“Gosh it must be hard, always being on the losing side,” the young woman told me in an attempt to be supportive.
        I was stunned that a graduate student enrolled in a joint natural resources and business program would have such a dreadfully negative impression of environmental advocacy.
        “Not really. I love this work because we make a real difference by winning,” I responded.
        Yet like it or not, I had to admit that this student’s opinion is common. People think of environmental advocates as earnest losers.
        Another friend active with The Nature Conservancy says that conservancies can raise much bigger money than advocacy groups like MEC because conservancies have a “happier message.” She’s right, of course, in so far as conservancies can promise near certainty of positive outcomes if they meet their financial goals. “Give us money,” they say, “and you can protect an important piece of land in perpetuity.” Their projects have beginnings and endings: identify and appraise the property, invite the donors to visit the site and shazam! If the financial goals are met, the land deal can usually be sealed.
        Our work, in contrast, is often more global, diffuse and abstract. We can’t take people out to stand on a Great Lakes shoreline to show them what their gift helped purchase. When environmental advocates hit a home run with a rule to hammer 90% of the mercury out of dirty old coal burning plants, we know it will be years before there will be measurable emissions reductions and more years after that until we see people being able to eat the fish they catch without concern of mercury contamination. When we get communities to cut back on the phosphorous they allow to be put on lawns, or push through a rule to require better protections against failing septic systems, we know that algae blooms on favorite beaches won’t disappear overnight—though we’re confident our work will eventually pay off in cleaner water.
        And now, dealing head-on with global warming, it’s easy to understand why, rather than feeling overwhelmed, well-meaning people might want to ignore this mega-challenge. If those of us closest to the work don’t break it down into achievable goals, we too could be overwhelmed. But we’re not.
        We’re working for passage next year of something called a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to guarantee a market for renewable energy from sources like wind and solar in Michigan and help reduce greenhouse gas pollution. It will be a small but important step toward massive energy modifications needed to avoid saddling future generations with the worst consequences of our profligate energy habits. California, Europe and others are showing a commitment to much greater changes. Michigan is playing catch up. We’re making progress, and MEC is one reason that change is happening.

Just because our work is endless and more abstract than the conservancies doesn’t mean that we can’t claim the joy of achievement. Even as we will always have our eyes on the next major set of challenges, we owe it to ourselves and the people we ask to support us to celebrate our successes along the way.