Who cares if global warming is a hoax?
What if we built a better world, based on renewable energy and food security and justice for all, yet were wrong about man-made global warming?
Would it be worth it?
Would you rather follow an inconvenient truth to a better world, tomorrow or,
believe a convenient lie that makes you feel good, today?
In 2007, I was selected to teach and mentor others about climate change and the enormous potential and promise of our collective future. I reach out to you tonight with inspiration and angst of 10-years of presentations, scheduling, preparing, pleading, persuading, creating sustainability conversations around dinner tables, in churches, schools, government offices, private business conference rooms, in Africa, California, Hawaii, everywhere I could go I went, I spoke to whomever would listen.
School children, government workers, high net worth investors, politicians, women’s groups, professionals and blue collar, farmers and philanthropists. I’ve spent thousands of hours in preparation and presentation and several hundred thousands of dollars funding campaigns out of my own pockets on close to 100 public and private talks.
Today, in 2017, deep in the second decade of the 21st century — not one funder, corporation or institution finds this work valuable—in my opinion, because it adds nothing to their return-on-investment. Even allies, such as universities, or NGOs whose missions one might believe are aligned with this work seem disinterested. How about politicians? Not interested. Not enough bandwidth. Too worried about re-election. Sad. Granting organizations? Not really, not at the scale necessary for societal change, for survival, to thrive. Simply MIA in their ivory towers.
And so, here we are 10-years later still arguing whether the boundaries, tipping points and limits to growth, to unchecked consumption racing towards us, are real? Still we fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way arguing with catastrophe capitalists about whether they should be able to make a great big profit from Nature’s ecosystems and the collapse from centuries of pollution of our only planet? We argue about balance, doubt and uncertainty, despite our brittle, ineffective experiences dealing with complexity in an exponential world. Plead and beg philanthropists to give up some of the hoards of dollars sitting in their accounts to build resilience in our communities and valleys.
I challenge anyone who has more than $1M in their bank account to step into society and start spending on social improvement. Mentor a promising youth in your neighborhood. Sponsor a budding social entrepreneur, spend more on others than you spend on yourself. Those of us doing this work, building social resilience and improving society with campaigns are spending 100-115% of our annual income into the economy. Surely, wealthy person, you can do more, surely you can take more risks with your finances. You have so much—much is expected of you in return.
Rise up folks. Especially the children, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Everyone on-board, please…. It can’t just be a few of us doing this work of waking our people from the slumber of consumerism. Wake up Boomers, wake up!
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[…] and footprint on our only planet, still talking and not doing, yet, induces major depression and climate angst. Yet, it is also the driving force for our continued advocacy for social improvement. Riseup folks, […]
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