Extreme Responsibility in the Age of Global Emergency

How the struggle to protect one small town can share lessons for solving America’s converging health, racial, economic, democracy, and climate crises   By Dominic Frongillo One evening, as the golden sun warmed the summer evening air, I was riding my bike down old Creamery Road to a Town Council meeting in the little hamlet […]

Bekah Ashley, Sierra Nevada College [NEED APPROVAL]

Thank you for bringing life, enthusiasm, and confidence to the climate crisis! I was inspired to learn about Dominic’s personal connection to activism and his enthusiasm and confidence in participatory democracy. It’s our responsibility to engage in important issues, and our political landscape needs more creative, open minded people to stir up a different way […]

Dispatch from New York: ‘Historic moment’ as City divests from, sues fossil fuel industry

Recently, I was in downtown Manhattan at the Manhattan Youth Center, a lively center full of children three blocks from City Hall. Five years ago, the building was flooded to the second floor with standing water when Superstorm Sandy cost the lives of 44 New Yorkers and $19 billion in damage in hours. Without dramatic […]

Dispatch from Bonn: “We’re Still In” Movement at UN Climate Talks

Dear Friends, I’m writing from the bustling halls of the U.N. climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany. Nearly 20,000 people from 196 nations are hurrying through crowded corridors between meetings. The halls are buzzing with dozens of languages, spoken by a rainbow of people wearing suits and brightly-colored traditional dress. Reporters with cameras and microphones swarm around top […]

How to Make a Difference Now and After You Graduate — The Ultimate Guide for Change On & Beyond Campus

I get asked frequently by students when speaking on campuses around the country how to make a difference after graduation. After being elected at age 22 as the youngest public official ever in Caroline NY over a decade ago, I’ve observed a lot. Having experienced everything from leading countywide campaigns to drafting my state’s climate plan to traveling […]

Dispatch from U.N. Climate Talks in South Africa

Deputy Supervisor Frongillo represents the Town of Caroline at U.N. climate talks Dispatch from South Africa climate negotiations Dear Friends and Colleagues, I am writing from a village in rural Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. It’s a sunny and windy day, chickens pecking in the grass amid thatched huts and farm plots. To the west are the rolling foothills of the […]

Bound for South Africa

Dear Friends, I am writing on the eve of traveling to the United Nations negotiations in Durban, South Africa. Why I’m Going Like everywhere on the planet, here in upstate New York we’re feeling the impacts of our changing climate. While the South faces record droughts and West faces record wildfires, this year we faced unseasonably high temperatures, a […]

Back to the White House

Friends, In June, I was invited to the White House in Washington, D.C. and met with President Barack Obama and senior advisors. I shared the outpouring of concern that Caroline citizens are voicing about the potential impacts on our town of fracking, a gas extraction method involving the underground injection of millions of gallons of water and chemicals. Incredibly, in the largest petition in Caroline’s history, over half […]