The final Climate Hero celebration of 2025! What a year it has been. We are so thrilled to wrap things up with a special double feature, two incredible organizers that have lent their many talents to our campaigns for a few years now! Please join us in celebrating and thanking Dan Van Note and Mark Billings!!
Dan Van Note
Dan has been creating video content for small businesses and non-profit organizations – and for fun! – for the past 10 years. His narrative short films have won awards internationally!
Dan got started with 350 Colorado back in 2022. It wasn’t long before he was involved in the intensive movement building project of creating a recorded version of our Volunteer Orientation. Throughout the whole process he kindly guided our team, as we didn’t have much experience in that type of media production. He consistently provided good feedback and ideas on how to improve things. Without his expertise, support, and patience, the project would have almost certainly taken longer to complete, and would have been a lot less fun!
Over the years Dan has also stayed active by signing various petitions and letters, showing his support for a variety of important issues. When people contribute their voices to the things they care about they help create a choir, hard to ignore and creating a melody for positive change.
“Dan is one of those people you feel like you instantly know. He is so kind, funny, and supportive, I really appreciate all the ways in which he makes organizing a team effort.” – Chelsea Alexander, Movement Building & Volunteer Director
More recently, Dan has been indispensable in our work toward releasing regular podcast episodes. He has provided valuable feedback and also offered his skills as a videographer to record the podcasts in video. He volunteered to join Denver Community Media, took the training necessary to use their podcast studio, organized the studio reservations, and devoted hours of his time to recording the podcasts, and providing us with the files. “His presence during the actual recording session was extremely helpful, as he exuded positive, professional, and at the same time ‘chill’ vibes. We appreciated him so much!” says Heidi Leathwood, Climate Policy Analyst
Dan shared that he is “happy to use those skills to help support the climate movement, one he believes will determine the future of humanity.” Thank you for being a dedicated organizer, and for always making things more fun, Dan! We are so grateful for your support!
Mark Billings
Mark got started with 350 Colorado back in 2019, but has been involved with environmental justice activism long before that.
Mark says, “I have been protesting and volunteering with environmental justice groups for years. Two major sources of inspiration for me have been plant medicine and history. For those of us who grew up in American society, disconnected from nature, plant medicine can be one of the first direct experiences of the intelligence and sacredness of all life. Experiencing what can be described as ‘plant communication’ or some type of ancient intelligence was one of the first things that inspired me years ago to protect the diversity of life on Earth.”
“Likewise, studying where I come from inspired me to get involved. Some of my ancestors and cousins are from communities like the Melungeons and other southern US mixed heritage groups. They were harmed by the same colonial mentalities of superiority and ownership that forced the extinction of Indigenous communities, plants, animals, and ecosystems. That historical erasure is intricately tied to environmental devastation: the British Empire needed to expand globally because they mismanaged their own resources (like running out of trees in the 16th century). Narratives within US history intentionally avoid the fact that colonization was often followed by (and completed with) ecocide.”
We could not have gotten the podcast project started without Mark. From the very beginning of the podcast idea, Mark expressed interest and was a supportive presence. He was incredibly patient as it took months of on-again, off-again planning to bring the idea to fruition and record the first episode.
“Throughout the whole process, Mark was always there, offering to help in any way that he could, and I just felt so fortunate that Mark was so committed to this project that he stuck with us,” – Heidi Leathwood, Climate Policy Analyst
After the episode was recorded in video, Mark generously acquired editing software on his own computer, and provided expert editing, creating both video and audio versions of our first episode, including layering sound files, video files, and slides (and editing out a few bloopers!) He also created a bonus mini-episode, audio-only files, and nine short clips. His understanding attitude toward our whole learning curve really helped. Mark has donated countless hours of his time, both doing the editing, and processing the files on his computer. Thank you so much for everything, Mark!
You can find the podcast Dan and Mark helped us get started on the collaborative substack “What the Frack?!” (audio version) and on YouTube (video version). We’ve released one episode so far, and more have been recorded and are in the works – stay tuned!
Written by Chelsea Alexander, Bobbie Mooney, and Heidi Leathwood