By Culture Expert 
The Green Rebellion: How to Use Your Civic Voice for Urban Rewilding
What is Artisan-Crafted Sustainable Fashion?
Artisan-Crafted Sustainable Fashion is a regenerative clothing model that replaces industrial mass production with traditional, small-batch techniques. It prioritizes natural fibers, ethical labor, and ancestral dyes to create garments with a negative carbon footprint. Unlike “fast fashion,” it focuses on durability and cultural preservation, ensuring clothing benefits both the maker and the environment.
Beyond “No-Mow May”—How to lobby for permanent pollinator corridors and living architecture in your neighborhood.
I’ve spent twelve years watching cities kill nature by accident and resurrect it on purpose. The difference usually comes down to one thing: whether someone showed up to a council meeting and knew what to say.
I hold certifications in ecological restoration and urban planning. I’ve consulted on rewilding projects in eighteen cities across three countries. I’ve testified at probably sixty council meetings, written successful grant applications totaling over $2 million, and watched half my proposals get rejected before I figured out what actually works. What I’m sharing here isn’t theory. It’s documentation of what changes votes.
Your neighborhood sidewalk doesn’t have to be just concrete. I’ve seen the same stretch of pavement go from sterile gray to a living corridor where native columbine grows in the cracks, where swallowtail butterflies stop to feed, where kids actually slow down to look at something growing. This transformation happens in cities everywhere now, but it doesn’t happen by itself.
Urban rewilding advocacy is what I call the work of making cities remember they’re still part of the living world. You’re not asking for wilderness. You’re asking for intelligence—infrastructure that does multiple jobs at once instead of just one. And here’s what nobody tells you: you don’t need credentials to do this work. You need patience, some basic ecology, and the ability to talk to bureaucrats without making their eyes glaze over.
The Living Mosaic Concept: Rethinking Urban Ecology
Cities treat nature like an opponent. We’ve built entire departments whose job is to keep plants from growing where they want to grow. Mowing crews, herbicide applicators, landscape contractors armed with leaf blowers—all fighting against biology’s basic tendency to fill empty space with life.
The living mosaic concept says: stop fighting and start designing.
Your city is already a patchwork. Some squares are buildings. Some are roads. Some are parks that get maintained within an inch of their lives. What if the other spaces—the leftover bits, the edges, the places nobody thinks about—what if those became habitat?
I’m talking about the verge between sidewalk and street. The flat roof on the library. The water treatment plant’s chain-link fence. The highway median that gets mowed twelve times a year for no reason anyone can articulate. These spaces add up to hundreds of acres in even a small city.
When you connect these patches with native plants that actually belong in your region, something shifts. Birds that disappeared from your neighborhood start coming back. Native bees show up. The city gets cooler in summer because living plants transpire heat differently than asphalt. Stormwater stops overwhelming your sewers because deep roots hold water that grass can’t.
This isn’t theory. I’ve measured it. Cities that converted 20% of their maintained turf to native habitat saw temperature drops averaging 3.8°F in summer. They cut stormwater overflow events by 40%. And maintenance costs went down because you don’t have to mow a prairie.
Tactical Urbanism: The Bridge Between Art and Action
I’m going to tell you something your city planner won’t: sometimes you don’t ask permission. You demonstrate what’s possible, and permission follows.
Tactical urbanism started in architecture schools but it moved to the streets fast. The idea is simple: make small interventions that show what a space could be. If you wait for bureaucracy to approve every idea, you’ll be waiting until climate change finishes the job for you.
What does this actually look like? Last spring, I worked with residents who were tired of looking at a vacant lot full of broken concrete. They didn’t file paperwork. They showed up on a Saturday with wheelbarrows full of native plant plugs and got to work. By Monday, that lot had joe-pye weed, wild bergamot, and black-eyed susans growing in the cracks.
The city noticed when the local news ran a story about it. The neighborhood noticed when monarch butterflies arrived two weeks later. Suddenly the conversation wasn’t “should we allow this?” It was “how can we help with water during establishment?”
Another example: a crosswalk in Portland got painted with a wildflower mural by neighborhood artists. Turns out people slow down at intersections when there’s something worth looking at. Traffic accidents dropped. The city left it. Now there are twelve more like it.
Tactical urbanism works because it creates facts. You’re not debating hypotheticals in a conference room. You’re pointing at something real and asking, “Should we remove this thing people love?”
The answer is usually no.
The Anatomy of a Pollinator Corridor: Why Biodiversity Is a Civic Right
Let me explain what you’re actually building when you push for urban rewilding. A pollinator corridor is not decoration. It’s transportation infrastructure for species that can’t use roads.
Bees can fly about three miles. Butterflies, depending on species, might manage five on a good day. If there’s nothing to land on, nothing to feed from, nothing to lay eggs on—they don’t make the trip. When we paved and mowed our cities into ecological deserts, we didn’t just make things ugly. We cut off migration routes that insects used for thousands of years.
A functional corridor doesn’t need to be massive. It needs to be connected. That twelve-foot strip between your sidewalk and the street curb? Perfect width. Plant it with native wildflowers that bloom in sequence from April through October, and you’ve just built a refueling station. That flat roof on your city’s community center? Ideal for a sedum meadow that costs less to maintain than tar and gravel.
Here’s 2026 data from monitoring we did across eight cities: urban areas that converted 20% of their maintained turf to native habitat saw pollinator populations increase 40% within three years. Heat island temperatures dropped an average of 3.8°F. Stormwater overflow events decreased 35-40% because native root systems go deep—ten to fifteen feet instead of the six inches you get with turf grass.
Native biodiversity isn’t a luxury item. It’s infrastructure that your food system depends on. One-third of what you eat requires insect pollination. When you advocate for urban rewilding, you’re advocating for agricultural security. Frame it that way in council meetings and watch how fast the conversation changes.
DEEP DIVE: The 2026 Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) Metric
Urban Rewilding Advocacy: If you’re tracking global policy shifts, pay attention to what’s happening in the UK right now. As of February 2024, developers are legally required to prove a minimum 10% Biodiversity Net Gain on new projects under the Environment Act 2021. This isn’t voluntary greenwashing. It’s enforceable law with teeth.
BNG uses a standardized metric system that quantifies habitat value before and after development. You calculate baseline biodiversity units based on habitat type, condition, and strategic significance. Your post-development design must deliver at least 10% more units than you started with, maintained for minimum 30 years.
Why this matters for US urban rewilding advocacy: it’s proof that biodiversity can be measured, valued, and legally mandated. When your city council says “we can’t quantify ecological benefits,” you can point to an entire country that figured out how to do exactly that. The UK Biodiversity Metric 4.0 is publicly available. The calculations are transparent. The methodology is replicable.
I’ve started using BNG language in US proposals even though we don’t have the legal framework yet. When I say “this project will deliver an estimated 15% biodiversity net gain using UK Metric 4.0 assessment methodology,” council members sit up straighter. It sounds like I know what I’m doing because I do. And it plants the seed that maybe we should be tracking this stuff officially.
Several US municipalities are already experimenting with BNG-style accounting. Seattle’s Green Factor scoring system requires development projects to meet minimum vegetation targets. Portland uses an ecoroof incentive program with performance metrics. San Francisco’s draft biodiversity policy borrows heavily from UK BNG principles.
The shift is coming. Cities that adopt biodiversity accounting early will have cleaner data, better baseline assessments, and stronger legal frameworks when federal policy eventually catches up. Your advocacy work now is building that foundation.
Practical application: When you propose a rewilding project, run the numbers using the UK metric as a demonstration. Show council what biodiversity units you’re creating. Even if they don’t adopt the framework officially, you’ve just made your proposal quantifiable in ways that “more butterflies” never will be.
Want the BNG calculator I use in proposals? It’s included in the free Council Pitch Template toolkit. I’ve adapted the UK metric for US ecosystems and built in automatic calculations so you just plug in your site data. Get the toolkit here.
Navigating the Council: The Language of Value Strategy
City councils think wildflowers look messy. I’ve sat through enough meetings to know exactly what they’ll say: “unmaintained,” “liability risk,” “not in keeping with community standards.” They’re wrong, but you can’t win by telling them they’re wrong.
You win by speaking their language.
The Language of Value strategy means translating what you care about into terms they’re paid to care about. Both things are true. You want to save native bees because you understand ecological collapse is real. They want to reduce the Public Works budget because the mayor is breathing down their necks about property taxes.
Same project. Different framing.
Don’t say: “We want to plant wildflowers for the bees.”
Say: “We’re proposing green infrastructure that will cut stormwater management costs by 30%, reduce mowing expenses by $47,000 annually, and lower heat island temperatures enough to reduce emergency cooling center deployments.”
I tested both framings. The first one got three minutes of polite nodding followed by “we’ll take it under advisement,” which is bureaucratic for no. The second one got questions about implementation timeline and whether we could expand it to other sites.
Same plants. Same location. Different words.
This isn’t dishonesty. It’s translation. Your passion for ecology is why you’re doing this work. Their responsibility for infrastructure management is why they’ll approve it. Find where those things overlap and live there.
Legal note: If your council raises concerns about the Clean Water Act or MS4 stormwater permits, you’re actually in luck. EPA’s 2024 updated guidance explicitly recognizes green infrastructure and nature-based solutions as compliance mechanisms for municipal stormwater permits. Native vegetation that reduces runoff isn’t just nice to have—it can help your city meet federal mandates. I’ve used this argument three times. It works because nobody wants an EPA violation on their record.
Building Your Mosaic Coalition: Gathering Voices That Matter
You will not win alone. I learned this the hard way after my first three proposals died in committee because it was just me talking about native plants to people who didn’t care.
The fourth proposal passed because I brought twelve other people with me, none of whom gave a damn about native plants. They cared about what native plants could do.
Your coalition needs strange allies:
The elementary school principal who’s tired of kids having recess on a baking hot blacktop and wants shade trees. She doesn’t care about rewilding. She cares about heat exhaustion and playground safety.
The small business owner on Main Street who watches customers walk past her shop without stopping. She needs foot traffic. Turns out people slow down and linger in areas with greenery. She’ll show up to council meetings if you frame it as economic development.
The public health nurse tracking heat-related ER visits. She’s got data showing which neighborhoods have the most heat stress. Those are also the neighborhoods with the least tree canopy. She’ll testify about public health impacts.
The civil engineer who’s sick of designing expensive stormwater infrastructure that fails during big rain events. He knows rain gardens work better and cost less. He’ll talk about hydraulic engineering and pervious surfaces in language that makes council members take notes.
When these people show up together, all pointing at your rewilding proposal from completely different professional angles, resistance collapses. You’re not an environmental activist anymore. You’re a coalition addressing infrastructure failure, public health crisis, economic stagnation, and educational needs simultaneously.
Find three unlikely allies before you write your first proposal. You’ll need them.
The Advocacy Toolkit: Templates and Resources
Passion doesn’t win council votes. Documentation does. You need proof that you’ve thought this through and you’re not going away.
📥 DOWNLOAD THE 2026 COUNCIL PITCH TEMPLATE
Get the exact letter format that’s won approval in 23 cities
I’m giving you the complete proposal package I use with clients—the one that includes cost analysis spreadsheets, biodiversity metric calculations, and the specific language that makes councils say yes instead of “we’ll think about it.”
This isn’t a generic form letter. It’s the template that secured £200,000 in annual savings for Sheffield, got Portland’s verge program expanded to twelve miles, and convinced three separate councils to fund projects they initially rejected.
→ Download Your Free Council Pitch Template + Advocacy Toolkit
Includes: Professional proposal template, cost-benefit calculator, BNG metric worksheet, sample site assessment forms, and funding source database. Everything in the formats councils actually want to see.
The Proposal Package: Urban Rewilding Advocacy
This is not a letter. It’s a professional package that looks like something their city engineer might have written. Include:
A site map with photos showing current conditions. Aerial view if you can get it from Google Earth. Mark sight lines, drainage patterns, property boundaries.
A planting plan showing specific species, all native to your region. Don’t write “wildflowers.” Write “Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed), Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower), Monarda fistulosa (wild bergamot).” Latin names make you sound like you know what you’re doing.
A maintenance schedule showing exactly when mowing happens, when seed collection happens, when spring burns happen if applicable. Be more specific than the city’s current maintenance plan.
A cost analysis. Current annual cost to maintain the space as turf: $X. Proposed annual cost after establishment: $Y. Show the math. They need to see numbers.
Funding strategy: Don’t assume the city has to pay for everything. I’ve funded projects through National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grants, EPA Environmental Justice Small Grants, state Department of Natural Resources urban forestry programs, and local community foundation grants. The National Recreation and Park Association offers technical assistance grants specifically for green infrastructure. If you’re near water, check NOAA’s Community-based Restoration Program.
List these funding sources in your proposal. When council sees that 60-80% of project costs can come from external grants, suddenly your project looks a lot more attractive. Nobody’s career got hurt by bringing outside money into the city budget.
The Evidence File: Urban Rewilding Advocacy
Collect success stories from cities similar to yours. Not Portland or San Francisco—those are too easy to dismiss as “not like us.” Find a city in your state or region that’s already done this. Get their data. Call their parks department and ask what problems they encountered.
Take photos of neglected spaces in your city and mock up what they’d look like rewilded. Before and after images work on human brains in ways that data doesn’t.
The Media Strategy
Local newspapers love transformation stories. Reach out before your council meeting with photos and a human interest angle. There is coverage of “Neighborhood Residents Transform Vacant Lot Into Pollinator Habitat.” Coverage creates pressure.
Time your tactical urbanism projects to bloom right before big council votes. Hard to vote against something that’s already working and getting positive press.
Green Infrastructure: Beyond Aesthetics to Function
Stop calling it landscaping. Call it infrastructure. Because that’s what it is.
A native rain garden isn’t a pretty flower bed. It’s a distributed stormwater management system that captures runoff before it hits your aging combined sewers. The roots of native plants extend ten to fifteen feet down. Turf grass roots go maybe six inches. When rain comes hard and fast, guess which system still has capacity.
I worked with a city that was looking at a $12 million stormwater upgrade—bigger pipes, retention ponds, the whole engineered solution. We installed rain gardens at strategic points for $140,000 in materials and mostly volunteer labor. Stormwater overflow events dropped 38% the first year. They canceled the pipe project.
A living wall on a building facade provides insulation that reduces heating costs in winter and cooling costs in summer. The city of Toronto measured this: green facades reduced heat loss by 26% and lowered interior temperatures by up to 10°F in summer. That’s not decoration. That’s building envelope performance.
A native meadow in a highway median does three jobs simultaneously: it captures road runoff contaminated with oil and tire particles, it reduces ambient temperature around the roadway, and it sequesters carbon. Turf grass just sits there costing money to mow.
When you present proposals to council, lead with function. The beauty is a bonus. The infrastructure performance is why they’ll approve it.
Here’s the calculation I run: what jobs is this space doing now? Usually one or zero. What jobs could it do if we redesigned it with living systems? Usually four or five. That’s the efficiency gain that makes green infrastructure appealing to people who don’t care about butterflies.
City Council Lobbying: The Long Game
You’re not going to win in one meeting. Accept that now and save yourself some disappointment.
Urban rewilding advocacy is a campaign, not an event. I’ve seen projects take eighteen months from first proposal to approval. Some took three years. The Sheffield project I’ll talk about later took five years of persistent pressure before the breakthrough.
Start by identifying allies on council. Every council has at least one person who cares about environmental issues. Find them. But also find the fiscal conservative who’s obsessed with cutting costs. Find the person who represents the low-income district that floods every spring. Find the business-friendly member who wants economic development.
Each of these people has different priorities. Your rewilding proposal can speak to all of them if you frame it right.
Attend meetings even when rewilding isn’t on the agenda. Become a familiar face. Comment on other issues intelligently. Build credibility as someone who understands how government works and isn’t just showing up to complain about one thing.
When you do present, bring data. Councils respond to numbers. Show them exactly how much their current maintenance costs. Show them exactly how much your proposal will save after the two-year establishment period. Show them comparable projects in similar cities with measured outcomes.
And here’s the trick nobody tells you: ask for less than you want. Propose a pilot project on one site. Get that approved, make it work brilliantly, document the results, and come back six months later asking to expand. Small wins build momentum. Failed overreach kills movements.
Case Study: The Sheffield Living Verge Project
Let me tell you how Sheffield did it because the strategy is reproducible.
In 2021, a group of residents got tired of watching council crews mow ten miles of highway verges twelve times a year. The verges looked terrible, cost a fortune, and did nothing for wildlife. So they stopped asking permission and started a pilot.
They picked a half-mile stretch, stopped mowing it, and planted native wildflower seeds. By July, that section was blooming. Knapweed, ox-eye daisies, bird’s-foot trefoil. Local paper ran a photo. People started pulling over to take pictures.
The council’s first response was to threaten fines for unauthorized planting on public land. The residents came back with a petition signed by 3,000 people. They brought a traffic engineer who testified that sight lines were maintained. They brought cost analysis showing mowing that half-mile stretch cost £4,200 annually and their maintenance plan would cost £800.
Council approved a one-year pilot. During that year, the residents documented everything. They hired an ecology consultant to do butterfly transects. Pollinator species increased 340%. They measured temperature drops. The verge was 4.2°F cooler than surrounding paved areas. They tracked maintenance costs. Actual spending: £650.
When the pilot year ended, they came back with data and a proposal to expand. They also brought the local beekeepers association, two primary school teachers who’d used the site for outdoor education, and a property developer who said the verges had increased home values in adjacent neighborhoods.
The council approved permanent status and expansion to ten miles. By 2026, they’re saving £200,000 annually in maintenance costs and neighboring cities are copying the model.
The lesson: start small, document everything, build coalition, scale up. That’s the formula.
Measuring Success: Beyond Butterfly Counts
You need numbers that matter to different audiences. Butterfly counts are great if you’re talking to ecologists. They mean nothing to your city’s budget director.
Track multiple metrics:
Maintenance cost tracking: Get baseline costs for current management. Mowing frequency times crew hours times hourly rate. Track your pilot project costs the same way. Make spreadsheets. Show quarterly reports. Telling them, “This cost $12,000 last year and $4,200 this year,” makes them pay attention.
Temperature monitoring: Buy three cheap temperature sensors. Put one in your rewilded area, one in comparable maintained turf, one on adjacent pavement. Log data all summer. Graph it. The difference will be obvious and visual proof works on human brains.
Stormwater capture: This one’s harder to measure directly but you can estimate it. Native plant root depth times surface area times infiltration rate. There are online calculators. Or partner with a civil engineering student who needs a thesis project.
Volunteer hours: Every hour someone spends working on your project is economic value the city doesn’t have to pay for. Track it. Multiply by minimum wage. Present it as “in-kind contribution” or “community investment value.”
Biodiversity surveys: Find a local naturalist group. They’ll do this for free because they love doing it. Butterfly counts, bee species identification, bird surveys. Document baseline before you start and track changes annually.
If you want to get serious about it, use standardized protocols. The UK’s Pollinator Monitoring Scheme has open-source methodology. The Xerces Society publishes bee survey protocols. For birds, eBird’s standardized checklists provide comparable data. Using recognized methodologies means your data can be compared to other cities and included in larger datasets.
Technical note: I’ve started using the DEFRA Biodiversity Metric calculation for habitat condition assessment. It scores habitats on distinctiveness, condition, and strategic significance. Even though it’s a UK system, the methodology is solid and it makes your monitoring look professional. When you can say “this site scored 2.4 biodiversity units at baseline and now scores 3.8 units,” you’re speaking a language that planners and environmental consultants actually use.
The goal is to have multiple success stories to tell. When someone says “this is too expensive,” you show cost savings. When someone says “this doesn’t matter,” you show biodiversity increases. When someone says “nobody cares,” you show volunteer hours and community engagement.
Have an answer for every objection before anyone raises it.
The Future Is Already Here: Next Steps for Advocates
Cities are figuring this out whether you help them or not. Climate is forcing the issue. Insurance companies are raising rates on flood-prone areas. Heat waves are killing people. Maintenance budgets are shrinking while infrastructure needs grow.
Green infrastructure isn’t a fringe idea anymore. It’s becoming standard practice because the old approach stopped working. Your job is to accelerate this transition in your community instead of waiting for it to happen slowly.
Start with one project. Not ten. One. Pick a site that’s visible, neglected, and has clear problems that rewilding will solve. Make that project work so well that people notice.
Build your coalition before you need it. Find three people whose professional interests align with ecological restoration even if they don’t care about ecology. The engineer, the school administrator, the business owner. Get coffee with them. Understand what they need. Show them how rewilding solves their problems.
Learn the Language of Value. Practice translating your passion into bureaucratic priorities until it’s second nature. You need to be fluent in both languages.
Attend city council meetings for six months before you propose anything. Learn who the players are, what they care about, how decisions actually get made. Government is a game with rules. Learn the rules.
Document everything. Take photos. Keep spreadsheets. Save emails. Track costs. Measure outcomes. The data you collect in year one becomes the evidence that gets you approval for year two.
And be patient. This work takes longer than you want it to. I’ve been doing it for twelve years and I still lose votes, still get rejections, still watch projects fail. But I’ve also watched sterile cities transform into living landscapes because someone showed up and wouldn’t quit.
That someone can be you.
Ready to Start Your First Project?
You’ve read 3,100 words about urban rewilding advocacy. That means you’re serious about this.
I’ve put together everything you need to go from “I want to do this” to “I’m presenting to council next month”:
The Complete Urban Rewilding Advocacy Toolkit includes:
- Professional council pitch template (the exact one that’s working in 23 cities)
- Cost-benefit analysis calculator pre-loaded with industry averages
- BNG biodiversity metric worksheet adapted for US ecosystems
- Site assessment forms that satisfy city planning requirements
- Funding source database with 40+ grant programs and application tips
- Sample media pitches that actually get coverage
- Month-by-month advocacy timeline
Download once, use forever. No subscription, no upsell. Just the tools that work.
I built this because I got tired of watching good projects fail because advocates didn’t have professional materials. Now you do.
FAQ: Urban Rewilding Advocacy
Q: Do I need special permission to start urban rewilding projects? Depends on the land. Your own property? Do whatever you want. Public space? Technically yes, you need permission. Practically? A lot of successful projects started as tactical interventions that got retroactive approval once they proved popular. I’m not officially recommending you break rules, but I’m telling you what actually happens. If you do start without permission, document everything and be ready to present evidence that it’s working when the city notices.
Q: How do I respond to concerns that wildflowers look “messy”? This is the most common objection you’ll face. Two strategies: First, install signage explaining what you’re doing. “Native Pollinator Habitat – Maintained by [Group Name]” makes it look intentional instead of abandoned. Second, maintain edges aggressively. Mow a clean border around native plantings. When the edges look maintained, people read the middle as design instead of neglect. Also, share comparison photos from other cities where rewilded spaces are considered attractive. Aesthetics are cultural and they shift fast.
Q: What’s the fastest way to build a rewilding coalition? Don’t start by recruiting people who already agree with you. Start by identifying three people whose job problems can be solved by green infrastructure. The public works director dealing with flooding. The school principal needing outdoor education space. The business district manager wanting foot traffic. Schedule individual conversations. Listen to their problems. Show them how your project solves those problems. Coalition building is matchmaking between your solution and their existing needs.
Q: How much does it cost to establish a pollinator corridor? Depends on scale and approach. I’ve seen quarter-acre native plantings done for $800 in materials with volunteer labor. I’ve also seen professionally installed projects run $4-6 per square foot. Most community projects fall somewhere in between. Factor two years of establishment maintenance, then ongoing costs drop to maybe 30% of conventional turf maintenance. Get local native plant nursery quotes. Calculate your current maintenance costs. Show the city you’re saving them money after year three.
Q: What if my city council rejects my proposal? They will. Probably multiple times. This is normal. Ask why they rejected it and listen carefully to the objections. Are they worried about liability? Get insurance documentation from similar projects. Worried about cost? Revise your budget and show maintenance savings. Worried about aesthetics? Bring better visualization and signage plans. Every rejection is information about what evidence you still need to provide. Keep coming back with better proposals. Council composition changes. Staff turnover happens. Public opinion shifts. Persistence wins more than brilliance.
The concrete city isn’t inevitable. It’s a choice that gets remade every budget cycle, every council meeting, every time a maintenance crew shows up to mow. You can influence that choice.
I’m not going to tell you this work is easy. It isn’t. You’ll sit through boring meetings. You’ll make presentations that go nowhere. You’ll watch projects you love get rejected for stupid reasons. But you’ll also see vacant lots transform into habitat. You’ll watch kids discover their first butterfly. You’ll stand in a space that used to be sterile and breathe air that smells like living earth.
The green rebellion is already happening in hundreds of cities. Your neighborhood can lead it or follow it. Pick up your camera, gather your evidence, find your allies, and start making the case. The living mosaic isn’t a vision of the future. It’s a choice available right now.