Judy Todd and other members of the Great Climate Action March arrive at the White House, November 1, 2014

After returning home to Portland, Oregon from the Great Climate Action March, a trek across the entire U.S. to call attention to global warming, Judy Todd declared herself a "radical conservative."  

'Radical Conservatism," Judy writes in her blog, "is my own willingness and commitment to not purchasing, especially not new and improved, or new at all. It means being thoughtful with everything. Do I need it, irrespective of whether or not I want it? Is it recycled? Can it be recycled after I use it? Is it re-useable or does it become trash?"

Her radical conservative plan:

CREATE a lifestyle that reuses, recycles and repurposes without adding to the stream of expendables and disposables and more trash.

COLLABORATE with others to... share the joy of trying new ways of living, of making changes [and] generate beauty, joy and fun doing it

CONSERVE what we've come to call our 'resources' and thus step back and away from participating in the extractive plundering of Earth.

COMMUNITY Share the knowledge we are gaining, the changes we want to make, the experiences with changes we are having, share food and clothes, books and belongings, share housing and transportation. Be surprisingly, authentically lighthearted and joyous about it.

Often people speak of climate change in tones of warning or blame. Radical Joy for Hard Times believes that we become empowered by looking at troubling places or situations and making them beautiful through simple acts of attention and creativity. Judy (herself a member of the RadJoy board of directors) has translated that approach to a way of living day by day.