Love in the Time of Climate Change (3 page)

An activist group focused on (duh!)
The
Issue.

Three years earlier, during my interview for the job, the dean had posed an interesting question: “Tell us one thing you will accomplish here in your first year.” I didn't hesitate for a moment before firing off a definitive answer. “Bring a group of students together to save the world,” I replied, somewhat arrogantly. “The Climate Changers.”

I hadn't prepared for that question, and the group name just popped into my head. But I thought it was a good answer.

The hiring committee evidently agreed because, shocker though it was, I actually got the job.

To be honest, I hadn't thought I had a chance in hell. Scoring one of these highly coveted, few-and-far-between, tenure-track teaching positions was quite a coup. When I got the call and told Jesse, he thought I was joking.

“No fucking way!” he shouted in disbelief.

“Way!”

“You're serious?”

“I am!”

“No fucking way!” he shouted again, clapping his
hands and jumping up and down like a giddy little kid at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning. He was good—no,
great
—that way, getting all excited whenever something good, really good, happened to me. I did my best to do the same for him—minus, of course, the scary clapping and jumping.

It wasn't as if the hiring committee's decision was coming totally out of left field. I was, in fact, quite qualified for the job. I had worked for Mass Wildlife as a field biologist for four years after grad school, and had done time in the trenches seasonally for them for four previous years. I had been an active member of their Climate Change Advisory Group, developing plans for wildlife corridors and enhanced protected areas and invasive species protocols that might help to mitigate impending catastrophe. Five years ago, I had picked up an on-the-side job as an adjunct professor at a sister community college, and
boom
, it hit me—here was where my passion lay.

I loved the field biology thing, and I was pretty good at it, but it was the teaching I adored. Being around the energy, the enthusiasm, the passion, the naiveté, and the unbelievable weirdness of college students was a total turn-on. I couldn't get enough of it, and as a teacher I wasn't
pretty
good, I was
really
good.

The offer of a full-time professorship blew my mind.

I waited to survive my first semester before venturing forth and forming that student group. There was a process I had to go through—checking with my department chair, the dean, Student Life—nothing too odious. And then getting the word out and actively recruiting students.

Colleagues had given me the yellow light, cautioning me that clubs at community colleges were a tough sell, and most were destined for failure.

“Don't get your hopes up,” the natural-history professor warned me.

“Remember who our clientele are. They commute,
they work, sometimes two or even three jobs. Many are parents. Most don't have time to wipe their ass after taking a crap.”

But I was thrilled with the response. Fifteen had showed up at our first meeting and we had held at about a dozen students ever since then. Students came and students went (it was, after all, a community college), but semester after semester there were key players, the ones who followed through, the ones who did amazing work. Every year had brought forth a fabulous cadre of bright, dedicated students chomping at the bit to fulfill my interview pledge: Save the World.

I had been an “active” member of a student group in my undergraduate years and, frankly, we didn't do shit. Every other Thursday night, we'd sit around dissing capitalism, trashing the system, ranting and railing against “The Man,” and singing the praises of the socialist revolution that we knew for certain was just around the very next corner. Then, after a couple of hours of heated rhetoric and political inaction, we'd all get high and watch
South Park
.

It was great. We didn't do anything but it was still great.

The closest we ever came to actually accomplishing something was when one of our “comrades” (as we liked to call ourselves) got busted for possession of pot. We were outraged, incensed, morally fired up. They had sent down one of our own. We marched on the local police station carrying signs that said “Free Phillip,” demanding that he be released and chanting “Hey, Hey, USA! How many kids have you busted today!” Not that any of this worked, but it was the thought that mattered. And at least, for Christ sake, for once we had gotten off our sorry asses and
done
something.

I loved being in that clique. I adored our meetings. Being surrounded by my peeps, secure in the feeling that we were so much wiser and hipper and more politically correct than anyone else on campus. We were the epitome of
“right on” and only vaguely aware that we lacked focus, a mission, and a game plan—hell, it was college, what else was new?

I can't say we floundered, but we sure as hell didn't swim.

Once hired at PVCC, I was determined not to let history repeat itself. I had no interest in taking control, and no desire to mold students into (God forbid!) mini-mes, but I was arrogant enough to think that I could do a good job of facilitating activism. I'm reasonably adept at keeping folks on track, I'm proficient at navigating the web of college bureaucracy, I'm a good sounding board, and, for some bizarre reason, students like and trust me.

And so far it's worked. It really has. The Climate Changers have an impressive list of accomplishments under their belt. They've brought the issue of climate change to the forefront of the college campus, they've pressured the administration into school-wide sustainability days, they've planted trees on Earth Day, they've sponsored successful and well-attended lecture and film series, and they've helped raise money for photovoltaic panels—the list goes on and on and on.

Plus, we have fun. Lots of it.

As Mother Jones, the great early-twentieth-century labor activist, so famously said, “If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution.”

And dance we do, figuratively and literally. That and laugh. Lots of laughter. Most of it directed inwardly or at me, much of it inappropriate, but all of it joyous.

That's not to say everything is a bed of roses. Far from it.
The
Issue is adept at bringing folks to their knees, to the brink of that dreaded abyss, so there are plenty of tears to go round.

But, thank God, it's balanced by loads of laughter.

The
Issue is a tough one to organize around. True change requires a retooling of every aspect of society, from
the economic to the political to the personal. It's so easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the tasks at hand that action, any action, can seem futile. One can almost forgive all those folks who've taken the path of least resistance, sticking to a life of intentional ignorance and outright denial rather than tackling such a behemoth of an elephant head-on.

Which is why I was so thrilled to have two of my climate gurus, Hannah and Trevor, my most active activists from last year, back in the saddle again, pumped and ready to lead the pack this semester. Both had full-blown OCD and were as committed to climate change advocacy as I was, only they were younger, less jaded, and brimming over with exuberance and hubris and a take-no-prisoners attitude.

One fascinating characteristic of
The
Issue was its amazing ability to bring people together from all walks of life. Hannah and Trevor were about as unlike as two people could possibly be, and their ability to go at it was legendary, but their passion for activism around climate change had made them willing bedfellows. Strange bedfellows, but bedfellows nonetheless.

Hannah was a business major, impeccably dressed for the 1950s with cardigan button-down sweaters and Catholic schoolgirl skirts. Once I had even seen her in high heels! Can you imagine? High heels at a community college! She listened to classical music and read renaissance poetry. When we ate together as a group, while the rest of us dug in she would fold her hands, close her eyes, and silently mouth a prayer. She was a beautiful young woman, tall and athletic, with long, flowing black hair.

Trevor was all about the 1960s. A throwback to the hippie days, he was perpetually into a five-day beard with his long, scruffy hair wrapped in a bandana or a Che Guevara cap. I had never seen him without ripped jeans and a T-shirt screaming out a political slogan or an image of a
pot plant or the face of Bob Marley. His music of choice was “noise,” he was a vocal atheist, and never once did he let you forget that he was out to smash the state.

As opposite as they were, Hannah's and Trevor's strengths and weaknesses complemented each other remarkably well, and their work together was stunning. While their interpersonal battles were monumental (fireworks was their modus operandi, much to the delight of their fellow Climate Changers), after their vicious cat-and-dog, tooth-and-nail fights, they would always forgive, forget, and come back to the magnet that held them together:
The
Issue. Push would often came to shove, but they would miraculously, stupendously, pull it all together and make magic happen.

I had never had two students so creative, so intense, so organized, so gung-ho to save the world. Other students had tremendous respect for them and would work hard at whatever task they were assigned, sometimes it seemed, just to please them.

They were every professor's Dream Team.

Motor vehicle emissions represent 31 percent of total carbon dioxide, 81 percent of carbon monoxide, and 39 percent of nitrogen oxides released in the U.S.

— The Green Commuter, a publication of the Clean
Air Council

A short, four-mile round trip by bicycle keeps about 15 pounds of pollutants out of the air we breathe.
— WorldWatch Institute

I
T WAS THE
T
UESDAY
of Bike-to-School Week at PVCC and tensions were already running high. What had been billed as a wonderful way to promote the greenest of fast transportation had suddenly and with a sick vengeance turned into a bitter struggle for bike master supremacy.

The noblest of ideas, when cast into the raging inferno of competition hell, can sour quickly.

The Climate Changers had worked hard on this event.
They had postered the school for weeks, promoting Bike-to-School Week with creative, catchy slogans stolen from various places:

“The revolution will not be motorized!”

“It's too bad that the people who really know how to run this country are too busy riding their bikes!”

“Friends don't let friends drive!”

“We are not blocking traffic. We
are
traffic!”

“‘The theory of relativity. I thought of that while riding my bike.' (Albert Einstein).”

Tabling outside the cafeteria from noon to one every day were Hannah and Trevor, bike fanatics extraordinaire. They were clinically diagnosed with a double whammy, OCD—Obsessive Climate Disorder—and OBD—Obsessive Bike Disorder. Rain, snow, ice, night—it made no difference to them. Hannah in her skirt. Trevor in his tie-dye. They'd cycle through a hurricane without batting an eye. The worse the weather, the greater the bragging rights.

Hannah once claimed to have ridden seven miles in the middle of a winter nor'easter with snow falling so fast that even plows were grounded. Trevor, of course, claimed this was total and complete bullshit. He and Hannah could be tires on glass shards; there was sure to be a blowout every time their biking egos got the best of them.

So far they had managed to check their hubris at the door and were playing nice in the sandbox. At their busy table they were catching the lunch crowd and disseminating bike propaganda, giving out free stickers (“Think globally, bike locally”). They were also promoting Wednesday's “Learn How to Fix Your Bike” workshop (described as “appropriate even for those knuckleheads who think a Phillips-head screwdriver is a mixed drink”) and Thursday's demonstration of an electric-assist bike built and ridden by the whacked-out (in a good way) engineering professor.

They had a catchy factoid on the table. If one hundred
PVCC students with a ten-mile round-trip commute switched their cars for bikes ten times over the course of the academic year (just ten times!), there would be 300 fewer gallons of gasoline burned and 8,000 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. How's that for a climate-change headline grabber?

Stunning!

Moral of the story? Little actions equal big results.

Hannah and Trev were hard at work signing up students for the “Contest.” It seemed simple enough. “Contestants” were to log the miles they rode to and from school during this particular week of September. Whoever logged the most miles won a T-shirt and a water bottle, both with a beautiful design of a bike engulfed in leafy greens.

Set up a contest, make sure there is a prize for the winner and
nada
for the loser, and, sure as shooting, no matter how “politically correct” the event is supposed to be, the shit always seems to hit the fan. Unfortunately, this event proved to be no exception.