Leadership

People struggle to understand that unintended side effects that can become the major effects in systems. In particular, making elements of a polluting system like our economic system more efficient may lower pollution locally, but if you make a polluting system more efficient, you pollute more efficiently. I'm exploring a new way to explain it. Sorry if talking about child abuse is difficult for you, but polluting the environment hurts and kills people, it's not abstract. I write about it here all the time. There are many differences between parenting children and stewarding humanity and nature, but consider a parent who was raised to believe that what you consider abusing a child was an appropriate way to show their love. You’d want to help them…

I keep in touch with Olympic gold medalist, Extinction Rebellion activist and guest on my podcast, Etienne Stott MBE. I think I can say we're becoming friends despite not having met in person yet. England is a long way to sail and neither of us wants to pollute much. He shared some stories about his activism: BBC: Extinction Rebellion: Six arrested after Olympians scale oil tanker: "Six people have been arrested after climate change activists, including two Olympians, scaled an oil tanker."Team GB gold medallist says ‘life or death oil tanker protest felt like Olympics’: "A gold medal-winning canoeist said protesting against the oil industry was just as ‘nerve-wracking’ as competing in the Olympics." He shared more of the bleakness of watching society capitulate, mixed…

The situation: More people than ever are living healthy, happy lives yet Pollution and garbage are growing and acceleratingPredictions suggest our waste is going to cause nearly everyone on Earth to suffer including many dying and, here's the big confounding issue We can't stop ourselves. With rare exception, everyone I know and even know of knows they are polluting, hurting people by it, so potentially contributing to the greatest catastrophe ever, yet won't or can't stop. Why? How? What do we do about it? How is this conflict possible? I've been trying to figure it out. I've worked out a framework I'll develop here. One: The human mind's reward mechanisms Some reward feels like pleasure, others excitement, connection, relief, and more (people associate various forms…

People say all the time that what we in the U.S. or anywhere to act sustainably doesn't matter if China and Russia don't act too. They say that they pollute so much that even if we don't pollute at all, their pollution is enough to sink us all. Whether it is or not, to say they have to act first abdicates leadership. It says we choose to follow, not lead. For us to lead, we would act first, or at least independently of others, and expect others to follow us. People think we can't lead while setting an example. Sadly, I think many people think they only way to influence people is with authority. I don't consider motivating through authority leadership. I don't see how…

Nearly every effort I see for sustainability use methods that don't work, that promote resistance. They don't inspire. They tools like cajoling ("Here are ten little things you can do for the environment"), coercing ("people will suffer if you don't act"), convincing ("If you value your kids' future, you should change"), and authority (laws). Such methods imply nobody wants to do the things. You may gain compliance but reinforce the systemic values causing the problem. Nobody promotes Drinkless Driving Tuesdays or Seat Belt Wednesdays. We say never drink and drive because we believe sobriety always benefits everyone behind the wheel. I inspire, people tell me. Not all, but most of my podcast guests enjoy the experience, do more than they promised, come back for second…

I'm not criticizing protesters at COP26. Maybe they'll achieve more than I will, though the meaningful comparison is to what they could achieve optimally. It seems to me that flying to Glasgow to protest polluting is like PETA practicing animal sacrifice to help animals or the Pope worshiping Satan to promote Christianity. I'm not trying to be coy. I think you need to practice the values you promote if you want others to follow. My point isn't about the magnitude of the emissions of their personal flights. It's about their credibility and effectiveness. Again, the relevant question is how effective could they be without acting against their values? Could they have protested as effectively without flying there? If forced not to fly, what could they…