They say that olfaction, the sense of smell, is the most evocative of all. When a certain scent, fragrance, or odor descends upon you, the way it rips you from the present and deposits you back into your past can be almost disturbing in its power. So it was for me as I ambled down Maryland’s Route 1 in the rented Ford Focus I took to meet Josh Tulkin, Director of The Sierra Club Maryland Chapter (SCMC), at that organization’s headquarters in College Park, Maryland.
The vaguely subway-ish aroma combined with that of frying food took me right back to the semester I spent at the University of Maryland as a visiting professor in the Finance department, a story for another diary entry, perhaps. There’s nothing like being in a college town to remind you of how fun it is to be young–and how you’re so not. Garish liquor stores; scantily-clad, nubile younguns playing frisbee; backpacks almost bursting with books attached to dazed-looking coeds all gave me that deeply comfortable yet slightly irritated feeling of being among mishpocheh[“family,” in Yiddish].
I climbed a flight stairs in the two-story office building where Josh Tulkin, the Executive Director of SCMC works. It was so charmingly simple and homey that I had to double-check that I got the address right! Tulkin calls himself a “DIY enthusiast,” and a similarly hands-on, authentic feel pervaded his office. Inside, various hip-looking and highly focused employees and volunteers ate lunch, poked at their laptops with earbuds keeping their tasks secret, and guided me to the bathroom that I have to visit too often as an older gentleman.
Tulkin hurried out of a small room in a corner of the larger office to greet me with a welcoming handshake and an effusive but totally unnecessary apology for running a few minutes behind. I used the moment to chat with a woman I was stunned to see: Laurel Imlay, SCMC Chapter Coordinator, whom I’d heard about and seen pictures of from the head of The Sierra Club New York Chapter when I volunteered there several years back.
Tulkin walked briskly out of his office a few minutes later and asked if I’d like to go downstairs to the coffee shop to chat. He had to eat lunch there, and I was already quite moved that he’d agreed to talk with me on rather short notice. So, despite my concern that my aged ears would have trouble taking in all he had to say amidst the noise, I agreed. To give you a sense of how down-t0-Earth–pun intended–Tulkin is, when I noted that I’d forgotten the charger for the laptop that I type notes too slowly on, he didn’t hesitate to scurry back upstairs to get me one.
Tulkin exudes an air of perpetual moral purpose and leans forward with a quiet urgency when he walks. As I watched him go out the door of the coffee shop to fetch me a charger, I remembered what my therapist back in New York City, Dr. Judith Fein, used to say to say about me, which is that I “lived in my head too much.” Tulkin, I sensed right away, lives in his heart, as doing the right thing takes center stage in all he does. He reminded me, I realized, as what probably looked like a goofy smile spread across my face, of Jacob, my son who lives back in New York City and teaches first-year composition at Hunter College. He, like Tulkin, believes strongly in social justice, focusing his syllabi on how environmental policy instantiates that progressive ideal.
Tulkin returned with my power cord, and he took a bite of his hot sandwich. His full lips curled into a satisfied smile below his regal nose and wide-set, blue eyes. As I took a sip of my too-hot coffee, I asked him to tell me how he got involved in environmental advocacy with The Sierra Club.
Couch Surfing Before Returning to His Turf
“After college, I spent a couple years sleeping on friends’ couches,” Tulkin said, implying his life at the time lacked a clear direction. I raised my eyebrows in mild surprise, given that since 2005, he’s occupied high-level positions at the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), the Energy Action Coalition, Jewish Funds for Justice, and for the last seven years, SCMC. He’s the Executive Director at that last one. He was running a youth voter registration office in Madison, Wisconsin when something occurred to him.
“I had this crazy idea,” Tulkin said of those, his early post-undergrad days, as he plugged the laptop charger he brought me into an outlet, looking back at me as he did so. “I wanted to work in grassroots climate advocacy at a time when not many people were thinking of those two terms together.” The consensus among all those he asked for guidance in this goal was that he should work with Mike Tidwell of CCAN. Soon he was living in the Washington, D.C. metro area, where his father is from, and doing just that. He fell in love with Maryland he told me–just as Colleen and I are these days. I felt an even stronger bond with Tulkin when he said so. It’s easy to do when you’re in his warmly intense presence.
Tulkin told me that part of Maryland’s appeal to him lies in its size, which he noted is big enough that there are always interesting things going on, yet small enough so that one can “actually wrap your head around the politics.”
Howard Environment 101
The Sierra Club has state chapters and local groups. Given his high position, Tulkin oversees work at the state level, for the most part, he told me, lightly rubbing the top of his closely cropped hair. But SCMC got involved in Howard County environmental policy because the area has made a thoughtful and sustained effort to balance growth and development against environmental concerns. The flooding in 2013 in Old Ellicott City created an acute need for salutary environmental policy in the county.
“This was a big storm, but the severity of the flooding was the result of human engineering,” Tulkin said. When he and I spoke over lunch that day, the second flood to devastate the area in three years was still a week from descending upon the vulnerable, historic downtown Ellicott City.
Chiara D’Amore, a member at large of SCMC’s Executive Committee weighed in the path she hopes Howard County will take in the wake of last month’s flooding.
“We have a lot going for us with regards to becoming a sustainable community and need to intentionally build on that foundation to be the type of community the future requires and that will nurture both our people and our place,” D’Amore said. D’Amore is well-placed to offer thoughts on sanguine environmental policy in Howard County, not only because of her position at SCMC. As a leader in environmental activism in Howard County, she founded The Community Ecology Institute and Columbia Families In Nature.
Additionally, Tulkin added, back at our coffee-shop conversation, Howard County’s focus on smart growth is a nexus for several timely issues, such as economic development, quality of life, and mobility. In fact, the area’s post-2016-flood interest in developing and implementing a master-planning process was a place for SCMC to enter the local conversation on environmental issues under Tulkin’s leadership.
The Sky’s the Limit–and So’s the Ground
Another hot environmental issue in Howard is energy efficiency. Sorry–I couldn’t resist the climatological pun!
“There’s a strong hub of activists trying to move the county to become more energy-efficient,” Tulkin told me, looking out an adjacent window as if toward a horizon of environmental hope. The area’s seen increased attention directed at the issue of solar farms, as well. Much of Howard’s open space, a priority for the area, is farmland, so when farmers want to lend their property out to solar farm interests, not everyone is pleased about it, Tulkin said as a small wrinkle of vexation appeared on his brow. Tied to this same issue is how the county’s going to incentivize more environmentally conscious agricultural processes.
How the area zones for mulching and composting operations also has taken center stage in HoCo environmental policy-making.
Then and Now, Now and Then
As Tulkin and I polished off our respective midday nourishment, he expressed high hopes for a bright–bright green!–future for Howard County’s natural environment.
“I think Howard County has the values to pursue a really balanced approach to growth and environmental progress,” he said, as a notification on his phone drew his attention away for a moment. Again, he politely and kindly apologized for this, but I was glad to have a moment to make sure my laptop was still recording our conversation and scrawl a couple notes on it, too. I also found his consistent awareness of manners and decorum delightful.
Tulkin went on to predict that green job creation, mass transit issues, and addressing zoning in high-density areas–and of course, funding to make all this happen–would help shape HoCo’s environmental landscape in years to come.
When I asked him to tell me around three to five events that had shaped HoCo’s environmental realities, I apologized for what I felt like was a clumsy input quota. He immediately told me he loved it, as he tended to think in frames like the one I had provided. I added that he could perhaps simultaneously riff on the SCMC accomplishments he’s most proud of, as the two topics are, no doubt, related. I could tell that self-promotion made him slightly uncomfortable by the way he shifted in his seat. I also knew that as a courteous person, he wouldn’t refuse me.
Helping to pass the Healthy Air Act and the statewide ban on fracking were his replies. I didn’t want to force him to give me a third to fill my input quota because of wariness of elevating himself over others at SCMC or Sierra Club Howard County, the latter of which he encouraged me to contact. He also moved the conversation with charming deft away from himself and to another point about those two policy achievements.
“Those were examples of good policy, sound science, and issues that were compelling enough that most of the energy went toward activism and not white papers and stuff like that. People worked hard on those more technical aspects, and we had access to them if we needed them, which was great, too,” he said. A colleague of Tulkin’s added a more specific, important, and HoCo-specific caveat to Tulkin’s observation about the area’s green future.
“The environmental bill that will resonate the most deeply with Howard County residents next session will be strengthening the Forest Conservation Act. It’s been a hard battle, but I believe we have the momentum to make strides in this area in 2019. Preserving and replanting our forests in Howard County is a priority for many,” said Katie Mettle another local environmental activist and At-Large Member of the Sierra Club’s Executive Board when I reached her for comment. Mettle also expressed hope that the County Council would pass a styrofoam ban next year.
Carolyn Parsa, the Conservation Committee Chair of Sierra Club Howard County offered another thought that gave me high hopes for Howard’s enviro-future, that I found, franky, electrifying: “I’m very excited about the work that Sierra Club and other environmental organizations are doing to not only raise awareness of environmental issues in Howard County but to also speak to how these issues impact its residents. Together we can make Howard County greener and more sustainable place.”
Onward, Upward, Outside
As Tulkin and I cleaned up our table, throwing away our trash and recycling what we could, something he said allowed me to put my finger on a quality he has that had eluded me until then, probably because it was an extended senior moment: he’s compassionate.
He said, softly but confidently, that while there’s a very small number of people involved in politics who are truly not in their right minds (my words), many more just need to have the correct information to take wiser stances on important issues.
“It’s mostly just people having different frames,” Tulkin said, with a tender, lopsided smile.
We shook hands, and because he was in a hurry to get back to his office, he mosied ahead of me. He held the door for me, and without making eye contact, almost looking at the ground, I said, “Josh–I have to ask you one quick, but extremely important, final question.”
Even outside among combined din of the hustle and bustle of downtown College Park and the coffee-shop noises still coming to us, the grave, sonorous silence between us was palpable. I turned to face him, looked him dead into the deep-sea blue of his eyes and said, “Josh: what’s your favorite ice cream flavor.”
Again a smile, and this: “Peanut butter chocolate chip. It always has been.” Then it was my turn to be caught off-guard. That’s Jacob’s favorite ice cream flavor, too. And it always has been.
–Robert Morgenthau
Thanks for reading! Check back with us each here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. They want to take you along with them, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.