James lives on the outskirts of the Skokomish Nation in the rain shadow of Washington state’s Olympic mountains.

James is exploring how to demythologize certain configurations of imagery and meaning in Western culture that invisibly shape our daily experience of reality and underlay apparatuses of oppression and environmental destruction. As a social change strategist and storyteller he helps groups of people reject stories that present injustice as desirable, inevitable or unchangeable – and collectively creates new narratives, new mythologies that shift power and amplify social movements. He does this as smartMeme's writer/director.

James staffs smartMeme’s Northwest office, providing project management, creative writing, concepting, advertising, and strategic marketing for smartMeme's clients and partners.

He has participated in many legislative victories from working on direct action campaigns that got the US to adopt nuclear test moratorium legislation in 1992 to developing communications strategies and poltical advertising that helped Rural Vermont usher in the first biotechnology labeling law in the United States in 2004 (Farmers’ Right to Know Genetically Engineered Seed Labeling and Registration Act).

In 1992 James grabbed his backpack and camcorder and headed to the Great Basin desert of Nevada, leaving behind a career in television news at ABC. He lived outside in the wild for years with the Earth First! movement and leaders of the Western Shoshone Nation resisting the U.S. federal government and multinational gold mining companies over issues of sovereignty, bringing media attention to numerous environmental and native rights struggles.

In 1996 he founded CounterMedia in Chicago to provide alternative media coverage of the Democratic National Convention. Over a hundred volunteers harnessed emerging digital technologies to link grassroots media entities and progressive organizations from around the world, laying the foundation for the Indy Media Center and today's global independent media movement.

From 2000 to 2003 as a writer/director for the non-profit public interest communications firm Sustain, he managed environmental communications campaigns for clients including the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth, and Wilhelm & Conlon Public Strategies among others. His work has appeared most notably in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and Communication Arts.

His afterword to BenBella Books edition of the environmental science fiction classic The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner explores America's love affair with toxic chemicals and shows how science fiction can reshape our assumptions about the world. His essay in The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance, and Addiction in the World of Warcraft follows the trail of “Chinese gold farmers” to uncover a global movement of hackers laundering virtual gold for millions in cold hard cash while exploiting the sweatshop labor of over a 100,000 Chinese gamers.

James has written extensively on the phenomena of the technological singularity. See his Futurist magazine cover story Exploring the Singularity for a cautionary environmentalist perspective on technological convergence. His other writings on science fiction, mythology, occult philosophy and social change strategy can be found in the book Pie Any Means Necessary - The Biotic Baking Brigade Cookbook and LastWizards.com his personal website.