Gratitude for Common Ground

As the politics of the last decade have grown dicier, those of us trying to advance any policy agenda have had to speed up and prolong our sprints back and forth across the aisle.  So, the Thanksgiving break is truly a rare chance to take a breath.  It’s also a chance to get outside and deliberately think about the common ground we have.  

There’s no getting around how tension-filled life has become in the policy mosh pit. At the same time that the political environment has become so divisive, however, folks in the outdoor recreation community have been building awareness of, and support for, the nation’s public lands, with the offsetting benefit of showing how our shared enjoyment of common ground can pull us together. 

It was also about 10 years ago that recreation advocates began agitating for the USG to tally the outdoors’ contribution to the economy.  Fast forward, and you see a fairly astonishing set of bipartisan wins. In 2016, Congress unanimously passed the REC Act, which instructed the U.S. Commerce Department to officially count the sector’s size (now $1.2T in total output). Strong bipartisan majorities passed permanent reauthorization of, and then permanent funding for, the Land & Water Conservation Fund in 2019 and 2020.  In the final days of 2024, Congress unanimously passed the EXPLORE Act. These are just the decade’s biggest accomplishments at the federal level.

Now, an increasing body of research would say take a dose of your own outdoor medicine. Spend a chunk of your weekend soaking in what our public lands and waters have to offer. They are places that literally ease the mind and feed the soul.

Recently, the University of Washington’s Environmental College asked me to deliver a lecture on the health benefits of nature contact. If you have the time, soak it in, too, because this is the next frontier. There’s growing evidence on how we can improve mental and physical health outcomes by deliberately spending more time outside. Kids learn resilience, collaboration, and self-agency via unstructured outdoor play.  By deliberately weaving nature into our infrastructures and policies, we can have healthier communities and, of course, a healthier planet. 

And if you want to strengthen your own long-term resolve that we can -- and need to -- preserve our common ground, the best thing to do IMO is get out in it.  #OptOutside.