Leadership

Thomas Jefferson wrote some of the most inspiring words on freedom and liberty, yet kept his slaves. To this day, people say as a result: He didn't mean all men are created equal or he wouldn't have done what he did. He did, so he must have meant all white men are created equal. The United States Constitution It's difficult to impossible to lead without credibility or integrity. Jefferson undermined both by violating the values he claimed. Meanwhile, Robert Carter III freed his slaves, but said nearly nothing publicly about it, even to his classmate, Jefferson. When Carter ran for elections, he lost. Every environmentalist with a prominent voice today is at best like Jefferson. They talk about sustainability but don't act it, so they…

Compiling resources on Robert Carter III for reference: Why do I care about Carter? A CNN article quoted Andrew Levy, who wrote a book on Carter, on why Americans seem to bury Carter’s story: Levy, whose books include a biography of Carter, “The First Emancipator,” has another suspicion: America doesn’t care – because it’s inconvenient. “It blows an enormous hole in this legacy we’re trying to balance for these founders,” he said. As Levy sees it, American history feebly attempts to level the founding fathers’ fondness for freedom with their ownership of humans by uncritically parroting their assertions that there was no pragmatic way to emancipate hundreds of thousands of slaves. Slavery was a necessary evil, to hear the founders tell it. “If Carter is…

[EDIT: I had no idea the New York Times would post its profile of me the day after this piece] Sorry for the in-your-face title and I don't mean any time soon, but I think it's a fair question. Other people have asked me the question when I describe my mission. Maybe you think I'm kidding myself that I could be so successful as to create enough animosity in others that they'd resort to a lethal level of animosity. I usually doubt I could reach that level, but I think I would be naive not to think of where my path leads. If I succeed at my mission, I will help many people choose to improve their lives by stopping spending money on things that…

I experiment on how more effectively to describe changing culture from mainstream American to more sustainably. I'm not talking about some abstract "environment." I'm talking about restoring living by doing unto others as I would have them do unto me and of loving my neighbor as myself, the opposite of polluting. I found a better way of describing the shift than just saying I've changed culture, I've passed a cusp, or I've overcome a threshold or reaction potential, like in a chemical reaction. I'm not saying the new way is original, but it communicates the change. Classics stand the test of time. I have been to the mountaintop and I have seen the promised land, and it is a land of freedom and abundance. That…

I recovered from a week of events known as Climate Week 2024. It felt like 1776 Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's plantation home. Before reading why, I should tell you that I shared the views below with several attendees of several events and they all agreed. Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Climate Week brought bold pronouncements from CEOs, government representatives of cities, states, and nations, and cultural leaders. They said we could solve our environmental problems if other people implemented changes they themselves weren't. Nearly all I spoke to flew to New York, then arrived at the events by Navigator. Jefferson wrote some of history's most powerful words on freedom. Washington backed up those words with force and Madison and peers with a Constitution. They said what others should…