Climate Activist Interviews #5: Edgar McGregor

This is the fifth week of a series on this blog where I interview other climate activists. I hope these interviews help connect climate activists around the world, boost the good work they're doing, and give potential activists ideas and encouragement for action they could take to fight the climate crisis!

Today's interviewee is Edgar McGregor, climate activist and amateur climatologist in California. You can follow him on Twitter at @edgarrmcgregor.

Tell me a bit about you - where are you from, what age are you, and what do you do (climate-related and otherwise)? 

My name is Edgar McGregor and I live in Pasadena, California. I am currently a student at Pasadena City College, and I am a climate activist. I have been striking outside Pasadena City Hall every Friday since March 8, 2019 to demand action on the climate crisis from my local politicians. I have been cleaning up trash every single day at my local park since May 29, 2019, collecting over 1 ton of trash across a single park. 

You’re an amateur climatologist. What does that involve, and what are some interesting or important things you’ve studied so far? 

I am currently a geography student at my local community college and self-proclaimed amatuer climatologist. I have done extensive research on studying how climate change is affecting the weather here in southern California. I have discovered that my city is 6.5F warmer than it was 112 years ago, has doubled the average number of extreme heat days per year in that time, and has also become far more susceptible to drought. Using deposited tree logs, I also have studied historic high-flow flood events in local canyons in recent decades to figure out the maximum water discharge of local rivers. Hopefully my findings will one day help my city prepare for the flood we are susceptible to. 

How did you get into climate activism? 

Long ago, I was once much more interested in Meteorology, the study of weather. I watched the weather very closely, from the temperature outside to amount of rainfall each storm gave us. When I turned 15, I began noticing our weather was steadily warmer than I remembered it being as a kid, and I began to wonder how climate change was affecting my city. Heavy rain was falling in months where it doesn’t normally every rain, heatwaves were occurring in months were they shouldn’t, and wildfires kept ravaging nearby towns. I quickly realized that the climate crisis was significantly altering the weather in my region, and the rest is history. 
 
What are some highlights of what you’ve done so far? 

Honestly, I feel like I haven't done enough. Even though I strike every Friday alongside thousands of other teenagers across the world, organize global climate strikes in Los Angeles, and clean up m[y] park daily, I still don’t feel like I have done enough. Every year, I continue to watch our species carbon emissions rise, and I know we have more work to do. My greatest accomplishments are the days of my trash clean ups when it was really inconvenient for me to go out there. I have cleaned up trash in the pouring rain, during extreme windstorms, after 12 hour shifts at work, during finals week, and even during extreme heat waves. I want to send a message to those around me that I really care about this planet; because I do. Saying it in words isn’t quite enough. To me, individual climate action isn’t just about reducing emissions, it is about sending a message. I need people to know that I will not stop fighting for future generations, so that maybe, just maybe, they will feel obligated to join me. 

Have you found community with other environmental activists?

I definitely have found community with other climate activists, especially here in Los Angeles. 

Tell me about the Earth CleanUp project. 

After I began climate striking for a couple hours every Friday in March, I really felt like I wasn’t doing enough. Walking away at the end of my strike didn’t feel right, and I knew I needed to do more. Since I love nature, I decided to spend a few hours every Saturday cleaning up trash at my local park. After 2 or 3 weeks, I quickly found that it wasn’t going to help the situation at my park. I needed to clean up every day instead. Beginning on May 29th, 2019, I did just that. My park is the mouth of a very large canyon that stretches from just a few blocks from my house to about 2 miles into the mountain range nearby. There are trails that criss-crossing the canyon floor, and a river that flows through it, but only when it is raining. While most trails end within the park, some trails stretch into the mountain range above and connect with the Pacific Crest trail that stretches 1,200 miles away! There really isn’t an end to my park! At first, I truly believed it would only take me roughly 10 days to have the entire park cleaned up. Today was day 203 of my cleanup, and I am not yet done. I have found trash in every single portion of the park, from the parking lot at the main entrance to the most distant shrub clearings. I have found trash across the entire portion of the river, inside tree trunks, in animals mouths, and even atop the tallest canyon walls. I have found phones, wallets, shoes, money, car keys, and even furniture. One of the most difficult things about the daily clean ups is how inconvenient they can be for me. It is a 4 hour walk from my home to the very popular waterfall and back. If I want to drive to the entrance of the park near the waterfall, this means leaving my house before 7 AM so that I can bring the car back to my family member who has work, as I don’t have a car. Cleaning up trash every day also means I have hiked in all sorts of weather. For the first 150 days of my trash clean up, it did not rain a single time in my city. By the end of the 150 days, everything in the park was dead save the largest plants and trees. Temperatures in summer exceeded 95F, or 35C, nearly every single day, and this was a cool summer. A summer without a drop of rain is normal here. Since summer has ended, I have hiked in the pouring rain on multiple occasions. I have also hiked during some extreme windstorms, two of which on November 26th, 2019 and December 17th, 2019 delivered gusts of 65 MPH. I have heard and seen more than enough trees fall down for one life. I also worked an eight hour physical labor job six days a week during the entire summer, which made cleaning up trash every day even more difficult. Some days, I worked 12 hours shifts and still cleaned up trash. Being out there in nature every day is important to me. I have learned so much and accomplished even more. I have learned much about my local ecology, met some great people, forced myself to exercise every day, forced myself to get out in nature every day, cleaned up trash, and send a message to the world that nothing is going to stop this generation from preserving this planet for future generations. As a first step for entering the climate movement, I urge all who read this to do as I do and care for your local park. 

Like me, Greta Thunberg, and many other climate activists, you’re autistic. Do you have any thoughts on whether/why autistic people tend to care more about the environment? 

Nature, for many people on the spectrum, is very important to our mental health. Nature makes a lot of sense to us, and we can often easily spend hours upon hours in nature alone and not get bored.  Most of us can stare at a stream for hours on end and not get bored. One reason why I chose cleaning up trash every day as my individual action is because I get to be in nature every single day for at least an hour. Autistic people tend to care more about the climate crisis than our neurotypical counterparts because we see the natural areas we love so much changing. It is not supposed to rain in my region in summer at all, and yet here comes flash floods rolling down my wash in August. It is not supposed to be hot in October, and yet there are the pre-dawn hours on late October mornings that fail to get cooler than the average summertime afternoon. Animals are fleeing my park in droves, finding their only refuge is in peoples neighborhoods drinking sprinkler water. Heavy rains followed by long droughts are the perfect conditions for wildfires. I know that on any given day, my entire park could be leveled by a devastating wildfire. Autistic people care about the climate crisis so much because we on average watch and value nature more than others, and we are watching nature crumble. 

What have you learned through your activism?

I have learned quite a lot about both myself and the world. My activism has shown me all the different ways people are being affected by social justice issues. It has taught me a lot about how the world works, and how my little corner of the world compares to others. I have learned what part of this movement I can contribute to, and I learned about which parts I can’t. 

What are your goals for 2020 for climate action in the US?

My main goal for climate action in 2020 is to double the size of our community. We need more people speaking up about this issue, demanding politicians to do something about, and recognizing the crisis we are in. During our September global climate strike, the U.S. didn’t even have a million participants, despite having a population of well over 300 million people. Other nations with much smaller populations did, and so there is clear room for improvement. We need more people to not just listen to the science, but to understand it and to act on it. 

What’s something or someone you think more people should know about?

I think one point people should realize is that far too many people seem to be waiting for a hero or a miracle technology that is going to come in and save us all from ourselves. We have the opportunity right now to provide to future generation a guide on how to get our act together as a species and solve an existential crisis. That will be incredibly valuable to them. We can’t rely on a miracle or a hero to save us, because one isn’t coming. We all have to do the hard work.

Both of us have experienced people thanking us for our activism but not participating - what would you like to say to those people?

I would say that the point of my daily trash cleanups, my weekly climate strikes, and my occasional major climate strike organizing is useful is because it gets people who support me to help actually help me. We teenagers cannot solve the climate crisis alone. We need your help, and our actions are often a masked cry for help. 

How can people join or support your work?

People can support my work by joining me from wherever they are. Whether it is talking about climate change, climate striking, organizing global climate strikes, picking up trash, or planting trees, it all helps both myself and future generations. 

Do you have any advice for fellow or potential climate activists? 

To future climate activists, I would say please forgive yourself. Previous generations have built this society that doesn’t allow you to not emit fossil fuels. Do what you can to fight for this planet, but above all, make sure you are comfortable. We need as many people in this movement as possible. There is still so much of Earth left to save. 

Thank you so much, Edgar, for your time and your action!

And to those reading this: Happy #FridaysForFuture! For next Friday, find your local strike point, or start one, and join us!

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Answers in these interviews are lightly edited for formatting/grammar/spelling and clarity.