Frustrated

I'm just so frustrated that I'm not doing enough. My wife and I have been talking a lot about what more we can do to get past the stage of caring and move towards action. Real action. We can change ourselves but we need to help other people get to the same point as we are starting to get to. Maybe my frustration, anger and sadness is fueling my action, and maybe that's not a bad thing.

I also haven't volunteered in way to long. I helped run a supply drive for NASPA WRC but I know I need to do more. I'm going to start volunteering for clean up crews around Seattle, doing small actions when I can because I don't want to use being busy as an excuse anymore. There's a organization called "Watch the Wild" where I can track the nature around me to serve a database to get data around what we can change and fix. And since we cant donate my wife wants to volunteer to write policy for environmental laws. Because our small actions are nothing without others. A team of people working towards the same goal, each person using their strengths to contribute the best way they can.

However, with our new president-elect, I am scared all of this won't even help. He wants to remove what he calls "job-killing restrictions" on oil and gas companies, including "shale energy and clean coal, creating many millions of high-paying jobs." In other words, he's going to improve our country by "by poisoning our air and water [and] getting rid of healthcare, including Obamacare and Medicare. So, when we're all sick from polluted air and water, we can all use our life savings to pay off our medical bills." (Badash, 2016) Fracking and the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline would have serious consequences on our environment, that are eventually going to be irreversible. Small individual actions, or small wins, are a great place to start, but we need to take responsibility, create large, group actions to create real environmental change, and address the issues it has already caused to both people and our earth (Weick, 1984).

As we all travel to our family and friends for Thanksgiving, I want to leave you with this article from the Huffington Post called "On Thanksgiving Week, Native Americans Are Being Tear-Gassed in North Dakota," about how we are celebrating food and love while protesters and activists are being tear gassed.

References:

Weick, K. E. (1984).  Small wins:  Redefining the scale of social problems.  American Psychologist 39, 40-49.