Building Alive, Designing to Thrive

Many of you remember I completed my Climate Ride (320 miles from NYC to DC in 5 days by bike) about 6 months ago. I was remembering some of the opposition to my fundraising efforts- one guy actually said "I wish you were riding for something important, like cancer research". Of course this beyond frustrated me- I'll ride for what I support. And you ride for what you want to. Well that was my first reaction. Then, I crafted a message that described the reasons our causes were not so different. Since most cancers are results of environmental conditions, i.e. exposure to air, water, and land pollutions- we ARE in fact, on the same side. However, in raising money for a cure- you are not acknowledging the need for change at the source. The United States National Cancer Institute (NCI) has an annual budget of about 4.8 billion dollars. Imagine if even 25% of that went to environmental protection (and therefore, prevention). We are looking for a cure to a disease we as a spe