Leadership

Yesterday was sunny. I went to Washington Square Park. I had been scheduled to meet a friend in the park before the problem with my roof arose so combined activities. We spoke about an hour. I think he enjoyed seeing everyone approach and hearing their questions and my answers. Right off the bat several people asked me about it. Some were interested, some just curious, some weird. So far only men. [EDIT: minutes after typing those words, a day later and on Sixth Avenue, the first woman approached and asked. Did my typing send vibes to the universe to make it happen?] Here's a shot of me in the morning, before many people arrived. By midday it was full. I thought "maybe I should have…

On my second day suddenly without roof access, I went out in the morning to the bench, came back in to go to the bathroom and eat lunch, then changed strategies from before. First, I ran into my building's handyman, who mentioned he knew a few superintendents on the block, so he may be able to put me in touch with people who can give me access to nearby roofs. I suspect something will work out in that directions because of the pattern: on the other side of challenges in living more sustainably is community. It keeps happening that whatever the challenge, solving it keeps involving people who enjoy helping. Tomorrow is forecast for rain all day, so it was safest to go out today.…

My building is doing construction so I don't have roof access. Do I give up? Hell no! That's what everyone else is doing and it's making them miserable. And killing people (and wildlife). I have to figure out something longer term, maybe getting certified to go into a construction site (I've been trained and certified for things like it before, when my first company, Submedia, constructed our displays in subway systems around the world) or working with a neighbor to access their roof. In the meantime, I'm charging down the block and, when the sun allows, in a nearby park. It's not optimal, though I enjoy when neighbors and people passing by ask me about it. They're getting a kick out of it. On the…

Dave Gardner and I have appeared on each other's podcasts and have become friends. He is one of the few people who understands our environmental problems and works on it. I learned about him from his documentary Growthbusters (my comment is the first on its YouTube release), which showed him running for office in Colorado on a platform to shrink the local population and economy. He didn't win the election, but showed strong. He's decided that no politician will acknowledge or even see our environmental problems so he's running for President. He doesn't pretend to have a strong chance, though people ask him what if he takes enough votes from Biden as a third-party candidate to change the outcome. I trained with him on early…

I pledged on Flight Free USA to avoid flying. Then last year, I inspired someone to avoid flying, which led to the Washington Post quoting her. At December's year-end meeting of organizers, I pledged to inspire five people in 2024 to pledge. I inspired five to pledge in January alone! A few cited my influence. All took my sustainability leadership workshop. I recommend it! Check out their pledges. Here's Evelyn's If you had asked me a little over a year ago the likelihood of me giving up intended flying for the rest of my life, I would have assured you the likelihood was slim to none, probably closer to none. I was a world traveler and proud of it. I had explored other cultures, lived…

You might remember from my conversation with podcast guest Tony Hiss a passage from his book, Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth, that inspired me for the bold story it told. I'm finally copying that passage here. I'll put in bold the bold part that psyched me up, to ask for what we fucking need: Back in 1997, [Steve] Kallick was with the Pew Charitable Trusts, in Philadelphia, beneficiary of much of the fortune of Joseph N. Pew, founder of the Sun Oil Company, when he and his colleagues began thinking about the Boreal. They were also working on the roadless rule, in what Kallick's boss at the time, Joshua Reichert, who has a Princeton doctorate in social anthropology, called…

Flying a private jet to a climate conference seems the height of being out of touch and acting counterproductively. If you feel that way, have you considered how much of your expenditures pays for extracting, polluting, and depleting? What fraction of your spending goes to filling your gas tank, flying, air conditioning, heating, industrial agriculture, buying things that require pollution to make like packaged food, takeout, houses, cars, nearly all meat, computer chips, and so on? Since plastic, flying, air conditioning, cars, and artificial fertilizers didn't exist more than about a century ago, human life requires none of those things. Since people in cultures without those things see those things and choose to resist imperialism, colonialism, and assimilation, humans can thrive without them. Yet most…