my home burned to the ground in the Fourmile Canyon Wildfire of 2010, and my community was devasted by regional flooding in 2013. I stood in my front yard in 2010 while a significant wildfire unfolded around me and experienced the shock and awe of nature unleashed. In 2013 I experienced three days of lashing rain, which dumped a year’s precipitation over the three days. Again, both of these were predicted by climate science.

My earliest memories are watering the plants in my grandfather’s nursery. I worked as a Nurseryman/Landscaper through college. It would appear that gardening is in my genetic makeup. These days I has been repurposing my 1950 suburban landscape into a yard farm foodscape. I practice the triple bottom line of caring for the Earth, for the People, and sharing any surplus.

My late father-in-law was Charles David Keeling who recorded the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere starting in the 1950s. He shared science’s predictions on the effects of persistent Green House Gasses. The predictions included mean temperature rise, disrupted weather patterns, wildfires, floods, strengthening tropical storms, ocean acidification, sea level rise, melting of glaciers and other effects. I lost my home in the Four Mile Canyon wildfire of 2010. I experienced the wildfire’s utter chaos. Post-fire debris flows buried my neighbors. The floods of 2013 ravaged communities. I noted the run of wildfires in Colorado in 2010-2013, each bigger than the preceding. These calamities were predicted.

At the individual and household level, having lost our home in the Fourmile wildfire of 2010 I am somewhat a Climate Refugee.  Starting in 2015, we have reduced their carbon footprints from 17 MT (Metric Tons GHG) to 2 MT: the carrying capacity of the Earth is 3 MT: a personal reduction from 100 pounds/day to 12 pounds/day.  We did this with a 60-year-old home. Our home is one of the ten homes on the 2019 Boulder Green Home Tour, as a retrofit microgrid.  This is an 87% reduction in GHG Emissions in 4 years. 

At the neighborhood level I am involved with Accelerate Neighborhood Climate Action and has migrated the climate consensus workshops from Denver to Boulder. My work with ANCA in my neighborhood has created a pollinator garden with the local elementary school fifth graders.  I am a City of Boulder Net Zero Hero. I am interested in the Neighborhood Transition US approach to grassroots action.

At the City level I am a Steward with Boulder.Earth and a public engagement organizer with Boulder’s Climate Mobilization Action Plan. I have been active in the Local Power movement and advocate for a decarbonized, decentralized, and democratized energy future.  I am also active moving Faith-based values of Charity and Generosity toward action in Homelessness and Affordable Housing. 

At the regional level I am helping found a Bio-regional Regenerative Economic Hub as well as joining Faith Communities to Regional Disaster Readiness programs and regional Energy Efficiency initiatives. To honor its indigenous heritage, I volunteer with the local Right Relationship organization. I see that the Local Power movement would benefit from regional coalition building. I am a Statewide Representative of the Boulder County Together Colorado chapter and member of its statewide Climate Justice table.  I am an organizer in the Front Range Green Faith Circle.  I am a member of the Regenerative Recovery Energy, Workforce, and Business Model working groups.

At the State level I am an organizer with Together Colorado, an interfaith advocacy organization. I am now focusing more energy on state legislative and PUC issues.

At the national level, I am an Agriculture Sector lead for the Business Climate Leadership group of Citizen’s Climate Lobby.  I am a Hunter Lovins Natural Capitalism Solutions Fellow.  I am a Climate Reality Project leader.

At the global level, I am a GreenFaith Fellow: a global interfaith non-profit actively joining worldwide faith communities to activate universal creation care concerns. After railing against Climate Reality for its jet-fueled business model, COVID forced the Reality Project to become virtual: I became a Climate Reality leader virtually in 2020.  I am the Regenerative Communities Network South Platte bioregional Council representative.