Bought the premium limit login attempt apps a few months ago.
November 6, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
Begone you hackers!!! Not sure why you are trying to hack my site. This site is free entertainment for my patients and friends, and curious internet denizens, to try to save the earth! I’ve been offered money for my site but I REFUSED. I could advertise on this site, but I REFUSED. And I now REFUSE your attempts to hack my site because what I do here is important to me personally and to the world. I’m sure you need oxygen to breathe and trees to shade you. You likely don’t want to live on a Vulcan-like world!!! So if you are actually a thinking person you should back off!
But I know you are likely just an algorithm. So I bought the limited login attempt upgraded version almost 5 months ago but I’ve been so busy, I didn’t have the mental space to try to get it onto the blog. But after having to delete at least 20 messages from the site about more hackers, I DID IT!!! I DID IT THIS MORNING. And now I won’t have to see those annoying messages!
And now looking at the site there were over sometimes a million hacking attempts a day! Geez! They should just try to pick up trash instead!!!
Origin of the hacks
And that is it. Just proud of myself for taking time to protect something that means a lot to me. I protected the site!
Real platform for the treehouse done that is on the Oregon tree farm.
October 17, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
Blogging helps me organize my thoughts. I’m in the midst of editing and co-creating a power point to present to the HMO Chiefs. It’s an interesting group and we’ve gotten conflicting advice about what to talk about. I was struggling with the presentation last night, and then decided to set things aside at about 830pm. We are up in our Oregon tree farm, and it gets gloriously dark very early. The last load of laundry was in the dryer as we are getting ready to leave for the next day (which is today), and I turned off the lights and looked at a few pictures of my children and fell asleep.
I sleep blissfully these days, mostly dreaming about a real-life kdrama. But those details are precious and the ending will be over a decade in the making. But I sleep truly the sleep of someone who lives a joyous and purposeful life.
These last few days up here have been wondrous. I did so many things that I had not done in a long time, or have never done. I laughed and chatted, and was just my real self with my family members here. We came here to work, but in between found adventures. We visited a lighthouse that was closed, but wandered around the sand dune trails flanked my tall grasses. That short trail led to a long stone pier that led into the Pacific Ocean. Seagulls were flying above braving the strong winds, and the waves crashing on the stone piers were powerful and exciting. We visited cute gift shops and said hello to shopkeepers. I bought unique quality gifts for several children that I love, including mine. I tasted an interesting piece of fudge that looked like chedder cheese, and it’s the top selling item in that gift shop. I looked out at rock formations that are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen.
We also did a lot of work on the farm. A family member was making custom cutting boards from the wood from our forest (we technically own it but it belongs to the collective us really). I rode the ATV, and then drove the ATV. I mowed a few acres of pastureland in a John Deere, while another family member was doing the heavy lifting was a monstrous tractor that we bought. We own a small sawmill now, and how cool is that? Probably one of the moments I will most remember is driving with another family member to where the tree house platform resides that sides on the most northern edge of the pastureland. I had seen pictures of the tree house platform but had not been there. We climbed up and gazed down at the farm, with the Umpqua National Forest behind us. Our land abuts national forest. And I imagined what the tree house will eventually look it. The plan is a 250 SF tree hose with a loft bedroom to sleep. Even now one can have a pretty nice picnic on the platform.
With all those memories, I am ready. I am ready to dive into the presentation I have been putting off. It’s an important presentation to bend the arc toward a sustainable future. So I need to give it the time it deserves, since nature has given me so much.
It was happening while I was watching K-dramas. It was happening while I was trying to shift in a more comfortable position due to some minor back aches. The last volleyball tournament I had sat down for a while, and my back has been bothering me since. I likely need to do more yoga. I know how to listen to my body and I know I’ll be okay.
This morning with some minor back aches, I’m sad. I’m sad because I’m missing my nephew and niece who are in Florida. They are military kids and their family achieved a big professional milestone that is important for them and the country. But I’m their aunt and they are my sister’s children and I just miss them.
I know it was a big day for them with lots of people throughout the country who came in to see them. There are a lot of people who love and care for them. But I wonder if they really know how much I love them? I love them so much since they were little babies. It’s different for me because I’m close with my sister, and the way we raise our children is similar. We were raised by the same mother.
We couldn’t be there and honestly I think it would have been exhausting to fly over there to see them during this very very busy time in their lives. But I’m missing them and I want to be there in the early morning soon, watching them wake up and drinking a Florida version of my matcha green tea soy latte. I want to notice what pajamas they are wearing. I want to see the busyness of their lives as my sister rushes off to drop them off and pick them off for their various activities. I want to see them have dinner and see what kind of cups they are drinking water out of. I want to be able to pick a different mug every morning when I have a different matcha green tea soy latte from my sister’s always organized kitchen.
It’s really hard on military kids, but it’s really hard on their aunt as well. I’ve missed so much of their lives because they have lived far away, and I’m a working mother too. Just letting myself be sad today because some pictures popped up on facebook. I’ll be there soon and I’ll bring their cousins, and we’ll hang out in Florida.
It’s 759am and we just returned from gathering 5 bags of pollution from the ocean’s edge. I sat with my daughter after a very pleasant walk from our house to the beach, where I recounted some of my silly dreams to her. It’s was a very nice walk and we helped the earth and had a nice morning. We are having breakfast now as I’m typing away some quick thoughts.
Due to various reasons I’m not in Florida watching my brother-in-law reach a professional and personal milestone. It seemed safer to stay in San Diego and not risk the other guests getting COVID. I don’t have COVID but others in my family had COVID and because they were vaccinated and boosted and treated in time, they are doing okay. But there was the risk of spreading it to a lot of wonderful people, and honestly I had so much stuff to catch up on – I appreciated the time at home and being able to be here with my children. Case in point, I would not have gotten to go on this morning’s walk if I had gone to Florida.
So today will be a quiet day, but I’ll make sure to make time for the various students that I’ve somehow found and come under my sphere of influence. The above is probably the most impactful right now. One of the third year UCSD medical students is applying to be an editorial fellow for an AMA Bioethics magazine and is looking for my guidance. I agreed to be the faculty advisor/sponsor and help in whatever capacity they needed me, as the proposed focus is going to be bioethics surrounding Environmental Justice work.
Then yesterday I had a premedical advising call with one of our advocacy interns at UC Berkeley and it was very powerful to plan her medical school application. She’ll be incorporating work on waste reduction in her academic portfolio, and we have a large HMO waste reduction project we want to do together. It’s very niche. It will save our HMO lots of money, provide an opportunity for her, and I just saved her personally hundreds of thousands of dollars of unnecessary debt from an unnecessary post-bac. Hopefully her premedical advocacy work will save the earth lots of unnecessary future trash as well!
And then another daughter of a close family friend and one of my patients is going to join in on our youth and art’s exhibition, but the poetry section. This will be just very close children in our family and friends, as I need to keep this contained and doable for my own children. I’m putting them to work for the earth, but need to balance with their other responsibilities.
And that is it. Just thinking of things I need to today and things I already did for the earth!
I must be doing something right. I worked on Saturday afternoon from 130-5pm and was still able to joyfully make dinner with Mr. Plastic Picker’s fancy radiology friend and pharmacist wife at 630pm. I wore a pretty dress and heels, and we talked about our mutual children and life. I had fun listening to them chat, and they listened to me – avidly at times as I recounted some of my adventures. Then last night I worked the staggered late shift, part of a shift I helped pilot and design. The system is not perfect but it’s certainly better for the five years I devoted to trying to make it more livable. I worked last night and it was certainly busy. I even had a resident that I mentored. All the patients were seen on time. A late newborn that had checked in over 4 hours late, I saw as well. I just asked our nursing staff to remind the parents I needed to see everyone in order. That baby ended up needing me anyway, for some simple lab follow up and saved them from having a drive back and the earth some carbon. Oh and the Saturday afternoon shift? I had one of the sickest patients I’ve had in a long time check in at 4pm. The nursing staff and I were able to turn around that patient within 45 minutes, and get them into the ambulance and off to the hospital already stabilized. I had dinner plans and our clinic technically closes at 5pm. I’ve been a doctor for a long time now and I know what to do quickly. At 530pm as the child and mother were safely in the care of the EMTs, I had my backpack with both straps on and walking out the door with most of my charts done.
I know I must be doing something right because last night I was working, I happened to glance an appointment access. There are absolutely no appointments and it’s absolutely horrible right now. I was initially irritated and began to get angry. I had been tasked with this integral part of management for four years. Like any responsibility given to me, I had done it with care. I had made sure there were at least 100-150 appointments available every day. I had recruited per diem pediatricians and kept an eagle on their credentialing to make sure they got through. I learned the intricacies of our system from nursing staffing, to our schedulers optimal work schedules when they were easiest to reach, and created a well-oiled machine on appointment access. It all came tumbling down when I made the decision not to let others take credit for my work, and not involve me in giving out positions and credit to those pediatricians who had taken these part-time positions for our department. When I own it, I own it completely. I literally said at a meeting, you want to take it – then you take it all. And then four years of proper access that lasted through some of the most horrible flu seasons I’ve been through and holiday schedules where we had one new doctor quit unexpectedly, yet everything still opened up with enough appointments – it all came tumbling down.
So last night I was just trying to find appointments for follow ups for my own patients I was seeing, and I happened to be looking at the different clinic schedules the way I used to look at things – and there were no appointments. I was angry initially. I could have written several different versions of scathing blog posts about this. When one is emotional, the writing actually comes out very well. Those are blog posts that get clicked on.
But I know I’m doing something right when I choose positivity and I choose beauty. I chose to let those thoughts meander in my brain as I numbed it with two Kdrama episodes last night. I chose to let the HMO middle management system try to right itself. I choose to be like my father, forever the small business owner that did not let the union machinery nor corporate largesse take credit for his work. He went out his own and built something beautiful. I choose this morning to blog and to remember the beautiful parts of yesterday.
The beauty yesterday as I left clinic was getting to really look at the decals in one of my new exam rooms. It’s a slow project and all I did was buy the decals. I love them and the new nursing partner I have. She also brings beauty and chooses positivity. I chose to chat with a young father who is a Family Practice doctor about his new baby, and give him some advice about life. And I choose to not get involved again in a system that needs to cleanse itself. And if the system doesn’t, than a new system will come. And I got to talk to my daughter last night, and my son as well – and oh yes Mr. Plastic Picker too. We all gathered at 830pm and had a late snack as everyone had a busy Monday. Volleyball tournament for our daughter, AP Biology homework for my son, invitation to speak at Harvard/MGH grand rounds for me, and the continuing adventures of the private school lunch line.
I’m up at 642am and finished a short blog to sort out my thoughts. My matcha green tea soy latte is delicious, and I’m going for a short jog to get my heart rate about 160. I remember pushing myself to run after working until 10pm, and then falling for the first time in my life after running about 7 years ago. I came home scrapped and bloodied, yet still forced myself to work the next day after having worked the night before. Back then my freshman daughter was 7 years of age, and I’m sure it scared her to see me scraped up and pushing myself. But now I’m not scaring anyone anymore, especially not myself.
Met this amazing person this week. Alex Nguyen, emmy award winning reporter and fellow Vietnamese-American from San Diego.
September 17, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
It’s Saturday morning and 635am. I’m wearing a brown flowery shirt with ruffled short sleeves that is physically very cooling, and my mother-in-law while chopping some radishes said it was very pretty. I’m going to just blog for a bit, and then plog to the beach. I’ve slowed down my litter-picking as I’m at bag #730 now. I’m not rushing to get to #1000 which has been my goal. I’m enjoying the process and realizing that I’d like to jog a bit more so I can really get my heart rate up more. I am in my mid-40s and staying really active in your 40s is vital to ensure that I live well into my old age.
What’s the point of saving the earth and raising great kids, if I’m not healthy to see my grandchildren and see how the world turns out? It’s going to be an epic few decades to come. We’ve made great strides in combating climate change and personally I’m proud to have had a role, and to continue to have a role. But I’m aware that I’ve done more than my fair share now.
This week was again epic for climate work and environmental health work. We had a meeting of the Public Health Advisory Council (now called P-HACK), of Climate Actions Campaign to focus on our next year’s priorities. We are still going to work on building electrification and active transport, but now going to focus on resiliency. The recent heat waves drives home the point that this is where health care voices need to be at. I’m so proud to be the Chair of PHAC, and the amazing thing is that day I was just a participant. I reached out to the Vice-Chair, and honestly told her that I had almost fallen asleep driving home that afternoon. It was too much. I also had to be at a college counseling admissions meeting for my son at his posh private school, so it would be hard to lead the meeting. Most climate and health advocacy is volunteer. We all have full time jobs otherwise and this is the work of the heart. And the loving Vice-Chair said she could lead the meeting and it went so well. And one of our other PHAC council members is going to be on the panel of a large meeting Nexus, and her beautiful picture is on the social media ads for it. I’m so proud to know them both and to work with them. The other epic advancement is that everything is coming out fine for the Climate Ride that Dr. Sally Kaufman with a little help from myself, is planning. This is to raise awareness about the effects of climate change on pediatric health. Getting approvals and bringing up the proposals took a lot of bravery and persistence. I’m proud to have helped with that. A few more emails, gathering more sign-ups and getting the AAP Banner to fly for the actual day. (Just emailed the AAP San Diego folks to borrow the banner for two free publicity events).
And the I got to meet Alexander Nguyen, who is an Emmy-award winning journalist now with KPBS. He interviewed me for the anti-vaping legislation at Chula Vista City Hall. Our student Laisha Felix had her op-ed published in the Chula Vista Star News. Looking at her letter again, I am so proud of her for finding her voice. Our team did really well, and contributed a lot to the passing of the legislation 5-0. For this effort, it was myself, Dr. Dear Friend and our premed intern Laisha Felix. We were all over the news in Spanish and English, and Dr. Dear Friend brought it home in an emotional testimony that has now gotten her invited to testify at the state level for Proposition 31.
But in all those victories this week for the earth and the children, I learned to say no. I realize I want to run a bit more, and after almost falling asleep while I was driving home one afternoon – it’s not worth dying to help save the earth. It’s really all our jobs. I’ll continue to do it at a sustainable pace, but I need to sleep and exercise to get my heart rate up and healthy past 140!!!
So there are all the things I said politely NO to this week. These are all things that are not required for my job and nothing I’m actually responsible for. And actually, all these things are things that other people actually either get time or paid to do. So I’m not going to do their job if it does not bring me joy. I said NO to a presentation to nursing education on implicit bias. Its an HMO thing and I already lead two big committees for FREE. And I’m speaking at two regional conferences for FREE. And I’ve been of the news gathering publicity for our group at least 8 times for FREE. So to the actually beautiful person who went me the request, I politely said NO this year. They can ask me next year. I said NO to going out with the family practice residents for dinner last night. I already managed their first rotation for FREE. Gave a two lectures for FREE. Helped provide their breakfast for FREE. We even took them out to eat (although I did not get paid). They have faculty that actually I know get paid a lot of money to manage them and since this was my off time and Friday night, I spent the evening with my own children. I love the residents but would not love having dinner with them when my own children were at home. I also said NO to a conference for another peripherally related outdoor events advocacy group. I want kids to get outdoors and this work is important. But I’m actually hyper-focused on climate change and more impactful legislation, and none of the premed interns want to do this project. So I said NO. We are staying on their email list. I said NO to officially joining the physician wellness committee. I can do wellness events without actually being part of the actual committee. Wow, it’s really fun to say NO.
But the reason it’s important to say NO, is so that I can say YES to other things. So this weekend I’m saying YES to exercising my heart. I’m going on a run soon. I’m saying YES to working a shift at La Mesa, because we still have to work and the powers that be that are running the department (well, they are doing the best they can with the resources they have). I actually don’t mind working this afternoon because I’m going to get to see two friends that I haven’t seen in a while. They might call me off though. I’m the most expensive doctor. When I used to run things, I saved the HMO thousands and thousands for dollars. I have email evidence of all that. But no one really cares anymore. But I CARE!!!! So I’m saving myself money by taking care of my own health today! I’m off to the beach to plog!!!
Thank you for following along on the continuing adventures of Dr. Plastic Picker, your no longer burnt out pediatrician who finds the trashy world – fascinating! But let’s make it LESS TRASHY!!!
I’m sitting in the kitchen on labor day weekend and there is a heatwave in San Diego. It was >101 degrees in Mission Valley yesterday, as we were stuck in traffic trying to get past the 15 and 8 intersection. The new Snapdragon Stadium is up, and there was an Arizona versus SDSU football game. Young people were walking in the >100 heat on edgeways trying to get to the stadium and not pay for parking. The stadium is also bordered on the east by an asphalt parking lot. I know eventually there are some plans for green space, but from our CMAX Energi Hybrid that at some points was relatively fuel efficient for it’s day – it looked like literally a hot mess.
I had just last week been on a series of marathon interviews for the local news on extreme heat. Our HMO media person had reached out as I’m known in our organization to be “on call for the earth” and for these impactful opportunities – I certainly am. But after saying on the news multiple times hydrate, rest, get in the shade, and enact the climate action plan – I was watching our citizens walk over asphalt to get to a stadium and then to hit in the hot sun. Most of them were young and fit, but I did not see any reusable water bottles? Do you know if they are even allowed in the stadium? As a pediatrician, I just imagined San Diegan after San Diegan suffering heat exhaustion and maybe a few with heat stroke. I imagined the colleagues manning the health tent, and how frustrating it would be. But at some point, I’m able to disconnect and realize they are on – and I’m off. I did my duty and was on the news four times. I did my duty and was part of the grassroots movement to help pass $54 billion in California legislation that invests this sizable amount to helping bend the arc toward a sustainable future.
And now I’m in my house in the early morning with my daughter. She’s making us breakfast and adding an extra mushy banana to the pancake mix. In the relativeness of our imaginary place in the world, I know we are incredibly fortunate. We have air conditioning. We have solar panels. We have a garden that will survive the heat wave because I saved our extra bathwater and have been giving the plants a bit extra. But being a bit more fortunate in a world that still needs saving, means a need to do a little more. But I’m resting this weekend, and spending a gloriously slow weekend with my teen children.
Since finishing my Assistant Boss term a year early (I opted to leave at year 5 versus year 6) effective end of May, it’s been a gloriously long summer with my children. I missed so much when they were younger. Preschool costume parades, school award assemblies and the one time my daughter did ice skating camp and the end of camp performance – I remember crying in my office I was so frustrating that I couldn’t take that Friday afternoon off. Now looking back I would have told my younger self, just call in sick that day. If it was that important to you. I had not done that in fifteen years, and I 100% know it’s a common thing that is done. One day in 15 years, is not bad. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not human, or at least a dishonest one.
Hmmm, why did I start blogging? Oh yes. Just reminding myself and the readership to eat plants. Eat more plants. That is one of the easiest ways to heal yourself and heal the earth. The crazy thing is the world has made it so difficult for us to have the time to grow the plants, gather the plants, buy the plants and have time to cook the plants. The evil-doers of the world would rather take the plants, over process them, and wrap plastic in the them – and effectively make them cancer-causing agents and pollute the ocean with more plastic.
So I am sitting here in the morning and thinking of the beautiful banana that my daughter is adding to the pancake mix. I guess bananas have dopamine in them. Who knows what the mechanism is for the dopamine from the bananas effect on your health, or whether that dopamine is absorbed in the gut? We all do 100% know that eating more plants elevates your mood and gives us better health.
Grateful thoughts to the avocados we finished this last week, as our daughter made home-made guacamole to share. Grateful thoughts to the last of the tomatoes that we added to the stir frys an the pastas this week, and those tomatoes were from our garden. Grateful thoughts to the three large pumpkins we have in the back garden waiting for grandmother to come home from New York to decide when it’s time to take down the vines. Grateful to the Aerobin 400 composter that powers our garden, and helps us avert methane from landfill at the same time.
I’m one of the happiest pediatricians I know these days, and I think it’s simply because I’m eating more plants. I think my favorite dinosaur has got to be a brontosaurus! Yes it is, because they eat plants as well!
This is the emotional journey of a formerly burnt out pediatrician who decided to pick up trash on the beach. I’m trying to get to 1000 bags of trash, and things have been slowing down a bit. For the month of August and September I only gathered 20 bags of plastic pollution. The reason why is that during my litter-picking I realized that I was better, and that the world actually was in need of a super-hero to help stop the existential threat of climate change. So Dr. Plastic Picker decided to join the legions of other super heroes that are trying to save the earth. Which is why this month the actual litter picking slowed down, because there were huge legislative wins this month.
protests on the Harvard campus re fossil fuel divestment.
August 18, 2022
by Dr. Plastic Picker
I’ve done my due diligence. I’ve presented at multiple high levels meetings and I’ve told the divestment story. I’ve shown pictures of students protesting at the UC campus and at Harvard. I talked about how members took over the Board of Directors within the Harvard governance system, and that is what forced the divestment issue. I showed pictures of union groups rallying regarding SB1173. I said specifically at least five times now to those in charge or with some level of influence, “there is a huge up swelling of grassroots support for fossil fuel divestment and this includes union groups. We need to be ahead of the curve to gain public support and gain trust equity within the community. It’s the right thing to do.”
I was met with the same expected response. Thank yous for my advocacy and passion. Thank you for understanding the system. Advice about how to proceed by taking smaller steps. I will continue to talk about divestment versus investment. I will work within our system. I’ll move our investments forward to more ESG funds and yes there are other projects to do like reducing the use of unnecessary surgical drapes.
But in the end, this blog is my emotional journey of a pediatrician who recognizes the existential crisis of climate change. And I had some big meetings and will continue to have these meetings, but I’m frustrated to the 100th degree. I’m a working stiff, who happily worked the staggered late shift last night. I’ve done so much for our medical system and I am very cost effective. And I’ve never wasted any money. And those that are sitting and being cogs in the HMO machinery. Those who are not listening to me, I get it. We are so big. But you are not being cost effective. You are wasting my time and my money. Fossil fuel investments are investments in climate disaster. What is your money and our real estate worth is the world keeps on warming?
We need to stop the existential threat of climate change, and fossil fuel divestment by our large HMO could pop the bubble in oil extraction. We could help bend the arc toward a sustainable future faster and maybe avert some of the dire catastrophic climatic disasters that are coming. The megaflood in California, the wildfires that are already here, the heat waves that are already here. But in the midst of all that, HMO you are asking me to take baby steps.
Yes I’ll work in the system and take baby steps. Someone else already tried to raise a rukus and got in trouble from another region. I’m a former Assistant Boss and I know not to do that. I’ll take baby steps and get that regional position that no one wants, because no one is being paid to do it – and I’ll do it for free. But in the end, I’m as crazy an environmentalist as those others that you fear who realizes what the threat is. I’m just old enough to have been in middle-management to know you need those within who support this.
But when the children come. When the protestors come. When the megafloods come (the wildfires and the drought are already here), I told you so. They won’t come for me because I’m Dr. Plastic Picker, and I was an inside agent anyway. I 100% told you so. And I put it on the blog and I’ve put it in at least 5 power point presentations. And that is it. This is the emotional journey of a litter-picking pediatrician who continues to try to move the needle on climate change within the very large frustrating HMO system.
Yes dear readers. Dr. Plastic Picker strikes again. I spoke at a rally yesterday at the civic center, which I’m now very familiar with. I was one of the headline speakers and even had a fancy social media ad made about me. I spent at least 5 hours of my time yesterday committed as Chair, Public Health Advisory Council, Climate Actions Campaign. The updated San Diego Climate Action Plan that seeks to have net zero carbon by 2035 with accountability and transparency passed 4-0 in the Environmental Committee. It’s funny how I know the members of this committee by name as well as I used to know the members of the middle management HMO commitees I used to serve on.
We are all real people with real families, and San Diegans trying to get it right. But we are all playing our roles as well. My role was formal and I didn’t get to tell anyone I was Dr. Plastic Picker. I was a generic general pediatrician representing the generally shortest and less well paid but overly educated MDs who chose to take care of kids. I wore my white coat that I had upcycled from my Harvard residency MGH and just had my father-in-law iron on an SDPCA patch over it. I wore a bright light yellow and airy top with black trousers and flats. My hair was black and I wore glasses. Honestly, I was like every other pediatrician that you might meet out there. And even though in my real self, I’m off beat, I play that generic role honestly. I was there to speak for my profession and our children. I didn’t need to stand out. I think my comments went over well. I cried as I have real climate grief at times. I made my remarks toward our collective children. I’ll post them on the San Diego Pediatricians for Clean Air website. Here, on this blog, is my emotional environmental journey.
I let others take the attention. I introduced my wonderful former patient and now premed student to some law makers and climate leaders. We had a picture together and that was so meaningful, as our relationship is cemented in social media and in Fox News when they got her from the side of the climate rally. My student didn’t seek attention but I wanted her to get some. The Youth Vs. Oil speakers are young high school students who I now know play on the same volleyball club as my daughter and they demanded attention, and their youth and passion is the attention that the climate movement needs. And the politicians always demand attention and recognition, and that is well and good as they need to grand stand and take credit and the credit is well deserved. It’s amazing that Nicole Capretz the founder and executive director of Climate Actions Campaign never demands attention, but gets so much press coverage, and I hold her as an example of how to build an organization.
But in the end, Dr. Plastic Picker did get attention! During the public testimony of the San Diego CAP update, environmentalists from throughout San Diego came together and drowned out a few of the SDGE /fossil fuel voices. The Audubon Advocates showed up, and they were so awesome. You could tell it was their first time advocating because some of them did not know to change their zoom names to their actual names. But at the end of testimony where I was Chair, Public Health Advisory Council and American Academy of Pediatrics Environmental Health Council – I said “I just want to say AAP loves San Diego Audubon. What is good for the birds is good for kids!!!” And that is it. That is a sentence I’ve been emailing my friends at San Diego Audubon as we do shared projects and I said it as a pediatric shoutout to the bird people in the middle of city council chambers. There were chuckles from the chamber. I think I had the most fun yesterday. Dr. Plastic Picker with my new hashtag #whatisgoodforthebirdsisgoodforkids LOL LOL LOL.
