hi everybody my name is Patty gonia and I am a drag queen but I am not the only person here in drag today you are in drag too yes you are in Ted drag yeah I see you with your spunky business C casual with your glasses and tote bags that say I absolutely donate to public radio uhhuh oh my gosh I even see that some of you are wearing my merch yes Patagonia vests are indeed very Ted drag mhm you can't ask a drag queen to give a TED talk and not roast y'all a little but enough about you how about me and my drag can we get a little commotion for the dress thank you thank you thank you it is made of upcycled and thrifted shower curtains and Pink Flamingo pool floaties because life in plastic it's not fantastic and climate change is a drag you see what I did there but drag is about far more than what we wear to fit in or stand out drag holds something more Universal and more powerful for all of us because drag is an invitation to build new Futures through creativity and diversity and joy and the combination of these things drag and climate they seem ridiculous right well I thought so too but then six years ago on a backpacking trip in the middle of my quarter life crisis lost in the forest I put on a pair of 6in high heel boots and strutted the trails for the first time as Patty [Music] gonia thank you so much my ankles hurt but if you would have told me then that 6 years later I would have a community of more than a million outdoor and climate lovers and I'd be getting thousands of queer people outside every year to connect to this planet I would have told you that you are crazy but here we are drag took me in the middle of my flop era and showed me how I could Envision a new future and then live into it and guess what else is going through a flop era and needs to Envision a new future and then live into it anybody the Earth yes Earth girl you are in your flop era and the very thing that I think might get Earth out of this flop era the art form of drag so have I piqued your interest would you like to hear and learn what the climate movement might learn from the art form of drag would you that is the spirit my nerds okay class let's start here people often think that as drag performers we are hiding who we are but babe the one time I can't hide is when I look like this drag doesn't hide who we are drag reveals who we are and drag welcomes our diversity and more than that drag has given me a community of people that I feel safe enough around to be my whole self and that is where the magic happens that's where I can bring my creativity and everything that I am to the table now look am I suggesting that you put on as much makeup as me no you could never but I am saying that our creativity is critical in this climate dilemma and I'm also saying that diversity isn't a hindrance to this work it's the very key to our best Solutions I will never forget right after Patty was born when I met a very famous environmentalist who said to me that I should just leave all the gay stuff and high heels at the door and get to work for climate well thank you so much sir because 6 years later all that gay stuff in high heels has raised $2.5 million for climate action thank you so much toss toss and y'all I want to be real with you there are so many people right now in this climate movement who felt like I did who don't feel like they can be themselves and therefore are holding back their best ideas and I want a climate movement rooted in fertile soil that supports all of our growth and as my mentor Jose Gonzalez loves to ask who here has heard the phrase wow this team is operating like a well-oiled machine anybody okay so all of us What If instead I said wow this group is thriving like a well nurtured Meadow how different does that feel yeah ooh ah uh-huh it's different maybe that's because we're not apart from nature we are nature and we are a meadow not a machine and a meadow knows that its diversity is its strength every single piece P of the meadow supports the collective hole okay class we are doing great little check-in thumbs up on the audience we feeling good okay if you're ready for a little history lesson or should I say history let me hear you say yes mommy yes Mommy Ted you're being silly today I like it since the birth of the queer Rights Movement drag performers and trans people have always been on the Forefront of organizing and protesting and Community Building when queer people were beaten in their homes put in jail just for existing when we had the statistics and the facts on the millions of queer people dying of AIDS yet no one was joining our fight drag performers turned pain into joy and in doing so welcomed Millions more people to fight with us because the problem in the climate movement isn't just the abundance of carbon it is the lack of Joy the scientific facts the Doom and Gloom they scare people they wake them up but joy is what will get people out of bed every day to take more action and if there's one thing that I have learned from the art form of drag it's that you can take fighting for something seriously without taking yourself to too seriously Joy is a serious way to take action Joy is strategic because Joy inspires momentum and joy is an inside job so what can we do to create joy we can get outside and encourage other people to come outside with us and fall in love with nature because we fight for what we love in other words if you feel dead inside get the hell outside we can also connect people in this movement because we all know that silos suck and there is joy and collaboration and so many emails you're laughing cuz it's true and we can also celebrate climate Movement we have to party because celebrating and acknowledging all the work that we have done will inspire the next steps of action Joy provides an unbelievable opportunity to make the climate movement irresistible do not underestimate the power of joy we deserve more than Doom and Gloom because this is the only planet with a Beyonce on it facts are facts Ted so class at the end of the day what I am saying what drag can teach us is that creativity and diversity and Joy are tools to build the best climate Movement we can and let's not forget let me pull this little thing out that climate change is not a drag there that's better thank you so much my nerds thank you