My Mom is Bartender — Social Stigmas & Climate Change

With a heavy heart, on October 10th I left the Climate March on the same day it crossed into Pennsylvania, and I returned home to New York. Recently, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Texas-based company Crestwood Midstream's proposal to store methane in old salt caverns along the Western shore of Seneca Lake. This, I had told myself, would be the one situation that would draw me away from finishing the Climate March early. So, here I am.

I soon discovered that I was not only returning home to a lake in crisis, but also a mother in crisis.

My mom and I during her visit to the Climate March in Ohio

Two nights ago my heart was broken as my mom broke down in tears and sobbed in a panicky voice about the outside pressures she was feeling in her life.