Greenpeace I

so i was just walking down the hall and i thought to myself, 'damn, i'm in the greenpeace national headquarters in d.c'....today was the first day of the program (called the GOT / greenpeace organizing term)...we went through all of what we'll be doing this semester, including mostly training, campaigning, driving boats...etc. we're going on this 'surprise' (they won't tell us where we're going yet) 2.5 week trip to bird-dog and campaign ...the campaign we're working on is called project hotseat, focused on "saving the world" from global warming. they're going to brief us on it tomorrow.

some of the verbage they use (today) like "saving the planet" and a lot of people here talk about the "ignorance" of the general public (moreso the GOT participants than GP employees)...or fighting / victories / stuff like that that kind of confuse me coming from a more "ecological" view. in ecology there aren't really wins and losses, per se, and i'm not sure how i feel with a lot of what greenpeace is putting out there. especially their reluctance to explore (at least openly) the possibility of nuclear energy as a source for electricity, which they briefly mentioned today and said that it was, i guess, an antithesis to peace...so that skepticism is (in my opinion) useful, necessary, and humbling and hopefully i can maintain that in light of the weight of this program and city rather than being sucked into it.

this city definitely feels powerful. walking down the streets, viewing the capitol building at night, and just being in this city makes one stand taller. not necessarily prouder, but i definitely feel a sense of power and "getting shit done" oozing out of the walls around here. giant corinthian columns dwarf you, and all the museums are free (botanical gardens, smithsonian, etc)..so exploration is really easy.

at GP we can have visitors, so if any of you want to come and visit you can spend a day (or more) in my shoes and see a training or two.

i'll keep you posted as things progress, and i'm trying to get a cell phone around here, so you can call me if you want to remember what my voice sounds like.

keep it up and keep in touch
ari