Global Citizenship

Thanks to my new job, I actually celebrated Earth Day this year! 

One of the many highlights was seeing these free condoms designed to raise awareness around the connection between human population growth (every day adds an additional 227,000 people to the planet) and current extinction rates (dozens of species a day). 

I was up in Jackson to hear the likes of Harvey Locke from the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative speak and to watch two excellent films: NOVA's Wild Ways, about the critical role of migration corridors in the survival of terrestrial animals, and Our Local Epic, about the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River. It was completely inspirational. 

I was blown away (again) by the power of film as a storytelling and educational medium and it made me all the more excited to join my dad and his partner for the Telluride Film Festival this year. 

Harvey Locke has the enviable ability to identify essential guiding principles in conversations about complex conservation issues. In our hyper bipartisan country, he suggests moving away from the "I'm right, you're wrong" argument and instead embracing the question "What can we do right together from here?" 

I was reminded of the agency individuals have to affect positive change, especially when working in concert with each other.