!”

Fortunately, they laughed at my joke. It broke up the tension in the confined hotel room.

A few minutes later, my sister strolled in the room. Mary Frances said she had a lovely evening with him. James asked her about our vacation plans. She told him that we would be in Anchorage later that week. He indicated he would drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage when we there to meet up with her. We thought that was funny Fairbanks to Anchorage is about 360 miles apart or a 6-and-a-half-hour drive without stopping. My sister thought it was flattering and endearing. At the same time, my sister thought there was zero chances of seriously dating this guy. First, he lives in Alaska, and she lives in Missouri. Talk about a long-distance relationship! Second, she was still a teenager in high school not really interested in seriously dating anyone yet.

When we were in Anchorage later this trip, James showed up driving all the way from Fairbanks hoping to spend time with her. My sister, my parents, and I all thought it was amusing and odd. Mary Frances met up with him again. However, that was a very long drive to find out she was not going to be his girlfriend.

Exploring Denali National Park

The next day, we boarded the train in Fairbanks to head to Denali National Park. I was amazed how sparse civilization was and no sightings of people from Fairbanks to Denali. The pine trees stretched for miles, but they all looked stunted and puny. They had an enchanting deep green color. However, a tall tree in an Alaska only seemed to stand about 5 to 7 feet tall.

We arrived at the train station in Denali. We then traveled the main park road in the park the only way one could: with a group of fellow tourists on packed board an old school bus. We had a naturalist guide narrating the tour while driving the bus. He had a long deep brown hair and beard. He looked like a cross between Jesus and someone who had spent years living as one with the Alaskan wilderness. He was a terrific storyteller. He may have influenced me more than he or I ever knew. Just over 10 years later in the Everglades, I would be narrating tours there while having a very long hair and beard.

This naturalist did a fabulous job at pointing out the wildlife and slowing down the bus so passengers on both sides could see the animals. We had a wolf strolling down the road alongside the bus for a several yards. A distant moose grazed within a low patch of trees watching us as we observed her. We then spotted a grizzly bear mother and two cubs in a grassy plain a couple hundred yards from us.

Our naturalist guide drove us to the end of the road where Denali would greet us on a clear day. However, it was an overcast day with the tops of all the nearby mountains shrouded. I started to believe that the resident Alaskans were correct: It is nearly impossible to see Denali when you are in Alaska. I crossed my fingers I might have better luck later this trip.

The next day we went rafting on the Nenana River. My parents, sister, and I loved the rafting trip. It was the first time we had ever seen a Bald Eagle. It glared down at us from a tree not far from the raft. The water was calm and relaxing. The color of the water was gray, opaque, and chalky. This was my first time seeing a glacier fed river and it fascinated me. This was not a white water or white-knuckle rafting trip. I recall the rafting trip as serene, relaxing, and mellow.

The rafting guide advised us to not go swimming since the temperature of the water from being a glacier fed river was only a few degrees above freezing. He warned that we could get hypothermia fast since the water was so cold. The murky color of the water and the sudden knowledge of the frigid water temperature canceled any temptation for us to go swimming.

Our guide was young, just a few years older than me. I turned 20 years old during the trip. He liked his job and told many funny jokes. The way he enjoyed his job made me wonder if I should look for recreational jobs in the outdoors or a national park. I was not interested in a rafting job, but I was intrigued to work someday in a scenic area leading narrated tours.

Like the previous day, it was overcast with no mountain peaks in sight. The Denali National Park naturalist guide from the day before and the rafting guide that day affirmed that is very unlikely to see Denali since it is covered in clouds most of the time. I still hoped that all the Alaskans I encountered about this would be wrong.

After the rafting tour, we ate dinner at Grande Denali Lodge. As my mom, sister, and I waited outside for my dad who was in the restroom, we saw hordes of people getting off and on buses and even the train. Most of them were senior citizens. One of them even farted and did a weird dance afterwards to shake it off. My mom made a joke that for now on when she saw crowds of seniors, she would start referring to them as The Alaskan Crowd.

Denali can’t hide itself forever, or can it?

The next day we boarded the train to start heading south to Anchorage. The train trip would take several hours to reach Anchorage, if not most of the day. The train would spend a great deal of time traversing around the east edge of Denali National Park. It was another overcast Alaskan day. It appeared doubtful I would see the mountain. The Alaskans I met were not with me on this train, but they would have laughed at me straining my eyes looking out the train window to get any kind of sight of Denali.

Then it happened an hour into the train trip. The clouds parted! The mountain was out! We had a blue sky with a few small clouds in front of Denali, but not enough to block the view of it.

Denali was a huge glistening white marvel of nature, rising twice as high as the mountains in front of it. I never saw anything more gigantic in my life. Most iconic mountains such as Mt. Hood, the Matterhorn, Mt. Fuji, the Grand Tetons, etc. look more like they rise to a very fine pointy church steeple top. Not Denali. It looked like a mammoth wall of rock, snow, and ice. It gave the impression that it was a lofty Himalayan Mountain that got lost and ended up in the middle of Alaska all lonesome by itself.

I could not stop taking photos of it. I remember my Dad was ecstatic to see the mountain like me. Fortunately, I used a fast enough shutter speed on my camera to get decent photos of the mountain. The local Alaskan experts were wrong! I could actually see the mountain!

I was glad the Alaskans warned me that I would probably not see Denali. It made the experience of glimpsing the mountain on the train that much sweeter. The train was beneficial because as it went along the curves, we got various looks of the iconic peak, revealing an enormous size from different angles. It finally got to the point where I could only see Denali from the back of the train. Even more, the clouds were moving back in to obscure the mountain again.

It was as if Mother Nature and Denali said to me, “Yeah. I will give you one quick view of the mountain, but that’s it!”

Seeing Portage Glacier just outside of Anchorage, Alaska

Obviously, seeing Denali was the highlight of the trip. The rest of the Alaskan trip was fun after we arrived in Anchorage. We liked exploring the Anchorage Museum showcasing Alaskan history, art, culture, and science. My favorite artwork was large landscape painting of an Alaskan wilderness scene. A rushing river flowed through it with tall hills with dark trees on both sides of the river. A majestic view of Denali dominated the background. The painting signaled to me how Alaskans revere this mountain. The artist who painted it showcased the beauty of the mysterious highest point in North America that many visitors travel a long way but fail to see. The painting seemed to say, ‘Behold this sacred mountain that is tough to get a view!’

In the central large open space of the Anchorage Museum, we watched two folk dancers perform traditional Slavic and Russian dance moves. They looked to be in their 70s with their whitish hair and appearance. Yet, they performed their dance moves with a rigid precision. They both looked to be barely over 5 feet tall as they danced to the Eastern European folk music. With their small size, they looked like figurines for a wedding cake. They were probably Anchorage residents. Their clean well maintained Slavic outfits showed that they took the music, dancing, and clothes seriously while sharing their love for it with the museum patrons.

We then walked to the Anchorage Mall and noticed the ice-skating rink used by several locals in mid-July. This fascinated our family coming all the way from Missouri to see Alaskans ice-skating in the middle of summer. We were tempted to join them, but no one in our family, especially me, felt brave enough to ice skate that day.

The Sugar family attending the Marriage Encounter Convention hosted us for several days. The family was Al, Joyce, and their daughter Amy, who was around my age. The Sugars took us to see the sights of Anchorage, such as the Portage Glacier, in their family recreational vehicle (RV). I never saw glacial ice up close before. With Amy’s help, I even held some in my hands. I felt grateful to photograph this glacier July 1988.

In 2008, twenty years later, I decided to be a climate change organizer. I heard stories since then how Portage Glacier retreated due to climate change. One story was from a fellow climate advocate and friend, Larry Lazar. He was my best man when I married my wife Tanya on November 1, 2015. Yale Climate Connections published Larry’s story in January 2015. He went to Alaska on a family vacation in June 2008. But they “couldn’t see the glacier anywhere.”

Larry read a sign at the Visitor Center how the glacier retreated due to climate change. The sign had a profound impact on him. Up to that point, he did not accept the reality of climate change. When he returned to St. Louis from his 2008 Alaskan trip, he started reading the science on climate change. This led to Larry attending the 2011 Climate Change Exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center, where I worked at that time. Larry and I became friends. We co-created the St. Louis Climate Reality Meet Up in October 2011. Today it is known as Climate Meetup-St. Louis.

Larry and I became Climate Reality Leaders in August 2012. We gave joint Climate Reality climate change presentations from December 2012 until Tanya and I moved to Portland, Oregon in February 2017. Larry regularly told his 2008 Portage Glacier story in our joint talks and media interviews. While I totally accepted the science of climate change and saw the negative impacts while working in the national parks, I did not want to fully grip Larry’s story of not seeing Portage Glacier when I heard him share it from 2011 to 2017. We were strangely connected seeing Portage Glacier 20 years apart: 1988 for me and 2008 for Larry.

I selfishly want to remember it today how I saw it when Al Sugar and his family took my parents, younger sister, and I to see it in July 1988. It was a delightful day in Alaska that I was glad to experience. I would probably feel sick to my stomach to see photos of the retreat of the Portage Glacier now compared to when I saw it in 1988, almost 40 years ago.

The final days of our trip visiting Anchorage, Alaska

On the way back from the glacier, we saw a female Dall Sheep with a small lamb following not far behind her. Al Sugar climbed to the roof of RV to get a better view of the sheep. He generously offered to use my camera with the zoom lens on the RV roof to get some photos of the Dall Sheep for me. I still recall the lump in my throat as I handed him my new camera and lens as he hung over the side of the RV requesting that I hand my camera to him. I really didn’t want him to drop my camera since I bought it so recently.

I asked him if he understood how to operate my camera, since I barely knew how to use it. Al assured me that he did. He got some decent photos of the female Dall Sheep and her lamb that I would not have been able to get otherwise.

It was good to see these sights in Anchorage because I never saw Denali again after gazing at it on the train. Al Sugar told me that on a clear day Denali is easily spotted from Anchorage. The mountain is located about 130 miles north of the city — “about 130 miles away as the raven flies.” However, the weather was overcast over the entire time we were there. It only seemed like a pipe dream for me to see the mountain from Anchorage.

I celebrated my 20th birthday in Alaska. We spent the day at the Alaska Zoo in Anchorage. Similar to the Fairbanks shopping mall, I observed animals in cages looking bored or confined. I saw the polar bear close up behind the zoo bars. It looked it like had a sense of humor because it turned around with its backside to us and started peeing. Maybe it was just relieving itself. Or, sending a message that it didn’t like the tourists, including us.

As the visit to Alaska closed, we went up to Far North Bicentennial Park which had an overlook to get a bird’s eye view of the Anchorage skyline and city limits.

Then it was time leave to Alaska and fly back home to the lower 48 states. We had clear skies from Anchorage to Seattle with a chance to see lots of coastal snowy mountains from Alaska to British Columbia and down to Washington state. I got glimpses from my airplane window seat of Mt. Baker, Mt. Rainier, and an aerial view of downtown Seattle.

We then had an amazing train ride on the Amtrak Empire Builder, which travels from Seattle to Chicago. The train left the station with clear views of the Seattle Space Needle and Mt. Baker heading north before then heading east. We had great views going along the edge of Glacier National Park, Montana. The train stopped long enough in Bismarck, North Dakota for passengers to step outside and stretch their legs. Even if it was for a few minutes, it was a thrill for our family to claim stepping our feet in a new state for us, North Dakota. The train went on through Minneapolis and then back to Chicago. We then caught another train back to St. Louis.

I am grateful for my parents and Mary Frances for their openness to take this trip to Alaska.

Final Thoughts

St. Louis looked drab after returning home from Alaska and riding a train to see the northwestern U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. While in Alaska, I bought a poster of Denali which I hung on my dorm wall when I started William Jewell College in Kansas City, MO at the end of August 1988. For months afterwards, I chatted about that Alaska trip with friends, family, my college classmates, my roommate, and anyone starting a conversation with me. I took a Communications 100 Class that fall. One of my first speeches was about my trip to Alaska.

It was too remote for me to return to Alaska. But I yearned to return to the Pacific Northwest. I wanted to stare at snowcapped mountains and live close to them. I graduated from William Jewell College on May 17, 1992. That evening, I boarded an Amtrak Train for a cross-country train ride to Los Angeles, California. I then transferred to another train which took me to Klamath Falls, Oregon. The last morning of my train ride, I awoke with the metal wheels squealing as the train navigated the sharp curve to skirt the edge of the 14,000-foot Mt. Shasta in northern California. While not as tall and enormous as Denali, this mountain looked huge. Like Denali, Shasta heralded me on this clear morning as a towering mountain with its fresh winter snowpack still clinging to it. Mt Shasta greeted me with a friendly, “Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!”

At Klamath Falls, a gift store employee at Crater Lake National Park named Kevin picked me up at the train station. I spent the summer working in the gift shop at Crater Lake. I could not get enough absorbing the beauty of the snowy peaks that ringed the deep blue cobalt lake. More big mountains covered with snow stood on the horizon outside the park, such as Mt. Shasta.

I ended up working 25 years as a seasonal park ranger at Crater Lake National Park and Everglades National Park, Florida. While working in the national parks, I saw climate change negatively impacted those national treasures. It triggered my passion to organize for climate action.

Denali looms large in Alaska and in my memories. It is massive in size. It had a huge impact in my life to move to the Pacific Northwest to be near snow covered mountains. It played a role in my lifelong love of nature and an inspiration for me to be an advocate to care for our planet. May this sacred mountain inspire you, as it did for me.

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.