Day 6: One Last Ride (Kind Of) by Dexter Lim

July 5th, 2019

Day 6: One Last Ride (Kind of)

by Dexter Lim

It is both exciting and melancholic to write this on our group's last day at UCSD. In the 6 days here, I have met some of the most dedicated, forward-thinking, and involved people in my entire life. During the week, through research and team-building activities, I feel that the group’s camaraderie and trust has become much stronger, and that we have all been working together towards the common goal set forth by this program: to learn to become responsible and well-informed leaders in sustainability.  Today, we made a monumental step towards that focus as we drafted our issue papers, as well as learning how to research our congressional representatives and their political stances. I personally found my research into the numerous bills introduced and cosigned by my representative, Susie Lee, frustrating as I could not find any decisive policy to help protect the environment that she had endorsed. Additional research, as well as my own experience with contacting her office, has definitely shown that my group will have our work cut out for us when prompting her to take action when we meet with her later this week. I do believe it will be a monumentally easier task with some of my new friends there to assist me given the tenacity and synergy they have shown.

Beginning our Congressional research and Issue Paper

Other people in the program have different focuses on the topic of their issue papers. We will be meeting with many different representatives with diverse opinions, although they are all democrats.  I have found it very interesting and edifying to hear about everyone else’s paper topics, and it has made me realize how many factors are contributing to climate change. as well as better understand the myriad of changes that need to occur if we are to take responsible action to preserve not just a habitable world, but a beautiful one.  It gives me hope that there are people like those in this program whose conservational interests span such a wide spectrum of environmental protection. I was always a strong activist for climate change but deep down held a degree of pessimism for the actual odds of humanity taking the proper steps towards repairing the damage done to the Earth.  While having learned new and quite frankly terrifying statistics depicting how our planet’s future becomes less and less certain with every day, I have also seen there a many people working hard towards a sustainable existence.  

A little bit of teambuilding at the beach

Our final activity today was team building, the most freeing and open of which was when we sat in a circle and asked ourselves “wouldn’t it be nice if...” and described a wishful situation using that prompt.  As this went on, we described more and more personal steps we could take to address the issue and identify where change can come from in the spotlight, something we will all need to focus on when presenting to our reps in Washington, as well as any action we may take outside of the program.  

There is hope that species such as these can be preserved through positive group efforts.

In summary, I feel that the stay at UCSD and participation in the GELS program thus far has been a unique and once in a lifetime opportunity.  In learning to live away from home, meeting new people, and learning how to make a change in the world I live in, the program has been amazingly productive and informational, with today especially reinforcing the key ideas we have been taught.  While I am sad to leave campus (64 Degrees dining hall I’ll miss you!) I am also very happy to be able to travel to D.C. in the morning. Writing this now, I feel very motivated to visit the nation’s capital, and over the last week my confidence in proposing my issue paper has been bolstered to make me feel better than ever about my involvement in advocacy from everybody’s mutual support.  I should probably go to sleep, considering it's a very early morning tomorrow, but with a week of possibility and adventure ahead of us, I think I might be too excited to do so.