Disclaimer: These are my observations, nothing more and nothing less. I’ve spent about 5 years in the space, from political activism to joining a global community and building my own initiative to close loops and eliminate emissions in my community.
It’s Not about the Trees: At it’s core, this nebulous, gigantic challenge boils down to one simple dynamic. We’re saving ourselves. The planet did fine before humanity and won’t suffer much if we’re not around. We need it and it doesn’t need us.
The Tech Obsession is Real: I often stumble upon a conceptual frame. This frame says that novel human technology, including lab-grown meats, carbon capture, and scaled indoor farming are solutions deserving a central focus. I’d like to propose a different frame. This frame says the global deployment of novel human technology is the reason we’re here. Let’s take the engines that burn coal and gasoline as an example. If we are facing an existential crisis where we are the reason for the catastrophe, it’s worth asking yourself this question. Is the global deployment of novel, human-made technology really an appropriate solution here? This brings me to the next lesson.
Solutions are plentiful, humbling and, generally, nothing new: Summed up, the solutions and the “technology” behind them already exist. News flash, people had nothing to do with creating them. People mostly created the problems. So, to that end, the first solution could be learning to learn from and humble yourself before nature. This can have consequential, multiplicative effects such as framing businesses from a living systems point of view, changing ownership structures and building systems which don’t actively exploit natural resources for profit. This could spiral uncontrollably into learning about wastewater management from oysters and catfish or embracing ancestral diets which consume more plants than meat. Seriously, buffalo and bison still exist and yet humans are still attempting to exploit and out-engineer natural processes. This kind of naivete, “at scale”, may end up accelerating our demise, not preventing it.
Minority Rule is Real: Everywhere I’ve been, I have never seen a fossil fuel executive or a glyphosate intellectual property holder. But I have seen their money, in campaign ledgers, on billboards, in “advisory” groups and more. There’s certainly less billionaires than people who could die from climate change yet the money keeps pouring in and we, all of us, have to live with the consequences.
Solutions Require Teams and Diversity: If it’s not apparent that we can’t solve this individually, then I’ll tell you. These solutions require a level of team work, globally, which we, civilians under threat of climate change, may not be accustomed too. My advice? Get accustomed and fast. Secondly, structural and systemic racism remains an obstacle that may kill any successes we achieve. California is a good example. No Native Americans with land tenure, inclusion in elected office or state fire commissions? No systemic controlled burns. I’m not saying it would have prevented the Giga-fire of 2020 but it certainly could’ve helped. Built a firefighting force relying on prison labor, a continuity of America’s slaving past still unaddressed, who then gets sick with COVID? Guess…we’re..out of luck. Inequity may also kill us.
Individual Carbon Footprint is not real.
On Hope: I have heard many questions, often posed to speakers, asking “what do you do to find hope?” I think this is a flawed question. It assumes hope can be found without work and it is somehow foundational to accomplishing the work. The best thing we can, not knowing the future, is to stack the odds in our favor. Hope is the reward for stacking those odds. Hope is the payoff from the sacrifice and it is not a cheap investment. Do the work first and learn to endure the feelings, they pass.
There is no cheap solution which doesn’t require change. There is no shortcutting nature; it breaks what doesn’t work. Right now, we don’t work.
I’m still going to bet that there’s enough of us who can figure it out. I’ve already met some them and they inspire me. Don’t hope, do and do it together.
