As a newcomer to D.C., I am eager to explore all this city has to offer. Despite the sprawling National Mall and the throngs of tourists, D.C. is also a network of communities. This blog explores the ways that D.C. residents are banding together to strengthen communities, and building an inclusive green economy from the bottom-up.

I’m sitting in San Francisco.  It is a few hours before my flight back to D.C., and I am feeling tired, windblown, and happy.

Forgive me if I lapse, just once more, into California revelries, but I have just returned from backpacking in the Sierras.  Although it was a short trip, the four days spent in the Desolation Wilderness area of the El Dorado National Forest were a perfect reminder of why I believe it is the duty of our generation to be stewards for this planet.

I have been going camping in the Sierras almost every summer since I was five years old.  The tall, spindly pine trees poking out of cracks in the smooth stone, the Manzanita bushes bordering sections of slippery scree, snow-melt streams running into mountain lakes, and the ridges covered in meadows bursting with wildflowers feel like my second home.

My mom fell in love with the Sierras 30 years ago when she spent the summer building and maintaining trails there.  So it seemed wonderful and appropriate that she, my father, and I would celebrate her 60^th birthday this year by throwing our gear into our backpacks and heading out into the Mountains.

When I was little, I was amazed that if we hiked up high enough we could find snow in the middle of the summer.  I would spend hours and hours hiking to the top of a snow patch and then sliding down it—on my belly, on my back, or headfirst into a half-frozen lake.

While helping me identify plants, my mom explained to me the reason there are wildflowers in the Sierras all summer long: as the snow melts little by little, it thaws and waters a little section of earth that then bursts into bloom as if it were the first day of Spring.

Wildflowers are just a small piece of what depends on that high-altitude snow for summertime survival.  The whole delicate ecosystem of that pristine and gorgeous wilderness area will be altered if we do not mitigate the effects of climate change.

My excursion into the Desolation Wilderness helped remind me how very crucial it is that we ramp up our efforts to promote energy efficiency in DC and create a model green city to be replicated across the nation.

Not only is it good for today’s economy, and tomorrow’s environment, weatherizing homes now helps preserve these treasured wilderness areas…and I know I, for one, would like to slide down a snow bank in the Sierras in celebration of my own 60^th birthday.