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Small herbivore from America living in New Zealand. Working to save the wild things. Biology graduate, former race car driver. ⓥ

@leilanimunter and I have a tradition, for every lifer we see we take a shot of limoncello!

It is our way of celebrating that awesome feeling you get when you get a lifer!!

Only problem is, we have a life list of 733 😬

#bird #birding #lifer

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Herons and Turtles conversing. Observed on today’s walk. Week is made. Retired life be good! ✌️💚🌱

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$American Energy. Veterans. A vegan hippie-chic. Sixteen years ago, we took Operation Free to the Kansas City Raceway to test a theory: “Is it the message, or the messenger?” Were Americans, particularly in red states, rejecting clean energy because they associated it with Al Gore and environmental activism? Or had we failed to connect the dots between energy independence and national security? The results were striking. When combat veterans delivered the message, the pushback was near zero. Fast-forward sixteen years. Yesterday, I passed a 76 gas station advertising gasoline at $6.39 a gallon. Meanwhile, E85—produced largely from crops grown by American farmers—was $2.89. Yes, E85 delivers fewer miles per gallon, but that’s still quite a contrast. American energy? Indeed. Our 25x’25 initiative commissioned studies through the University of Tennessee exploring America’s enormous biomass potential. Farms and forests could sustainably supply renewable feedstocks capable of displacing a meaningful share of petroleum. The objection has always been the same: “It costs too much.” But why do we calculate the cost of renewable energy without considering the economic and human costs of wars, supply disruptions, and our dependence on petroleum? Imagine rural America producing energy from agricultural residues and forestry byproducts. New jobs. New industries. New markets for farmers. Meanwhile, EV owners are already driving on electricity at a fraction of gasoline’s cost per mile. We’ve made progress. But not nearly enough. Four years from now, when this memory celebrates its twentieth anniversary, will we still be shackled to the Fossilonians and their nineteenth-century energy model? Or will we finally embrace a twenty-first-century American energy economy? Sixteen years ago, we asked whether Americans were ready to hear the message. Maybe the question today is whether we’re finally ready to act on it. #AmericanEnergy #EnergyIndependence #Biofuels #RuralAmerica #CleanEnergy$

Leilani Münter

@leilanimunter