Joy is a winning environmental strategy for drag artist Pattie Gonia

Professional drag artist and environmental activist Pattie Gonia has more than 2 million followers on Instagram and has raised $1.2 million for environmental nonprofits by hiking 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, in full drag into San Francisco. She has gained international recognition for using drag artistry to advocate for the environment, in acknowledgment and celebration of hundreds of researchers and scientists in the field who identify as queer.

She joins Mongabay's podcast to explain why joy is a fundamental ingredient missing in the environmental advocacy space, how she prioritizes it in her work as a drag performer and activist, and why she feels the environmental movement must prioritize it to succeed.

"If we want people to join this movement, we have to make it freaking fun," she says.

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Image Credit: Pattie Gonia. Image courtesy of Pattie Gonia.

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Timecodes

(00:00) Hiking 100 miles in drag for the climate

(04:50) The origins of Pattie Gonia

(12:53) Looking at science through a lens of humanity

(16:38) On drag artistry and nature

(21:10) Bridging the gap between culture and nature

(26:19) What can we build instead of burn?

(35:22) "We have to make it freaking fun"