Julia Nerbonne, the executive director of Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light is in Glasgow, Scotland at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26.
But she's not feeling very optimistic.
"I don't feel like we're winning," she admits.
She feels there are two critical truths that U.S. officials need to grapple with: that the systems that created this critical climate situation cannot be counted on to get us out of it, and that the world view must shift to human rights and away from economics.
Perhaps the climate defender from Kenya she talked with yesterday summed it up best: "Your country is still not in. And without the United States, we don't have anything."