Saving the planet…with a carnival?

My tiny attempts at trying to save the planet are still ongoing, but lately, rather than working on my book pitch for my agent, or writing droll blog posts for you all to commiserate with (*see p.s. below), I’ve switched gears a bit. I’ve been writing press releases. And social media content. And emails back and forth with a graphic designer, and a printer, and a committee of fellow environerds as we plan . . .

[drum roll, please]

A carnival.

A climate carnival, to be exact.

What is a “climate carnival”? Well, in my world, it starts with a crap website housed on a low-tech county Google site. And an acquaintance sending it to me along with the note, “Hey, Deb, you might be interested in this event in July.” Followed by my saying, “Please let me help you.” And their saying, “Okay.”

Which leads to my spending many, many more hours than I intended helping a very grateful committee get this thing on the map. I gotta say, it’s pretty gratifying seeing our press coverage grow, and people following the social media accounts I set up, and more people wanting to participate in the carnival itself as that all happens. I mean, we’ve now booked a juggler. A juggler, people.

My buddies the Wicked Messengers. I might be doing a song with ’em. 😉

And we’ve got a few really cool bands (including some friends of mine, who are gonna ROCK the County Fairgrounds), and I’ll be doing a live interactive quiz called “Are You an Environerd?”—a spin-off of my “Are You a Feminist?” quiz (video here). I still need to write it . . . but I’ve got 13 more days.

The website still isn’t awesome, but it’s better. Hopefully the social media makes up for it. (Here’s our FB Page and Instagram.) Luckily I now have an “assistant” for the marketing (who’s prob more qualified than I am). And the guy who runs the website is awesome.

But best of all, we just may have a positive impact on a fair amount of people in a bunch of little Hudson Valley towns. Even if they just come for the “Free Store,” or to get their broken stuff fixed at the “Repair Café,” instead of sending it to landfills. Or to let their kids see and learn about birds of prey, and the e-n-v-i-r-o-n-m-e-n-t.

I could say more, but it’s all on that slapped-together website, ClimateCarnival.org. (At least it’s got a buzzier URL now :-).

If you’re in Columbia County, give it a whirl on July 16th!

xo,
Citizen Deb

*p.s. I knew that eff’ed-up Supreme Court decision on climate change was coming. The Thanksgiving before last, I wrote about El Trumpo’s envirollbacks [sic] in a FUN QUIZ. His Environmental Protection Agency (and cronies) decided NOT to recognize the climate crisis or carbon emissions as part of their wheelhouse of protecting American citizens. The (fossil fuel) billionaires simply washed their hands of it. Carnival, anyone???