a glimpse of what's in store

yesterday, i was very excited to get an e-mail from my mentor for the climate project. our mentor will be with us through training, but also help us most of all *after* the training when we are out giving presentations.

my mentor is c. (for this blog, we'll be using initials instead of nicknames.) i can't wait to meet him in person. he was a volunteer, like me, but was in the first group to be trained, and now is a mentor for the rest of us. he had a varied background, from politics to the performing arts, and in another strange coincidence, is a survivor of stage 4 non-hodgkins lymphoma (i'm currently training a marathon for charity to benefit the leukemia & lymphoma society. stage 4. so frightening! it makes me proud to know what i'm doing with the runs is contributing to more success stories like c's.

anyway, i think we're going to get along famously. i asked if there was anything i should be doing in addition to reading an inconvenient truth, and here's what he had to say:

Also be thinking about how you're going to market your presentations: Who are your centers of influence? Who do you know that can help you get engagements? What organizations do you belong to? How will you network ...

i think i have a lot of good ideas for this. first off ;) i have the networking down pat, but if anyone else has any ideas feel free to sent them my way. i think while it will be really important to educate the young, influential, mobile urbanites, it is equally important to get out into smaller communities, like where i grew up, to spread the word. i have a lot of contacts at large media companies, and will see about doing some presentations on site (hearst, conde nast, hbo, etc).

happy holiday's to everyone if i don't post in the next few days...its going to be all about christmas and running! =)

nashville here i come!

i've got my plane ticket, my hotel room and in preparation, i'm reading an inconvenient truth the book. when i worked at green team we got them as a gift at one of our quarterly meetings.

one thing that struck me in the introduction, and i'm sure that he touched on this in the film but it's been a while, is that he talked about this issue as being a unifying issue, something that gives a generation a purpose. now, i swear i didn't read that before my last post, but i was really enthused to see that i'm kind of approaching this in the same spirit of the guy who has started it. i think that this is going to be amazing.

i can't wait for nashville! yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

welcome

ah another blog! who would have guessed that i'd have two? not i.

anyway, this blog has come into existance because i have been chosen to be one of a select group of people that al gore is going to train to give the presentation that is featured in an inconvenient truth. i'm beyond excited, and because i like to write, i thought...why not document my experience of going through the training and even to give presentations?

to back track...back in august, i applied to the climate project for one of three sessions they were conducting in the us. why? well, i saw an inconvenient truth in the summer, and it really, for lack of a better cliche, struck a chord. i had been thinking about how my generation is a little lost (i was born in '76). generations before have all had something to stand for, to fight for or against.

what was to be our legacy?

when i saw an inconvenient truth, i felt i found the answer. our legacy is to save the world. literally.

laugh, call me crazy, idealistic, a dirty liberal, a tree hugger, i really don't care. something must be done, and it must be done now. and i believe that we can do it. we are creative, we are mobile. we are vocal and influential. we've been looking for a purpose, something to strive for, something beyond money and fame, something that matters.

this is it, my friends. saving the world.

i'm not saying that there aren't a multitude of other issues that need to be addressed and changed. we know there are. but if we destroy the very place we call home, what does anything else matter?

and so, when i heard that mr. gore was going to be training a fleet of people to spread the word about global warming and how we can stop it - and, we CAN - i started looking into how i could be one of those people.

in my last job i was lucky enough to work with wwf (world wildlife fund), and one of my contacts there told me there was a call for applications, and way back in august, i applied. after months of no news, i thought i hadn't been chosen. and then just yesterday, i got a call from tennessee...and now, i'll be heading there in january for training.

after i'm trained, it will be my responsibility to give 10 presentations over the course of the next year. i'm nervous and excited and proud and esctactic.

come along with me for the ride, i'm happy to have you.