Liz and I celebrating her completion of a walk of all five boroughs

I received earth 33 this November from Liz Thomas, renowned hiker, environmental advocate, and friend. Liz works to raise awareness of both the natural beauty of the world around us and the important benefits that nature provides for people and creatures alike.

Earth 33 depicts the devastating effects climate change is already having. It depicts a symptom that we have become all to familiar with via multiple catastrophic fires in the past two years alone.

In my day job, I work on adapting New York City and northern New Jersey to sea level rise. Regardless of actions that we take to reduce our emissions (and we need all hands on deck), we are also facing significant sea level and temperature rise for which there is little public plan. These rises mean significant loss of homes, human migrations, infrastructure failure, economies, habitats, and ways of life are at risk.  And so, the action I am taking is working with a diverse group of stakeholders to ask the questions – what is the future that we want, what will it take to get there, and will you come with us to advocate for these changes in 2020+? After one year of convening this broad group, we came to some conclusions this past December on what priorities we will fight for at local, state, and federal levels beginning in 2020.

And so when I look at Earth 33 I also see a challenge, and the many people that through my own work, and more broadly through climate strikes, I have seen ready to rise to the immense challenge. And thank You to the Carry the Earth project for being part of that hope.

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