My happy story is how the environmental community at Daily Kos is so energized with passion and determination to make a difference in the upcoming legislative reforms. Even the birds are singing ...because environmental laws are not written each year. The last time Congress enacted major eco legislation was in the 1970s and 1980s. So we can't let this opportunity pass by. Obama has made it clear that he wants us to play a key role in these legislative reforms via bottom-up politics. The White House sent a clear message to eco-advocate Bill McKibben: WE need to build the movement that gives Obama the room to do what needs to be done. Obama can't do what needs to be done within the current political forces. Obama needs us to pressure DC to take the action needed for environmental change and reform.
The Daily Kos community is building that structure needed to meet these challenges.
Daily Kos itself is the foundation that provides a place for environmental advocates to establish a community. This is where we met, fell in love with each other and exchanged ideas.
Our environmental community was recently celebrated and reenergized with our first eco week a month ago between June 28 through July 4. Land of Enchantment and I spent 10 days prepping for eco week. Why did it take so long? We started with a list of 14 green diarists, but the community response was so strong from both these diarists and some who never before had written an eco diary that we ended up with 64 diarists and 80 phenomenal diaries! This is a list of the diarists with links to what they wrote.
I think Meteor Blades described the diaries nicely:
[The diarists] turned out 80 enlightening, sometimes joyful, sometimes disturbing essays, analyses and round-ups across a broad range of eco-subjects. Some of them were veterans, having written greenish stuff at Daily Kos for several years. Others wrote their first eco-diary ever. Several Kossacks who produce weekly or more frequent series diaries turned one or more of them to an environmental topic. They proved that there’s an environmental angle to nearly everything we humans do. Ties were found to health care, jobs, the economy, labor, political stability, family, equal justice, human rights and poverty. Our diaries explained these linkages and the need for sustainability.
Our community loved the diaries too: There was an average of four diaries a day from eco week that hit the Rec List. This has never happened before!
To continue with eco week, we now have for the first time a regular, permanent environmental series at Daily Kos called GreenRoots! Even the polar bears rejoice at this news.
GreenRoots is a new environmental series created by Meteor Blades and Patriot Daily for Daily Kos. This series provides a forum for the discussion of all environmental issues, including the need for sustainability and the interrelationship between environment and salient issues of our lives, including health care, family, food, economy, jobs, labor, poverty, equal justice, human rights, political stability, national security and war.
Please join a variety of hosts on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoons and early evenings. Each Wednesday is hosted by FishOutofWater.
So, Daily Kos has exceptional thinkers and writers in the virtual world. But, how can we organize to work toward real, sustainable reforms in the real world? One part of that structure is DK GreenRoots. Meteor Blades explained:
Writing wasn’t the only aspect of Eco Week. It also provided an opportunity to initiate a new eco-bloggers advocacy group, DK GreenRoots. That will be our workroom where activists and other interested participants interconnect, inform each other, encourage the writing and cross-posting of diaries, teach research techniques, initiate short- and long-term working groups, develop special projects, hone our persuasive skills, plan political action, and draft legislation.
If that sounds ambitious, it is. But there are a lot of us already signed up for this collaborative effort. With new additions every day, more than 325 [now 417] people have joined DK GreenRoots. As people get acquainted, between now and Netroots Nation in August, we’ll take the first steps in getting some or all of those activities under way. We have a GreenRoots website in development that will roll out shortly after Labor Day. Soon we will have a private forum created for GreenRoots to assist discussions as well as projects and working groups.
Collaborative projects are only as good as are the people committed to making things happen in a cooperative manner. Which makes DK GreenRoots especially exciting because many of those involved have previously demonstrated they’re willing and able. We don't seek to be anybody's rival. Our goal is to build alliances. If you haven’t joined yet, you can find us at DK GreenRoots.
To assist discussions, organization of projects and campaigns, and eco advocacy, Meteor Blades, dsnodgrass and I created a private online forum for DK GreenRoots that will open this week, and then the new website will open around Labor Day.
It is exhilarating to see our Daily Kos eco community hopping with energy, passion, dedication and lots of happiness. I'd like to introduce two new writers who are frequent contributors now at Daily Kos and with DK GreenRoots.
mogmaar is an Astronaut who has been working with both DK GreenRoots and Avaaz Action Factory. A couple of weeks ago, mogmaar wrote a diary about how she was one of seven Astronauts who appeared at the Environment and Public Works Senate hearing to "deliver an unmistakable message to our senators, both allies and obstructionists: be as bold as the Apollo mission. Fully clad in space suits complete with the NASA logo, the Avaaz Action Factory stood up in the middle of the hearing and unfurled our banners. 'What can the US do in 10 years?' The first banner asked. 'Put a man on the moon (check)'; cut CO2 40%'" was the answer from the 2nd banner.
Remember the fraudulent letters to Rep. Tom Periello purportedly from minority organizations, including the NAACP, pressuring him to vote against clean energy reform? Well, mogmaar and Avaaz Action Factory could not let that slide by, unexposed.
RLMiller wrote her first diary at Daily Kos in late May of this year, and has been going strong ever since. She immediately started a series called "Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies" about outdoor activities and adventures, like hiking, and our state and national parks. For eco week, she wrote about how a petition campaign by 12 environmental groups may have resulted in the United Nations deciding to investigate protecting Waterton-Glacier as a World Heritage Site. Working for change does not always require fiddling with Democratic leadership excuses about requisite vote tallies and can be accomplished when a small coalition of groups join forces.
RLM wrote another great diary about how President Obama will have a chance to "revisit the polar bear rule" by using the Endangered Species Act to regulate greenhouse gases to save the pika, which is "particularly vulnerable to climate change" because it requires higher mountain elevation temperatures, and can die after one hour at 75 degrees. This makes them vulnerable to climate change because, as the climate warms up, it can move up the mountain but cannot "descend a mountain to relocate to an adjacent mountain."
Happiness surrounds us. Do you have a happy story for tonight?
Got a Happy Story is a community gathering every Monday night where we share stories large and small that have put a smile on our face. The Happy Story diary exists as a way to anchor the community in hope and comfort while we do the hard work of maintaining a permanent Democratic majority. Everyone and all sorts of stories and pictures are welcome. Consider this an open thread.