Having spent my entire trip here with activists from around the world has really clarified how incredibly diverse, yet united our movement is. Today I stood next to a 60 year old Irish woman making signs for the march tomorrow, I painted banners with a young girl from Finland, and I ate lunch with a man from Ecuador. I have heard that there are over 40 nationalities represented in this warehouse tonight. Isn’t that amazing?
I spoke with a Swedish student this afternoon and when I mentioned that I was from the United States, he suddenly got a huge smile on his face. He said that he loved meeting activists from the U.S. because we were “badass.” He explained more, saying that he had just been in Japan with the GOT (Greenpeace Organizing Term) students and that he was extremely impressed by the Greepeace Student Network. He was basicially jumping up and down as I was telling him more about what our student network has been doing over the past year and the passion and high level of involvement of our students in the network.
I usually get a little embarrassed when I say I’m from the U.S. to a foreign activist because I feel guilty for our country’s poor leadership in environmental issues. But when I had this conversation today, I felt extremely proud of us and what we are doing in our country. I am so thankful for all the hard work our students have been doing and feel confident in knowing we are doing absolutely everything we can to influence our President to make the right decisions at this conference. If he doesn’t follow through on his commitments, we will know that it was out of our hands. And he will know that he has let down hundreds (thousands) of students. I know that he wouldn’t want that to happen. Let’s continue hoping for the best and doing what we know how to do very well: keep up the presha!http://secureusa.greenpeace.org/survey/start/234/
