 | It’s hard to believe it’s already been one year since I launched The Verdant Yank blog on St. Patrick’s Day 2016. Honestly, the blog was born out of pure frustration. -There were stories that needed to be told but conventional media wasn’t giving me a platform to tell them, in part because conventional media is generally poor on environmental coverage but also because they had no interest in content from a “blow in” with a funny accent and even funnier last name. Hence, with some encouragement from friends, I decided to own the challenge and embark on my second blog ‘The Verdant Yank’ – Blogs on Ireland’s environment from my outlandish Irish-American perspective. |
| Those same friends thought I’d lost a few marbles when I accompanied my first blog on the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with an off-the-wall video that involved eating copious amounts of cream cake, but the blog was my laboratory and it was fun to see what kind of reaction letting out the cray-cray would get. If not on Paddy's Day, then when?! | |
Over the year, I’ve become more media savvy and found creative ways to get environmental stories into the mainstream Irish and international press. Thus, ‘The Verdant Yank’ has become a playground for a different type of writing – something more personal and cathartic. My musings in the mainstream press are things I think other people need to know, while what I write on the blog helps me work through my arguments and conflicting thoughts. The blog is my only platform to write about environmental problems in a deeply personal way, which seems to resonate with those looking for something different and authentic.
 | My motto for blogging is the same as my motto for dancing: Do it like nobody’s watching. -Drop the ego and insecurities and get funky! |
Ironically, my blogs occasionally have more impact than mainstream content even though the latter reaches a wider readership. For example, during the Irish General Election of 2016, I wanted to analyze how Ireland’s political parties stacked up on climate policies in their manifestos, mainly to figure out who to vote for in my own constituency. Nonetheless, I decided to blog and vlog about it to save some other poor soul the trouble of reading nearly 700 pages of manifesto promises.
| My effort featured on RTE News and the Irish Times with many people writing to thank me for doing the work so they didn’t have to. I made some enemies within a few political parties who weren’t too happy with my critical analysis, but I’m willing to bet they’ll dot their i’s and cross their t’s the next time they address climate change in their manifestos, and that’s the kind of impact I’d be really happy with. | |
Looking back on this year of blogging, I was curious to find out which blogs got the most attention. Overwhelmingly, it was a post I wrote after a train wreck of a TV appearance on TV3's 'Tonight with Vincent Browne' show last August. I’d been assured before I went on that the debate would be about Ireland’s response to climate change, not an archaic debate about the existence of climate change, but the minute we went live it was clear I’d been misled when the presenter started the show asking the audience “are you a believer?” as if the science of climate change was some kind of religious belief.
| My colleagues and I valiantly argued against the token contrarian “communications consultant” but went away disappointed we didn’t get to tackle the real burning issue of the Irish government’s complacency on climate change. | |
In an effort to reclaim the debate, I took to the blog that night and vented my frustrations. The post, sarcastically titled "Long live the status quo!", went viral the next day though I suspected I’d never be invited back on Vincent Browne’s show again after expressing my opinion so publicly. Fair dues to the show’s producers, however. They invited me back on as a regular contributor to discuss the news headlines with Vincent Browne and I’m about to make my fourth appearance this coming Tuesday. It’s been an even better opportunity to bring environmental issues into everyday news and it’s a good learning experience to develop informed opinions beyond climate and environmental issues. A blog I expected to spell career suicide turned out to be an opportunity in disguise.
 | The biggest surprise of my year of blogging ‘The Verdant Yank’ was winning the Irish blog awards in the current affairs and politics category last year. I applied for that category along with the science category but had been disappointed when I didn’t make the short list for science, which seemed a more obvious fit, so I never expected to win an award in current affairs and politics. As it turned out, having an environmental blog nationally recognised as a current affairs issue was far more meaningful than having it recognised as an obvious science issue. |
The award put my blog “on the map” and resulted in a lot of amazing opportunities, including getting recognized on the Irish Independent’s list of 20 "influencers" in Ireland’s response to climate change -a deeply satisfying moment of my career to date because it made all the trolling and frustration over the years worthwhile.
The Verdant Yank lives on (at least as long as I have a U.S. passport). I’m fuelled to keep writing by the wonderful comments I get from readers. Thanks to those of you who have reached out to let me know you’ve been inspired to ‘keep fighting the good fight’ through my work. Environmental advocacy can be a thankless vocation, so those comments mean more than you can imagine and keep me fighting the good fight too. In this world of dark skies, it’s nice that we have each other. :-)
 | Happy St. Patrick’s Day from The Verdant Yank and, as always, keep fighting the good fight! -Cara |
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